Hard or Soft Water better with Foamaster Foam Gun?

allenk4

allenk4

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Wondering if it would be better to use the hard water with the Foamaster to get more suds and the soft water for the rinse?

I have a two hose set-up with one hose on an inline water softener and a second hose on regular hard water.

inline water softener

Currently, I use the softened water for everything related to the vehicle.

I use a four bucket system:

5 gallon soap bucket
5 gallon pre-rinse bucket
5 gallon rinse bucket
5 gallon wheel soap bucket

Wheel cleaning is kept completely separate from the other three buckets, using a separate wash mitt as well.

First Black Car.....it's killing me!

Thanks
 
I would venture to guess that softer water would produce foam more easily. I haven't tried so it's just a guess. There are probably more factors that are just as important as the mineral content in water ie. type of soap, dilution ratio, type of gun.
 
I have always noticed that when showering in hotels with soft water, that shampoos don't lather up as much.
 
From a Google search:

"Soap is less effective in hard water because its reacts to form the calcium or magnesium salt of the organic acid of the soap. These salts are insoluble and form grayish soap scum, but no cleansing lather. Detergents, on the other hand, lather in both hard and soft water. Calcium and magnesium salts of the detergent's organic acids form, but these salts are soluble in water."

Does this mean car wash formulas are actually detergents as opposed to a soap?
 
I have a water softener in my house and I find the opposite. In fact, I had to switch out the water softener system due to pipe breaking and saw a quick reduction in suds. It is fixed and now back to more suds.
 
Even if the pH is balanced perfectly, 'hard' water implies the presence of minerals, which will lead to spots and etching. Even if you find that you need more product (which, for the record, I haven't), always go with 'soft' water when you have a choice.
 
allenk4 said:
From a Google search:

"Soap is less effective in hard water because its reacts to form the calcium or magnesium salt of the organic acid of the soap. These salts are insoluble and form grayish soap scum, but no cleansing lather. Detergents, on the other hand, lather in both hard and soft water. Calcium and magnesium salts of the detergent's organic acids form, but these salts are soluble in water."

Does this mean car wash formulas are actually detergents as opposed to a soap?
Click to expand...

As I have noted elsewhere, a modern detergent should not have any issues with 'normal' hard water. I say 'normal' because very very hard water (which is not something you will really get through the taps) can still effect foam. It is not so much the foam generation which is modified, rather the foam stability.

The quoted text is quite correct although I should note that it is not only 'soap' which suffers from hard water. The older surfactant (detergents) could tend to be sensitive to water hardness but most of these detergents will have been phased out in high end products. The vast majority of modern surfactants will have very limited hard water sensitivity. If you are using a product which suffers badly with hard water then you should be asking yourself why and whether you are paying top money for what is actually an inexpensive product.
 
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