Water experts please

[RiverCityAutoSpa]

So I’m running hard af water the water so hard it will leave spots. Whole house softener I guess it doesn’t work anymore I’ve been quoted at $2400 for whole house softener. This will not bring the tds to 0.00 which the one water guy said I don’t want 0.00 because it tends to be sticky and will attract all the pollen in the air.

*in Florida

So should I have 0.00?

[ifadey]

I have same issue where I live. I started using hybrid approach to wash my vehicle.

- Pre-soak using normal car soap with foam canon or pump sprayer. I started using pump sprayer to save water and prevent product waste.
- Pressure wash.
- Then use rinseless wash using single bucket and 8 wash mitts.
- I pre-soak each area using rinseless wash solution before contact wash.
- Instantly dry the area you just cleaned using contact wash.
- Make sure you use distilled water to mix all chemicals due to excessive hard water coming from tap.

This system works so well that I get almost no water spots at all because I use tap water only for pressure rinse.
Plus it saves water, time, and product.

[Bruno Soares]

Water softener won't help with water spots because it's getting calcium and magnesium removed but sodium is added to the water. You need a deionizer which will remove all the solids from the water and dry spot free. I think the claim of the water being sticky is BS. Many here, myself included, rely on DI water and it works great.

[DetailKitty]

I agree with BSoares... you need a water deionizer.
Bought a CR Spotless from AG and it's helped tremendously!

CR Spotless

[Route246]

I built my own DI (twice) and the resin is very expensive. That said, I run two rinse hoses, one from the tap which is very hard in my area and one from the DI which is absolutely spotless. I only use the DI to rinse after I rinse the soap with the hard water. I found that it was a huge waste of DI water to use it for thoroughly rinsing the suds. I'm saving at least 80% of the DI water I use now because hard water is doing most of the rinsing and the DI water is just the final rinse. I can "air dry" my car with the DI water and it is rendered 100% spot-free. DI works, for sure but it is expensive if your tap water is very hard.

[RiverCityAutoSpa]

Well the water company came back with a solution. We’re doing a whole house softener and I’ll have a 100 gal aux tank of reverse osmosis on the side of the house. Fill my 100 gal tank every morning and it regens throughout the day.

I’ll hook up a cr to the trailer.

I have a pump off of my tank would that be before of after the cr? How would I maintain 2gpm with the filter? Pump after? Pump before? Need a way water out of tank and out of cr. 2 pumps?

[Setec Astronomy]

Sorry I didn't see this yesterday. I have a whole house water softener but the faucets outside were hard (that's to save conditioned water and because plants don't like the sodium). I got tired of wrestling the CR up out of the basement every time I wanted to wash the car, so I had the outside faucet in the driveway repiped to soft water. Yes, you can get spots, but they wipe off easily, unlike hard water spots.

The RO is a good solution if you want spot free--of course to disagree with some of the other posters..I found the CR to never really be spot free because you always pick up something from a crevice or the air. Instead of putting a CR on your trailer, why don't you fill that tank from the RO? Then you don't have to change anything there.

But if you do want to put the CR on the trailer, you need the pump before the CR--you need the pressure to push it through the resin.

[conman1395]

Sorry I didn't see this yesterday. I have a whole house water softener but the faucets outside were hard (that's to save conditioned water and because plants don't like the sodium). I got tired of wrestling the CR up out of the basement every time I wanted to wash the car, so I had the outside faucet in the driveway repiped to soft water. Yes, you can get spots, but they wipe off easily, unlike hard water spots.

The RO is a good solution if you want spot free--of course to disagree with some of the other posters..I found the CR to never really be spot free because you always pick up something from a crevice or the air. Instead of putting a CR on your trailer, why don't you fill that tank from the RO? Then you don't have to change anything there.

But if you do want to put the CR on the trailer, you need the pump before the CR--you need the pressure to push it through the resin.

By RO, you mean reverse osmosis? Is that mineral free water? I wasn't aware of that.

[Route246]

By RO, you mean reverse osmosis? Is that mineral free water? I wasn't aware of that.

For all intents and purposes. RODI (reverse osmosis de-ionized) water is almost equivalent to distilled water, free of any salts and dissolved solids that would cause spotting.

The CR uses a mixed-bed resin which removes minerals. A deionizer passes water through a semipermeable membrane and filters out "bad" particles and "purifies" the water. It doesn't get any better than RODI water (short of steam distilling).

I like the idea of having a 100 gallon DI tank with a pump. Did they quote how much a DI system would cost?

[Calendyr]

Have you tried simply filtering the water and see if it makes a difference? I use a RV inline water filter for my wash water and pressure washer. I don't know how effective it would be but at something like 25$ at Walmart, I think it would be worth a try.