Softening water...

[Garage Troll]

Re: Softening water...

By washing after the sun has set, the air has cooled, the dew point has risen (more moisture in the air means water evaporates more slowly), and an added advantage is that the bombers of the air have flown home to roost.

That may work too. Although, the water here may be too hard for it to make a big difference. The hardness isn't a big deal if I'm going to be claying the vehicle but for just a wash and UQW it's a pain in the rear.

Thanks for the tips.

[TOGWT]

Re: Softening water...

Many detailers don’t have a water filtration installed so washing the vehicle with ordinary tap water and a garden hose is the only option. Here’s a way to minimize the effects of hard water when washing your vehicle.

If you are using tap water that contains high levels of minerals such as calcium hydroxide or silicates, some of the polymers will bond to these minerals and take them out of solution therefore more product might be necessary to compensate for this effect. By adding Optimum No Rinse (ONR) to a regular car wash soap will improves the results when using tap water (0.5 oz / gallon) always add it to the water to remove the minerals before adding your soap. This will maximize the benefits of using No Rinse in this manner.

By washing after the sun has set, the air has cooled, the dew point has risen (more moisture in the air means water evaporates more slowly), and an added advantage is that the bombers of the air have flown home to roost.

[Garage Troll]

Re: Softening water...

You could always just have your house softener hooked up to the outside spigot. I am thinking about doing that here soon, wasn't in the budget to to do it when I installed the softener because of the extra run back to the spigot. Its hard to believe though that you used the whole cartridge to rinse the car, I had one years ago and remember is lasting quite a few washes.

Very true. I may look at that as an option too.

It's hard to believe but it's true. I used the Mr. Clean system years ago at my house and it lasted quite a bit. Like I said though I didn't like the soap that well and I had this unused cartridge laying around. I know it was new because it still had the strip on the top and I just put it in yesterday. The water is so hard at my parent's house that I can feel the difference even in the soap bucket with the GC. It doesn't mix as well and doesn't feel nearly as slick as it does at my house. Amazing how those little things can make a huge difference.

[MrCLRider]

Re: Softening water...

You could always just have your house softener hooked up to the outside spigot. I am thinking about doing that here soon, wasn't in the budget to to do it when I installed the softener because of the extra run back to the spigot. Its hard to believe though that you used the whole cartridge to rinse the car, I had one years ago and remember is lasting quite a few washes.

[Garage Troll]

My parent's house has EXTREMELY hard water and for some reason their softener was not hooked up to discharge through the outside spigot. So I got thinking how I could reduced water spots as they are really bad whenever I wash my car there.

So I had an old Mr. Clean Autodry system that I never really used since I didn't like the soap that well but I thought the filter might work well.

What I did was spray down the car with un-softened water and then quickly went over it with the filtered water. I then proceeded to wash the car as normal but instead of using hard water to rinse I used the filtered water. It took a few seconds longer to rinse off the soap but it seemed to work well. In fact the car pretty much dried by itself with very little spotting.

I then pulled in the garage and went over the car with UQD followed by UQW and it came out much better than previous times.

The only negative is that I went through an entire filter cartridge in one use and I really wasn't using it that much.

I'm thinking of getting a filter for outdoors there from Lowe's or possibly one of these in-hose filters http://www.hosefilter.com/ . Who knows. Anyone else have any effective solutions without forking over $90 plus for a filter system?