Time saving tips for drying after foam wash?

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AuroraDetailing

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I just found a good lot to rent to have a small hand wash setup going. All of my previous experience as a business has been doing high end mobile detailing using a waterless wash as a basis. I have a couple foam canons now with pressure washers and going to be using RO water most likely with a 200 gallon tank on a trailer. I have a city water connection there, but have an RO filter for the house and can fill my tank there. I'm not sure if i want to keep dragging the tank back and forth though, if it's not really necessary. My main concern is quickly drying the vehicles. When I use waterless, it usually takes only about 15 minutes for two of us to clean, wax, and put dressing on the tires. I'd like to shoot for that same goal with the foam canon. My buddy that got me started in detailing mentioned just using the blower end of my vacuum. I'm not sure how clean the air would be tough. He had one of the hand held dryers, but we rarely used it. I know the waffle towels work good, but I plan on doing some high volume and don't want to have to buy a ridiculous amount of them to last me a day. I haven't really looked into drying aids but I'm thinking that might be the way to go.
 
Try flood rinsing if you have access to a hose. It's my favorite(least hated)part of drying the car.

And/or mist some QD onto the paint as an aid, it'll help
 
Invest in a leafblower and at least a couple of Water Sprites.

Water Sprite Plus Chamois 4 sq. Feet

Once you're done getting 95% of the water off with the Water Sprite, you can go back over and do a quik spot check with a microfiber that you give a couple of sprays to with your choice of quik detailer/waterless wash/spray wax/etc.

That's how you do it.
 
pro 4x said:
Flood rinse.
Any good QD.
Griots Garage PMF drying towels.
Click to expand...

In my experience knowing and working alongside many mobile detailers who use DI/RO water with a tank, most of them don't even know what the flood rinse is, because for 1, they never have to fear their rinse water causing water spots. 2. They're busy using a power washer.

Plus he mentioned that he's not interested in buying tons of drying towels as that will get real expensive + once they're saturated they're useless until they're dry again... The Water Sprite can be wrung out and used over and over again.


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What's going to be around you ?
You're going to need/want at least 2 blowers....just merely on duty cycle.
What about the noise factor. Has that been put into the equation if it may be ?
 
Eldorado2k said:
Invest in a leafblower and at least a couple of Water Sprites.

Water Sprite Plus Chamois 4 sq. Feet

Once you're done getting 95% of the water off with the Water Sprite, you can go back over and do a quik spot check with a microfiber that you give a couple of sprays to with your choice of quik detailer/waterless wash/spray wax/etc.

That's how you do it.
Click to expand...

Nice! Gonna get a couple of that Water Sprite.
 
Eldorado2k said:
Invest in a leafblower and at least a couple of Water Sprites.

Water Sprite Plus Chamois 4 sq. Feet

Once you're done getting 95% of the water off with the Water Sprite, you can go back over and do a quik spot check with a microfiber that you give a couple of sprays to with your choice of quik detailer/waterless wash/spray wax/etc.

That's how you do it.
Click to expand...

I went ahead and ordered a couple water sprites and just picked up a Ryobi leaf blower. It's battery powered so not the strongest, but I already have a bunch of Ryobi tools with a 6 pack charger and a few 4 amp hour batteries. I'll try it out tomorrow.
 
chefwong said:
What's going to be around you ?
You're going to need/want at least 2 blowers....just merely on duty cycle.
What about the noise factor. Has that been put into the equation if it may be ?
Click to expand...

Noise won't be an issue at all. There is a Jiffy Lube that has the building built right up to the property line, and the other two borders (triangle shaped property) are streets, one being Main St, which is the true definition of a "main st" hehe. Traffic is always packed there. I use a small 2000W inverter generator so it's pretty quiet, but I'm going to get a power box installed. It happens to have a septic tank and city water already, and I have a 32ft travel trailer that I'm either going to sell and buy or trade for a toy hauler to park there, which will be the "office", toilet, and waiting/break area, and then storage for my equipment. I'll probably get a partial wrap put on the toy hauler too.
 
Boy, you're really losing me here. You say you want to get your foam wash time down to the time it used to take to do waterless...if the foam wash takes you the same or longer than waterless...why don't you stick with waterless?? Or I would do rinseless.

If you want to do the foam cannon etc., you really don't want to be spending (much) time blowing or drying--and you don't want to be hauling your RO water, you need to be talking to your local water treatment company like Culligan or whoever is doing water softening, etc., and get yourself an industrial DI tank, that they will come exchange. You should be able to get 1000-2000 gallons through that before a recharge.
 
Setec Astronomy said:
Boy, you're really losing me here. You say you want to get your foam wash time down to the time it used to take to do waterless...if the foam wash takes you the same or longer than waterless...why don't you stick with waterless?? Or I would do rinseless.

If you want to do the foam cannon etc., you really don't want to be spending (much) time blowing or drying--and you don't want to be hauling your RO water, you need to be talking to your local water treatment company like Culligan or whoever is doing water softening, etc., and get yourself an industrial DI tank, that they will come exchange. You should be able to get 1000-2000 gallons through that before a recharge.
Click to expand...

I actually was looking at DI systems earlier and will probably get one. I was actually talking to my buddy/housemate/business partner today telling him I'll probably just do the rinseless instead, and not use his pressure washer. But then I thought about it some more, and I don't plan on doing the washes myself for long, and thought I would trust some minimally trained employees more with the foam bath and rinse than the rinseless. The real deciding factor was the fact that it just looks cooler. I'm literally going to be washing cars about 20ft from the edge of the roadway that sees probably around 200,000 cars a day through that spot, and I feel that cars completely covered in foam will be very inviting.
 
AuroraDetailing said:
I actually was looking at DI systems earlier and will probably get one.
Click to expand...

I don't know what that means, but if you are looking at things like CR Spotless, I wouldn't do that for business use. As I said, get in touch with one of the local water treatment companies, they will rent you a DI tank and come change it when it's depleted. If you are depleting them fast enough, you can get them to leave you a spare so you will always have DI water.
 
I saw that one but was going to settle on the DI Rinse Pro 100. I'll check on getting it delivered, but this is a tiny plot and a very funky intersection with heavy traffic, so it could be pretty difficult to get a tank delivered.
 
It's the cost man, and it's a huge pain to change the resin in a tank like that. I'm 99% sure they regenerate the resin in the rental tank, rather than changing it out.
 
Im not sure if theres a place there like there is here - but we rent our spotless tank. Basically it costs us around $15/mo to rent the tank. It has a light on top and when it goes out that means it needs to be swapped out. I just call the company and the next day they deliver a fresh tank and haul off the old one which costs about $80 for the size tank I have. I get roughly 600-650 gallons per tank of spotless water and my water in Az is CRAP. Very high TDS readings, but the spotless water is an absolute must IMO.
 
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