In-Line Water Softener?

I have the Griots, it's now on a shelf. I use the CR Spotless, it's far superior. As my gift to you, PM me your address, you can have the Griots.
 
This may not be what you might call an elegant solution, but I went to Wal Mart and bought an inline filter made for RV's. It cost less than $20 and does a pretty effective job. I have very mineral rich well water in my area and this went a long way to eliminating water spotting on the car.

I guess elegance is in the solution to the problem...a very inexpensive solution is elegant!
 
jpegs13 said:
I have the Griots, it's now on a shelf. I use the CR Spotless, it's far superior. As my gift to you, PM me your address, you can have the Griots.
Click to expand...


Thank you for your gift, but please let me pay you something. Pm sent, I looked at the CR Spotless and saw where people complained about it and for $400.00 I would think there would be no complaints. Was the Griot's that ineffective?? My water is not that bad but we have water restriction where we are only allowed to water on certain days. Sometimes I am stuck washing while the sun is coming up and cannot dry fast enough. Lol
Thanks
Michael
 
I used the Griots twice. It's a bit clumsy, and left some spotting. I have really hard water here and the CR works great.
 
Does anybody know why water softeners call for salt pellets in the tanks ever so often?

We have a very expensive (but way to old for people) water softener system, but I wondered if it might be good for car wash water.

Thanks,

Allan
 
As these resins become loaded with undesirable cations and anions they gradually lose their effectiveness and must be regenerated. If a cationic resin is used (to remove calcium and magnesium ions) then regeneration is usually effected by passing a concentrated brine, usually of sodium chloride or potassium chloride, or hydrochloric acid solution through them.
-Wikipedia
If you have really hard water, the resin will become saturated with the ions quicker, and will need regeneration more often.
 
stove ,

you chemist.


Our water softener still works because in the shower the water feels slightly slimmy (or feels slippery). Does this sound like it still works enough to be benificial for car washing?

Allan
 
Gunslinger said:
This may not be what you might call an elegant solution, but I went to Wal Mart and bought an inline filter made for RV's. It cost less than $20 and does a pretty effective job. I have very mineral rich well water in my area and this went a long way to eliminating water spotting on the car.

I guess elegance is in the solution to the problem...a very inexpensive solution is elegant!
Click to expand...


Same thing I have used for the past 3 years. Just don't forget to bring it in the house for the winter. Whatever is inside that thing likes to freeze, then it won't let any water through.
 
Pipelion said:
stove ,

you chemist.


Our water softener still works because in the shower the water feels slightly slimmy (or feels slippery). Does this sound like it still works enough to be benificial for car washing?

Allan
Click to expand...

Well, it may work great for washing your car. Sounds like your softener is working. The way water softeners work is called ion exchange, which means it takes the hard water ions (Calcium and Magnesium) and swaps them with sodium (thats thy they use salt, Sodium Chloride). If your water is very hard already (as is ours in CA), you will notice a white residue if you let the car air dry (if you want to do this, a water de-ionizer is for you, they're expensive, though). However, i never do that. Instead I use the softened water with my soap, because it increases the soaps effectiveness. To sum up, it wont give you a spot free shine without drying unless your water has super low hardness already. Use it to wash your car in any case just to help out the soap.
Theres a water hardness map around the internet somewhere.

Hope this helps,
William:dblthumb2:
 
I think I might get the griot garage water sotftener. I am going to be working out of a shop soon it will be a very good item to have.
 
I use salt one from Autogeek. I have had them for two years to fill my water tank in my truck. I bought two filters with the salt recharger kit.
I have yet to change the first filter.
 
I have also read that if you use rain barrels the water is soft already.
Something I have been looking into. Might try it in the spring. This would save on my well pump.
 
Due to the incredibly hard water here in Southern California, I went a step farther than most.

First the water goes through a "grit filter" (a small screen filter that I reverse to blow out the crud after every use).
Then it goes through one of the medium canister resin filters to "pre clean" the water.
Then is goes through the largest of the CR Spotless rigs. The pre filter removes a lot of the crud in the water so the lifespan of the resin in the much larger CR canisters last over four times longer. And I found a source for the resin in bulk that got my refill cost down even farther. It's a cumbersome pain in the ass but otherwise I always seem to get water spots.
My "calculated cost" for clean water is down to about $2.80 a wash. Plus about a half hour of my time to haul everything out of the garage, set everything up, and put it away afterwards.
And I only use the filtered water for the soap buckets and the final rinse.

I'd love to move to a warm state that has nice soft water, but there aren't any:mad:

I am almost ready to invest in an industrial system that has separate tanks for the anion and cation mediums so that I could actually "re-energize" the resin media correctly with acids and bases and never (or nearly never) have to replace the resin media.
 
oldmodman said:
Due to the incredibly hard water here in Southern California, I went a step farther than most.

First the water goes through a "grit filter" (a small screen filter that I reverse to blow out the crud after every use).
Then it goes through one of the medium canister resin filters to "pre clean" the water.
Then is goes through the largest of the CR Spotless rigs. The pre filter removes a lot of the crud in the water so the lifespan of the resin in the much larger CR canisters last over four times longer. And I found a source for the resin in bulk that got my refill cost down even farther. It's a cumbersome pain in the ass but otherwise I always seem to get water spots.
My "calculated cost" for clean water is down to about $2.80 a wash. Plus about a half hour of my time to haul everything out of the garage, set everything up, and put it away afterwards.
And I only use the filtered water for the soap buckets and the final rinse.

I'd love to move to a warm state that has nice soft water, but there aren't any:mad:

I am almost ready to invest in an industrial system that has separate tanks for the anion and cation mediums so that I could actually "re-energize" the resin media correctly with acids and bases and never (or nearly never) have to replace the resin media.
Click to expand...

I've wanted to do the same exact thing. But have you seen the prices on the industrial units? INSANE! I figured some day i would put together a setup like the one you have currently. You can buy all the parts to make the large CR Spotless for around 200 bucks. And i figure id buy a bucket of resin for cheap somewhere.
 
stove937 said:
Well, it may work great for washing your car. Sounds like your softener is working. The way water softeners work is called ion exchange, which means it takes the hard water ions (Calcium and Magnesium) and swaps them with sodium (thats thy they use salt, Sodium Chloride). If your water is very hard already (as is ours in CA), you will notice a white residue if you let the car air dry (if you want to do this, a water de-ionizer is for you, they're expensive, though). However, i never do that. Instead I use the softened water with my soap, because it increases the soaps effectiveness. To sum up, it wont give you a spot free shine without drying unless your water has super low hardness already. Use it to wash your car in any case just to help out the soap.
Theres a water hardness map around the internet somewhere.

Hope this helps,
William:dblthumb2:
Click to expand...


William,

thanks for the info. Sounds like the soft water would make excellent car wash and rinse water. Our softener is close to an outside faucet, where I wash the car. I could have a plumber rig a pipe outside just for the car for cheap. Appreciate the chemistry lesson.:props:

I hope to get an de-ionizer for rinse water but don't have the $200+ for it now. Sams has a cool unit much cheaper than other places.

Allan
 
If I'm not mistaken, I believe some people will put a little bit of ONR in with their car wash to help combat water spots. You might give that a shot.
 
CieraSL said:
If I'm not mistaken, I believe some people will put a little bit of ONR in with their car wash to help combat water spots. You might give that a shot.
Click to expand...


Shane,

Do you mean putting ONR in thier power washers?

Allan
 
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