Switchable/On-Demand Water Treatment for Exterior Hose? (For Washing Cars)

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J.A.R.V.I.S.

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Does anyone use some kind of water treatment for washing cars? Our well water is hard, and high in iron so it'd be nice if I could divert the spigot water through something to make it more pure to eliminate water spots, increase soap performance, etc. I do use a pressure washer so it would need to flow pretty well. Is there some kind of high-flow RO system that would work in this scenario? Is something like this possible without breaking the bank?
 

LLigetfa

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I just installed multiple spigots. Now I have raw hard unfiltered, iron filtered hard, Filtered and softened hot and cold.
 

Otto Mation

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If your water heater is in the garage you can attach the hose to it for soft water. That is what I do when I want soft (and hot) water to wash stuff. This assumes that you have a water softener of course.
 
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ditttohead

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It is a simple math equation. Cost per gallon is the issue. A simple DI filter will work great but cost per gallon can easily exceed $1 per gallon.
Add an RO and you cost can go down to less than a penny a gallon but your capitol cost will obviously go way up.
In my garage, I have a simple 500 GPD RO that feeds a 40 gallon pressure tank. This in turn feeds my treated water spigots in the house, and a DI tank in my garage. The DI tank is really only used for the final rinsing of the car so my tank has lasted many years. What is the TDS of your water and how many gallons do you anticipate using? What do you consider "breaking the bank"?
 

J.A.R.V.I.S.

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If your water heater is in the garage you can attach the hose to it for soft water. That is what I do when I want soft (and hot) water to wash stuff.
Nope, everything's in the basement.

I just installed multiple spigots. Now I have raw hard unfiltered, iron filtered hard, Filtered and softened hot and cold.
Fancy!

It is a simple math equation. Cost per gallon is the issue. A simple DI filter will work great but cost per gallon can easily exceed $1 per gallon.
Add an RO and you cost can go down to less than a penny a gallon but your capitol cost will obviously go way up.
In my garage, I have a simple 500 GPD RO that feeds a 40 gallon pressure tank. This in turn feeds my treated water spigots in the house, and a DI tank in my garage. The DI tank is really only used for the final rinsing of the car so my tank has lasted many years. What is the TDS of your water and how many gallons do you anticipate using? What do you consider "breaking the bank"?
I just meant I'm not looking for some crazy commercial car wash style setup, just something "residential". As far as gallons, I have no clue. I've never tried to measure. Probably more than the average person who washes a car. I pre-rinse, then use a pressure washer w/foam cannon (soap), wash with the 2-bucket method, then rinse

Est TDS By Conductivity 796.10 mg/L.
 

rdsnake

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My water treatment systems happens to be close to one of my outside spigots lines in my basement. I ran both, filtered water and un-filtered water lines to the spigots, both with ball valve shut offs. I can open one valve and close the other depending on what kind of water I want to use.
 

J.A.R.V.I.S.

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My water treatment systems happens to be close to one of my outside spigots lines in my basement. I ran both, filtered water and un-filtered water lines to the spigots, both with ball valve shut offs. I can open one valve and close the other depending on what kind of water I want to use.
That's exactly what I'd like to do, use ball valves to control what kind of water gets routed to the spigots
 

ditttohead

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I am talking about a residential DI system, but the math is the same for commercial. Many of the little mini DI systems (We make them here) use a BB filter cartridge. The have a very finite capacity that is easily calculable. In general a 1 ft. DI tank would treat about 125 gallons of water before the media becomes exhausted, and since a BB filter has about 1/6th of a cubc foot of media, you can assume the filter would treat approximately 20 gallons of water before exhaustion. Not exactly efficient or cost effective. If you were to take the same water, run it through an RO and then through the same 1 cu. ft tank, you could expect about 5000 gallons before exhaustion. When you figure the cost of resin at about $250+ per ft3, the cost per gallon of the BB (not including your initial cost of the equipment) to be in excess of $10 per gallon. It would make more sense to buy purified bottles of water from the store to rinse your car off with.

With an RO, your cost drops less than 5 cents per gallon, and it could be far lower if you used a high pressure, properly designed high rejection RO.
 
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