RO System for Home Car Wash

[ashstudly]

I've tried many things to prevent hard ward spots and chalky deposits on the trim, rubber, and various cracks and crevices. In my area water is about as hard as it can get. I've attempted everything from using soft water, PH balanced soaps, to various drying techniques. At the end of the day, nothing even comes remotely close to the RO spot free rinses at the local coin Op car wash. It's time to throw in the towel (see what I did there?) and step up to a full RO setup for final rinsing. I've searched around but don't see where anyone has really done this specifically for this purpose so I'm looking for any tips, advice, etc. Ultimately - it sounds like a TDS target of 000 or 001 will produce the best results.

I'm currently planning on purchasing a 4 stage Chloramine RODI setup that does 75 GPD with a 98+% rejection rate. There are some good systems out there around the $200 range. There are setups out there that are made for high output but they costs thousands to purchase and maintenance is also extremely high. With the setup I'm considering the filter kits are around $30-$40.



I would mount it either in my washroom that links to my garage or in the garage itself. From there - I would need to come up with a tank solution large enough to hold enough rinse water for several vehicles at once. I think that an 30 gallon RV style tank mounted near the garage door would be perfect. I would mount some type of ball valve and and float setup to regulate the water flow into the tank. Not sure on exactly how the valve would work but I'm figuring it should be fairly basic and easy to figure it out. Tanks can be had for $50-$100 shipped. Going with an RV style tank vs a large drum would enable it to fit behind the garage door track and not take up as much room in the garage.


I would also want to mount it high enough so that I got enough head pressure to not require a pump when I connect a hose to the tank. For everyone that has ever used a spot free rinse setting you know that it's a very low powered/low volume spray as not much is required to do a solid final rinse. Since I've got motorcycles, off road machines, a truck, and of course my S4, I spend way too much time cleaning and detailing vehicles. I see this as a way to speed up things a bit by not having to be so incredibly fastidious on my drying as well as produce over all better results.

So - any thoughts or advice?

[B G 8er]

Have you considered a Metro Master Blaster? I have the 4HP model and it works well but in the cool shade so the car doesn't dry too fast on its own. The 8 HP seems ideal for your needs. I have found blow drying the car, jams, wheels, grills, etc, makes a huge difference. After the blower, you can quickly touch up any missed spots with your chamois or waffle weave microfiber. Ends most spotting and I doubt your water is any harder than mine

[ojmcneill]

I just hooked up a whole house water softening system to my place. I routed the front outdoor spicket to it as well for car washes. I can't wait to use it when the weather warms up.

[2004B6S4]

I already have a similar RO-DI system and I've been thinking it would be cool to come up with a way to utilize the RO/DI water for my car washes. I was thinking along the lines of some kinda large container that I can fill with water and pressurize, with a sprayer attached to it, kinda like one of those pump style garden sprayers except ideally have a way to hook it up to an air compressor instead of pumping it. does anyone know if anything like that exists?