[richard4848]

A few years ago, I saw the light and bought a DI water cylinder for car washing and never looked back...

Recently the resin gave up and I refilled it.

This time around it has only lasted maybe 20 washes.

the TDS is up at 100 and our tap water is about 300.

I have read that resins dont seem to be as good as they used to be and a 10l refill is quite expensive...

In fact a 4 stage RO unit is in the same ballpark, cost wise, as a refill.

I was using the DI cylinder direct off the mains tap and feeding a pressure washer.

I have never used an RO unit, but my understanding is that they are used to fill a reservoir as the flow rate is very low (which is fine as the pressure washer will suck from a bucket) and that they use some ratio of water in the process, say 4 litres in 1 litre clean out?

With a 4 stage unit (has a resin stage on the end) , will I get a spot free finish on a black car? (TDS less than say 10?)

Or do I just take my chances and refill my cylinder and hope that I get a good batch of resin?




Thanks for any advice!

[nathankaye]

Your tap water is quite high to use just DI on its own and would burn through it quickly depending the size of your DI cannister.
You can either go Double DI
or use the cheaper RO and run into an ibc tank for storage but Im assuming you go through quite alotof water and I would use a 4040 RO as the production of pure is faster.

Saying that, why not use normal tap water for your prewash and then switch to pure for your finish (unless this is what your doing anyway)

[Soupy]

A few years ago, I saw the light and bought a DI water cylinder for car washing and never looked back...

Recently the resin gave up and I refilled it.

This time around it has only lasted maybe 20 washes.

the TDS is up at 100 and our tap water is about 300.

I have read that resins dont seem to be as good as they used to be and a 10l refill is quite expensive...

In fact a 4 stage RO unit is in the same ballpark, cost wise, as a refill.

I was using the DI cylinder direct off the mains tap and feeding a pressure washer.

I have never used an RO unit, but my understanding is that they are used to fill a reservoir as the flow rate is very low (which is fine as the pressure washer will suck from a bucket) and that they use some ratio of water in the process, say 4 litres in 1 litre clean out?

With a 4 stage unit (has a resin stage on the end) , will I get a spot free finish on a black car? (TDS less than say 10?)

Or do I just take my chances and refill my cylinder and hope that I get a good batch of resin?




Thanks for any advice!

How many washes did your last fill do?

[richard4848]

A few years ago, I saw the light and bought a DI water cylinder for car washing and never looked back...

Recently the resin gave up and I refilled it.

This time around it has only lasted maybe 20 washes.

the TDS is up at 100 and our tap water is about 300.

I have read that resins dont seem to be as good as they used to be and a 10l refill is quite expensive...

In fact a 4 stage RO unit is in the same ballpark, cost wise, as a refill.

I was using the DI cylinder direct off the mains tap and feeding a pressure washer.

I have never used an RO unit, but my understanding is that they are used to fill a reservoir as the flow rate is very low (which is fine as the pressure washer will suck from a bucket) and that they use some ratio of water in the process, say 4 litres in 1 litre clean out?

With a 4 stage unit (has a resin stage on the end) , will I get a spot free finish on a black car? (TDS less than say 10?)

Or do I just take my chances and refill my cylinder and hope that I get a good batch of resin?




Thanks for any advice!

How many washes did your last fill do?

The original cylinder seemed to last years but the refill only did about 20 washes, but I was not really counting! It certainly did last very long...

Going RO into a reservoir tank would be no problem for me.

I usually wash with tap and rinse with DI water. The pressure washer has very modest water consumption.

If I go for an RO unit, is this any good?

https://www.vyair.com/compact-4-stage-reverse-osmosis-50-gallons-per-day-water-filter-system-including-di-resin-stage.html

[Spruce]

A few years ago, I saw the light and bought a DI water cylinder for car washing and never looked back...

Recently the resin gave up and I refilled it.

This time around it has only lasted maybe 20 washes.

the TDS is up at 100 and our tap water is about 300.

I have read that resins dont seem to be as good as they used to be and a 10l refill is quite expensive...

In fact a 4 stage RO unit is in the same ballpark, cost wise, as a refill.

I was using the DI cylinder direct off the mains tap and feeding a pressure washer.

I have never used an RO unit, but my understanding is that they are used to fill a reservoir as the flow rate is very low (which is fine as the pressure washer will suck from a bucket) and that they use some ratio of water in the process, say 4 litres in 1 litre clean out?

With a 4 stage unit (has a resin stage on the end) , will I get a spot free finish on a black car? (TDS less than say 10?)

Or do I just take my chances and refill my cylinder and hope that I get a good batch of resin?




Thanks for any advice!

How many washes did your last fill do?

The original cylinder seemed to last years but the refill only did about 20 washes, but I was not really counting! It certainly did last very long...

Going RO into a reservoir tank would be no problem for me.

I usually wash with tap and rinse with DI water. The pressure washer has very modest water consumption.

If I go for an RO unit, is this any good?

https://www.vyair.com/compact-4-stage-reverse-osmosis-50-gallons-per-day-water-filter-system-including-di-resin-stage.html

I very much doubt that it lasted that long.

If you look at a resin calculator you will find that at 50 liters a day, 5 days a week, a 25liter bag of resin will last 9 weeks.

https://www.windowcleaningwarehouse.co.uk/resin-calculator.html

I would imagine you will use a lot more than 50 liters a day. If it is 250 liters a day then it will last 2 weeks. Thats a 25 liter bag, so 2.5 fills into your 10 liter di vessel.

Forget a 50 gpd r/o. Its for topping up a fish tank. The minimum you should look at is a 450gpd and process water into a 1000 ibc tank.
In summer when the water was warmer, our 450gpd took 28 hours to fill a 1000liter IBC tank - in winter and colder water it took about 34 hours to do the same job.

You will still need to use resin to polish the water off.

A 50 gpd is American gallons (4 liters) and a day is 24 hours. Its also done at optimum pressure and water temperature. So in real life you may only get between 25% and 33% of the quoted figures.
When you run an r/o you will also need to maintain it, replacing prefilters every 3 months and expect to replace membranes every couple of years.

Also remember that when an r/o runs you get pure water and waste water. So for say every 3 liters of water from your meter you will probably get 1 liter of pure. The other 2 liters will be waste, which you may be able to capture in another ibc tank and use it as well bearing in mind that the reading of that waste water will be around 375ppm or even higher.

.
 

[deeege]

A few years ago, I saw the light and bought a DI water cylinder for car washing and never looked back...

Recently the resin gave up and I refilled it.

This time around it has only lasted maybe 20 washes.

the TDS is up at 100 and our tap water is about 300.

I have read that resins dont seem to be as good as they used to be and a 10l refill is quite expensive...

In fact a 4 stage RO unit is in the same ballpark, cost wise, as a refill.

I was using the DI cylinder direct off the mains tap and feeding a pressure washer.

I have never used an RO unit, but my understanding is that they are used to fill a reservoir as the flow rate is very low (which is fine as the pressure washer will suck from a bucket) and that they use some ratio of water in the process, say 4 litres in 1 litre clean out?

With a 4 stage unit (has a resin stage on the end) , will I get a spot free finish on a black car? (TDS less than say 10?)

Or do I just take my chances and refill my cylinder and hope that I get a good batch of resin?




Thanks for any advice!

How many washes did your last fill do?

The original cylinder seemed to last years but the refill only did about 20 washes, but I was not really counting! It certainly did last very long...

Going RO into a reservoir tank would be no problem for me.

I usually wash with tap and rinse with DI water. The pressure washer has very modest water consumption.

If I go for an RO unit, is this any good?

https://www.vyair.com/compact-4-stage-reverse-osmosis-50-gallons-per-day-water-filter-system-including-di-resin-stage.html

No it’s not, thats assuming you need more than a few litres here and there. You get what you pay for and a RO costing £50 total is not going to produce a lot of pure water.

Your best bet would be to give Daqua a call and tell them your exact requirements (tap TDI/Pressure/required amount of pure per day etc) and they will point you in the right direction.

[P @ F]

I run a 50 GPD cheapie membrane off Ebay , which should convert to 200 L of pure or close per 24hr at optimum conditions .
My actual results are .....with whatever temp the feed water is at with 85/100 tds at 70 psi mains .....150 L of 001 ppm per 24 hour

[Don Kee]

When you say you bought your DI for car washing, do you mean for you washing your own car or for a car washing business?
(i’m a bit confused as you say your pressure washer is drawing through the DI but if your a business then surely you go to them and  use their mains water...how do you know all their TDS’s)

If for your own car, then the only reason it lasted “years” is because you probably only washed your car twice a year.

If a business then it didn’t last years...it just didn’t.

What size is your DI?

From a 25litre, and 300+ppm, you’ll be very lucky to get 3/4 weeks before the resin needs changing., very lucky.. Thats an input of 370+ and getting 0 out using approx 300litres a day.
That’s how a friend of mine started cleaning windows so thats from real world experience.

So if you’re using a third of that a day for car washing then you’ll be lucky to get 12 weeks.

If you’re a business then I can never understand why people get less than a 450gpd RO even if they dont need it.
It costs a couple of hundred and then your done apart from changing filters every so often which are pennies.
Although from a cost to labour ratio perspective, in the time you’ll take faffing with the RO, producing and transferring the pure and future filter costs...wouldn’t it just take you the same amount of time to just dry the cars?

If you’re just cleaning your own car then I’d just spend the tenner and take it to the local romanians rather than go to this trouble and maybe use the spare time to spend some time with your wife/husband or local brothel....something more worthwhile anyway.

Hope I helped 

[Spruce]

When you say you bought your DI for car washing, do you mean for you washing your own car or for a car washing business?
(i’m a bit confused as you say your pressure washer is drawing through the DI but if your a business then surely you go to them and  use their mains water...how do you know all their TDS’s)

If for your own car, then the only reason it lasted “years” is because you probably only washed your car twice a year.

If a business then it didn’t last years...it just didn’t.

What size is your DI?

From a 25litre, and 300+ppm, you’ll be very lucky to get 3/4 weeks before the resin needs changing., very lucky.. Thats an input of 370+ and getting 0 out using approx 300litres a day.
That’s how a friend of mine started cleaning windows so thats from real world experience.

So if you’re using a third of that a day for car washing then you’ll be lucky to get 12 weeks.

If you’re a business then I can never understand why people get less than a 450gpd RO even if they dont need it.
It costs a couple of hundred and then your done apart from changing filters every so often which are pennies.
Although from a cost to labour ratio perspective, in the time you’ll take faffing with the RO, producing and transferring the pure and future filter costs...wouldn’t it just take you the same amount of time to just dry the cars?

If you’re just cleaning your own car then I’d just spend the tenner and take it to the local romanians rather than go to this trouble and maybe use the spare time to spend some time with your wife/husband or local brothel....something more worthwhile anyway.

Hope I helped 

Thats a good question. I read this as car washing business. I have reread the op's original post and it could be either business or personal.

How does he know the tds of his water? Is this something the average man in the street knows anything about? They will tell you if they live in a hard water area but will have no idea of the parameters for judging water hardness.

Good point about the amount of usage. In the early days owners would tell us that their Black and Decker drill has lasted them 15 years and still going strong. Bosch then questioned a variety of people (not sure where) and the average time a drill was used a year was 15 minutes.
If this was the case with some of those B&D users, then their drill had only done 4 hours work.

[richard4848]

When you say you bought your DI for car washing, do you mean for you washing your own car or for a car washing business?
(i’m a bit confused as you say your pressure washer is drawing through the DI but if your a business then surely you go to them and  use their mains water...how do you know all their TDS’s)

If for your own car, then the only reason it lasted “years” is because you probably only washed your car twice a year.

If a business then it didn’t last years...it just didn’t.

What size is your DI?

From a 25litre, and 300+ppm, you’ll be very lucky to get 3/4 weeks before the resin needs changing., very lucky.. Thats an input of 370+ and getting 0 out using approx 300litres a day.
That’s how a friend of mine started cleaning windows so thats from real world experience.

So if you’re using a third of that a day for car washing then you’ll be lucky to get 12 weeks.

If you’re a business then I can never understand why people get less than a 450gpd RO even if they dont need it.
It costs a couple of hundred and then your done apart from changing filters every so often which are pennies.
Although from a cost to labour ratio perspective, in the time you’ll take faffing with the RO, producing and transferring the pure and future filter costs...wouldn’t it just take you the same amount of time to just dry the cars?

If you’re just cleaning your own car then I’d just spend the tenner and take it to the local romanians rather than go to this trouble and maybe use the spare time to spend some time with your wife/husband or local brothel....something more worthwhile anyway.

Hope I helped 

Thats a good question. I read this as car washing business. I have reread the op's original post and it could be either business or personal.

How does he know the tds of his water? Is this something the average man in the street knows anything about? They will tell you if they live in a hard water area but will have no idea of the parameters for judging water hardness.

Good point about the amount of usage. In the early days owners would tell us that their Black and Decker drill has lasted them 15 years and still going strong. Bosch then questioned a variety of people (not sure where) and the average time a drill was used a year was 15 minutes.
If this was the case with some of those B&D users, then their drill had only done 4 hours work.

Hello again peeps,

Just to clarify, this is only for personal use, so maybe 4 washes a month.

I bought an 11 litre DI cylinder back in 2010 and replaced the resin in 2016 (10 litres from IWE ltd (H2O-direct) for £35).

So it appears to have lasted a long time initially and not very long the second time.

I didn't record washes but I defo have not used it 3 or 4 times more often on the second fill.

Anyway what is the best, most economical solution to get  from 300ppm down to under 10 for occasional use?

I don't mind filling up a drum/tank/rainwater butt with water overnight to use when I want to do a wash.

I don't want to get someone else to wash our cars and I don't want to spend another £50 on a refil if it's only going to do 20 washes...

[Shrek]

Best way if you don’t want to spend money is to just shammy the car afterwards and get all the water off. Won’t cost you a penny then

[deeege]

Hello again peeps,

Just to clarify, this is only for personal use, so maybe 4 washes a month.

[/quote]

Hello Richard. How have you managed to sign up to a window cleaning website to seek advice on purifying water to clean your car? 😂

[Spruce]

Hello again peeps,

Just to clarify, this is only for personal use, so maybe 4 washes a month.

Hello Richard. How have you managed to sign up to a window cleaning website to seek advice on purifying water to clean your car? 😂
[/quote]

I think anybody can join. I'm an example of that. 

I guess that we are the best industry to ask about pure water. 

He must be into pure water to a certain extend as he knows the tds of his tap water.

[Don Kee]

I find it hard to believe that you got 216 car washes out of a bag of resin with an input tds of over 300+ (3 washes a month over 6 years)
If you did, I’m assuming you gave the car a quick rinse or your car manages to stay immaculately clean over the month.

If you let me know the make of resin, and the voodoo spell you were reciting when you filled DI, I’d appreciate it as at those figures you’re a scientific marvel....


Back to your original question though.
Buy a cheap 150gpd and use with your DI by filling it into a water butt.
Wash your car and just use the pure to rinse it off.
You’ll then get a month probably before you have to refill a 250litre water butt again.

You might get a couple of decades out of your next bag of resin this way!!

[richard4848]

Hello again peeps,

Just to clarify, this is only for personal use, so maybe 4 washes a month.

Hello Richard. How have you managed to sign up to a window cleaning website to seek advice on purifying water to clean your car? 😂
[/quote]

Ha! Yes I did! I kind of assumed that people here might know something about DI water and RO kit...

If the best advice is to just use a shammy or get some Romanians to clean my car, then fair enough, I'll ask on a car detailing site...

If it helps, I do use the DI water to clean our windows! 

I'll get my coat.

[richard4848]

I find it hard to believe that you got 216 car washes out of a bag of resin with an input tds of over 300+ (3 washes a month over 6 years)
If you did, I’m assuming you gave the car a quick rinse or your car manages to stay immaculately clean over the month.

If you let me know the make of resin, and the voodoo spell you were reciting when you filled DI, I’d appreciate it as at those figures you’re a scientific marvel....


Back to your original question though.
Buy a cheap 150gpd and use with your DI by filling it into a water butt.
Wash your car and just use the pure to rinse it off.
You’ll then get a month probably before you have to refill a 250litre water butt again.

You might get a couple of decades out of your next bag of resin this way!!

I have 2 buckets of magic resin. Would like first dibs on it? It's only £100  a bucket.

Seriously though, I have only ever refilled my cylinder once, unless the resin fairies came during the night...

I did only rinse with the DI water and a pressure washer does not use a lot of water. (maybe 2 buckets to rinse a car?).

I have yet to find any specific info on how many litres a DI cylinder will treat, given some level of hardness. I have read a lot of posts on here about resin not being as good as it used to be...

Maybe the suppliers should specify the capacity of their resin?

[Don Kee]

They won't be able to specify capacity as the amount of water then resin can treat is determined by numerous factors.
We’ll all have varying ingoing TDS reasings being the major one, but flow rate, temperature etc...will all contribute.

As a rule of thumb, use this -
http://www.gardinerpolesystems.co.uk/Resin_Calculator.htm

But irrelevant on how long you think your resin lasts or quality of resin supplied, with your ingoing tds I’d seriously consider the water butt/RO idea in my last post.

(For the record, we use Tulison MB-115 from Daqua and have had no issues of note in resin life)