Q: Shipping to the same location also concerns me. I would have to talk more to John about it, but frankly I didn't expect 10 people to want one. The post was mostly about the 5% discount to save you shipping. That is all he offered.
Haven't figured the numbers for myself, but I use quite a bit of water (at least five gallons per wash) and have 3 cars to keep in great shape. The unit has been out for a while, and many people on other forums have had the same concern. In any case, I've seen all kinds of numbers. There are least a few people on every forum that figure it out.
Basically it comes down to convenience. That has a added value for many. Most people I've seen that bought it really care about saving a bit. Afterall, you are paying money for water.
But you're right, it's certainly a luxury item in that sense and perhaps a bit expensive depending on how you look at it. I really don't have much problems drying between a leaf blower and waffle weaves anyway.
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I agree, it is nice to have as an installed unit.
I only use distilled as the final rinse. I figure that the dirt I'm rubbing around while washing doesn't deserve mineral free water anyway.
You can also get a polar bear home unit to distill your own water for about $400. It only has some charcoal filters to replace and a tank to clean out. If you are into drinking distilled (I am not) or if you use humidifiers, then you could have more reasons to use it than just for washing a car. Still not worth it to me.
Me.. I'm just fine with the water blade to start, then follwed up with the waffle weaves. It's only going to get dirty again anyway.
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Me.. I'm just fine with the water blade to start, then follwed up with the waffle weaves. It's only going to get dirty again anyway.
Gasp. Horror. Denial.
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Gasp. Horror. Denial.
Lol.. You have to be careful with the water blade. If you miss a spot then you can get yourself into trouble.
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I bought one a couple weeks ago with the 5% Club111 discount (Thanks Vantage!).
Some tips:
- The wall mount bracket comes off (eight bolts) and can be reversed. In my case, this put the In/Out taps in a better location.The sensor can be mounted in either location on the T-fitting. This allowed me to have the house output on the "down" tap, where it fit nicer.Quick-Connect hose fittings rock.The canisters were not fully seated when I got the unit. They needed quite a bit of tightening before they stopped leaking.
All in all, it works as advertised. If it makes 100 gallons per cartridge set, that's about $2 a rinse. But the plus side is I don't have to stock a bunch of DI water. It's "on tap".
It cuts the wash time by about half, since I was meticulous about drying out the crannies. Nice.
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The crspotless web site states that a pair of the small cartidges will produce about 100 gallons of deionized water. However, this is subject to the hardness and total dissolved solids of the input water. Hence, the amount of deionized water produced will vary depending on your local water supply. So, I sent them an email asking what water quality the system was tested with that produced 100 gallons. Their response was:
Our system was tested with water hardness of 13.4 grains/gal and a total dissolved solids of 507 ppm. This is for San Diego City Water department. 13.4 grains/gal = 229 ppm
That is pretty hard water. You can find an approximate map of water hardness around the U.S. at
http://www.mortonsalt.com/consumer/p...ning/doyou.htm
You can also do a google search to possibly find a report on your local water. In California, each water district must create a "Consumer Confidence Report" (CCR) which shows the average water quality for the year.
There are another few sources of car wash deionizers I have found. The least expensive I have seen is from watersticks, which offers simple in-line water softener sticks and water deionizers (although without the conductivity meter, so you don't know when you need to change the resin beads).
http://www.watersticks.com
The watersticks are so simple you could make your own from PVC pipe (like they did), and buy the resin beads in bulk from a variety of suppliers (search online). Note that the deionizer resin beads have two types of resin in them, unlike the water softener beads. The deionizer version can't be regenerated with salt, so they have to be replaced when used up. You can get some that change color when used up so you know when to replace them, but I would trust a conductivity indicator more (simple pass/fail light would be fine like crspotless uses - don't need a true measurement). I haven't searched for a cheap inline conductivity indicator, but if someone would like to do that ...
I have even considered making my own solar distiller and putting it out on the patio table in the back yard (or even a hidden one under the glass of the patio table). If it can produce one gallon a day, that is more than enough to rinse my car once a week. Some people say solar distillers don't produce pure enough water, but they are very concerned about sterilizing the water and removing all organics and volatiles, and I don't plan on drinking it. It seems like a fun little project to try.
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Curiously, when I bought my CR Spotless system, they said to hook it up to the hard water tap (15-16 grains/gallon) instead of my soft water tap (~3).
I was surprised by this, but the person at CR Spotless explained that it's just as difficult to filter the replacement ions (Na+) as the hard water minerals.
I'm not convinced this is a researched answer.
The one time I ran it from hard water, I did get some spotting. When I run it from soft water, it performs exactly as advertised.
It works out to something like $2 a rinse, though.. probably more for me since I take my time.. it's hard to know when the job is done, since you're rinsing (ion-laden) water with (deionized) water.
I'm going to try bumping it up from the 1 gal/minute flow rate to the 2 gal/minute flow rate. The whole idea was to save time, and at 1 gal/minute, it takes a while to rinse a larger sedan.
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You guys are completly nutz.