I Tested My Water Hardness

[swanicyouth]

I bought a Blue Devil water hardness test kit off Amazon to test the hardness of my water for about 10 dollars. The kit is a "titration drops" style kit.

It looks like this:



It comes with a plastic case, 2 bottles of "titration fluids", a clear plastic bottle, and a direction sheet.

This is how you test with it:

1. Rinse the vial out with the water to be tested multiple times. Then fill the vial to line "A" with water to be tested:



2. Add 2 drops of Hardness Solution "A" and swirl around vial. A violet color will develop if any hardness is present:





The violet solution:



3. Add Hardness Solution "B" in drops. Swirl between drops and count wash drop until solution changes to blue.

Solution "B":



Adding Solution "B":



4. Calculation: Once water turns blue, multiply the number of drops of "B" it took to make it turn blue by 50 to determine ppm (of calcium carbonate) of hardness.

Example; 4 drops of "B" x 50 = 200ppm Hardness.

My hose water took 4 drops to turn the solution blue

Blue Solution:



So, my water would be 200ppm of Hardness. This can be converted to grains per gallon (gpg) by dividing this number (200) by 17.12. This would equal 11.7 gpg. This is hard water. Also ppm is equal to milligrams per liter (mg/L). So, 200ppm is the same as 200mg/L.

Here is a chart that shows what is considered hard and soft water:

ppm Description
180 very hard

So, my water is "very hard" this would explain the water spots I get no mater how hard I try to keep the car wet while washing and quickly dry.

The solution? There seems to be two:

1. A Water Softner for a hose. This is the cheaper option (around a hundred dollars). However, this will only "soften" the water, which means it replaces calcium carbonate (which is the culprit in most difficult water stains) and some magnesium with sodium chloride (NaCl). This won't leave a "spot free" finish, but supposedly, spots created by NaCl are much easier to remove and less frequent. The cartridges for this system can be "recharged" with salt which is very cheap.

2. Get a "RO" (reverse osmosis" de-ionizer. This is like the CR Spotless. However this is more costly (up to $450.00) and the replacement cartridges are not cheap either. However, this should create a true spot free no ion water that almost doesn't require drying ( theoretically).

[tach18k]

If you do a lot of detail work, your better off with a Culligan Home tank unit that gets changed out every few weeks. You can then use if for your work/home place, in the long run much better all around. RO units much better for ice makers and drinking water.

[swanicyouth]

Originally Posted by tach18k

If you do a lot of detail work, your better off with a Culligan Home tank unit that gets changed out every few weeks. You can then use if for your work/home place, in the long run much better all around. RO units much better for ice makers and drinking water.

Only issue is I rent, and I think that may require cutting into pipes and such. Does it?

[Setec Astronomy]

Originally Posted by swanicyouth

2. Get a "RO" (reverse osmosis" de-ionizer. This is like the CR Spotless.

The CRSpotless is a deionizer; this is completely unrelated to RO technology.

Originally Posted by tach18k

If you do a lot of detail work, your better off with a Culligan Home tank unit that gets changed out every few weeks. You can then use if for your work/home place, in the long run much better all around. RO units much better for ice makers and drinking water.

Originally Posted by swanicyouth

Only issue is I rent, and I think that may require cutting into pipes and such. Does it?

What tach18k is talking about is basically an industrial version of the CRSpotless. Might cost $80-100/mo rental and same when you need to have it changed out. Should give you 1000 gal or more between charges.

Or for the $450 you would spend on the CR, you could go to Lowe's, Sears, or HD and get a water softener and hook it up only to your outside faucet. That would be minimal plumbing.

[brlukosk]

Reverse osmosis is pretty slow. Takes a while for the water to go through the process and into the tank. I'd make sure if you go this route you have a big enough tank and enough time to fill it up in between uses.

[cajunclean05]

do u have pic. of the item u can get from lowes. and will this help with water spots. all i do is spray off cars for a car lot.