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In a previous thread, I talked about a low cost method I've found for producing totally pure de-ionised water. I use this water primarily to eliminate the need to dry my car after rinsing, since providing the rinse is done correctly and all some and suspended dirt is washed away, no water spots will ever form.
The problem with my approach it only produces pure water at a rate of 50 gallons per day, which is not fast enough to rinse a car directly. The only way to use this water is to store it in advance some how, and then find a way of using it at rinse time (and for washing if you so desire).
A few months back I converted our water cooler from a bottle based system to one that is plumbed into our RO filter. I'd therefore got a few empty 5 gallon bottles spare, and these can be used to store de-ionised water for months since they seal shut and are non-reactive. Walmart also sells similar bottles with a screw cap for $5 each I believe. I decided to make use of these bottles to store my water in.
As I said before, picking up and pouring buckets or water bottles over a car to rinse it is both difficult and dangerous. What I really needed is some form of pump to pull water from these bottles, and flow or spray it over the car.
I did a bit of research here, and found that an RV drinking water pump might be a good choice, but then I'd need some form of trigger gun on the end of the line, and a power supply to run the pump. As I was pricing up this system it occurred to me that a pressure washer is basically what I was looking for; it has a pump, and it has a trigger gun. Further research led me to believe that a pressure washer needs to be fed at full domestic hose pressure, so I'd probably need an RV water pump anyway! I was about to give up, when I discovered that all of the recent Karcher electric pressure washer models are able to draw water from a tank or pond directly... perfect!
I selected a relatively high end Karcher model (K3.740) from Pressure Washers Direct, since I'd heard bad things about the cheaper Karcher models, and wanted at least a few seasons of lifetime out of mine (perhaps mine will last longer anyway because I'm using DI water?).
Once the Karcher unit arrive, I set it up and tested it out with my 5 gallon bottles, and while it did work, it seemed to take quite a while for the pump to prime, wasting a fair amount of my precious water reserve in the process. Each time I changed the pipe to the next bottle, I'd have to go through the whole priming process again because I'd have introduced air into the feed pipe. The final thing that I needed was a large reservoir to draw water from so that I didn't have to keep pulling the feed pipe out of the water.
I don't have a huge amount of space in my garage to store things, so rather than go with a larger container (I considered a Rubbermaid Brute), I decided to fit a garden hose spigot to the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket. I got a 5 gallon bucket lid, and cut a round hole in the top, large enough for the 5 gallon bottle's neck to fit into, and also made several small holes around the rim to let air into the system. I now had a large reservoir of water that varied between 5 and 10 gallons capacity, that could easily be topped up by changing the bottle when it empties out, all without introducing air into the system.
The whole system is low cost, compact, and simple.
For reference, I have found that it takes between 10 and 20 gallons of DI water to wash and rinse a whole car.
The problem with my approach it only produces pure water at a rate of 50 gallons per day, which is not fast enough to rinse a car directly. The only way to use this water is to store it in advance some how, and then find a way of using it at rinse time (and for washing if you so desire).
A few months back I converted our water cooler from a bottle based system to one that is plumbed into our RO filter. I'd therefore got a few empty 5 gallon bottles spare, and these can be used to store de-ionised water for months since they seal shut and are non-reactive. Walmart also sells similar bottles with a screw cap for $5 each I believe. I decided to make use of these bottles to store my water in.
As I said before, picking up and pouring buckets or water bottles over a car to rinse it is both difficult and dangerous. What I really needed is some form of pump to pull water from these bottles, and flow or spray it over the car.
I did a bit of research here, and found that an RV drinking water pump might be a good choice, but then I'd need some form of trigger gun on the end of the line, and a power supply to run the pump. As I was pricing up this system it occurred to me that a pressure washer is basically what I was looking for; it has a pump, and it has a trigger gun. Further research led me to believe that a pressure washer needs to be fed at full domestic hose pressure, so I'd probably need an RV water pump anyway! I was about to give up, when I discovered that all of the recent Karcher electric pressure washer models are able to draw water from a tank or pond directly... perfect!
I selected a relatively high end Karcher model (K3.740) from Pressure Washers Direct, since I'd heard bad things about the cheaper Karcher models, and wanted at least a few seasons of lifetime out of mine (perhaps mine will last longer anyway because I'm using DI water?).
Once the Karcher unit arrive, I set it up and tested it out with my 5 gallon bottles, and while it did work, it seemed to take quite a while for the pump to prime, wasting a fair amount of my precious water reserve in the process. Each time I changed the pipe to the next bottle, I'd have to go through the whole priming process again because I'd have introduced air into the feed pipe. The final thing that I needed was a large reservoir to draw water from so that I didn't have to keep pulling the feed pipe out of the water.
I don't have a huge amount of space in my garage to store things, so rather than go with a larger container (I considered a Rubbermaid Brute), I decided to fit a garden hose spigot to the bottom of a 5 gallon bucket. I got a 5 gallon bucket lid, and cut a round hole in the top, large enough for the 5 gallon bottle's neck to fit into, and also made several small holes around the rim to let air into the system. I now had a large reservoir of water that varied between 5 and 10 gallons capacity, that could easily be topped up by changing the bottle when it empties out, all without introducing air into the system.
The whole system is low cost, compact, and simple.
For reference, I have found that it takes between 10 and 20 gallons of DI water to wash and rinse a whole car.
