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We are starting to get a bunch of pollen off the trees 'round here... I don't have a first flush diverter in my system will see how it fairs the next time it rains... I believe I've done 4 washes since the barrels were full, looks to be down about 12 inches. Golf x2, Miata x2. I washed a black golf in half sun/half cloud and it came out fine w my rain water. I used a cordless leaf blower and towel to dry it, and it was covered in pollen within 30mins. I was washing off some bird poo as we had a friend coming to look at it as a 3rd car/ college kid car.
I may swap down from my 30 micron filter to a 10 micron filter and see how it does.
Thank you... the warning label of using CR if it registers anything above 0PPM and does damage to your paint threw me off.
liability thing on their part. Leaving hard water deposits on the paint can mar the finish. Nothing more than leaving city water on the car I would think.
I used a cordless leaf blower and towel to dry it, .
I tried the leaf blower approach and found it to be too cumbersome. Swirling the large blower around and the air isn't concentrated enough to push water easily. For times where I want to force drying I use a BigBoi Blower. Simple handheld piece with rubber cover at the end in case of surface contact, heated air and strong. I'll use it sometimes to dry the entire car or just blow out the door jambs, engine bay and frunk on the old cars.
For the pollen stick, annoying totally. I had a birch tree in the front yard that is the culprit. Got rid of it for root/house reasons (who plants one of these next to the house) but the reduced pollen was great add-on benefit. If you haven't already, you may want to try using a ceramic based after wash spray. Makes for really slick surface and gloss. May allow some of the pollen to blow off and would make it easy to use a light spritz of quick detailer to wipe off quickly. To easily bring back the hard wash work you did. CarPro Reload is a great ceramic spray sealant. Once every few months, I would do it once every couple washes for the hell of it. Also because I found the bottle lasts a long time and prefer to start each season with fresh chemicals. Just be weary on some of the ceramic stuff, you don't want to breathe any of it in and some are more concentrated than others.
Apologies if I'm going OT with my opinions.
Edit - Another comment on leaf blower. If you have gas, your engine exhaust air is what is blowing out the front. I wouldn't want that blowing directly onto the paint.
I decided to spend some CdnTire money before it was all gone, and got the Simoniz 1800 Platinum Pressure washer. Will it clean cars better than my 25yr old Karcher 220? Will find out soon. The only thing my Karcher 220 was missing was the AutoStop feature. It was rated at 1200psi and 1.85gpm. At least the sticker on the bottom says so.
I also got a hose splitter/shutoff and put the 2nd hose back to the barrel. I have about 70% going to the PW, and 30% set to recirculate. This may prevent the pump from overheating? don't know.
I am happy with my Makita 18V brushless leafblower. I 3d printed a stubby nozzle from one of the repositories for it...
I also have used a blow gun with some sort of venturi(?) tip that really amplifies it's blow power. I've got a fairly large 25gallon V win cylinder compressor on 110v in the garage that I used to use on mirrors and door handles etc.
Tank was delivered on Monday. I had to dis-assemble the frame, base and tank and lift it over the fence in the background. I'll probably hook it up in the next week or so
I think that one is like 250 gallon capacity. You'll have lots of capacity. You'll likely want to cover it in black to inhibit algae growth.
For my setup, I was down about 11" from my total capacity of about 33" just before the rains that came while we were away on Vic Day long weekend.
I washed the Beemer once since the long weekend and used about 3" of water from my setup. I did not notice any pollen in my wash water ( I was kinda worried about that, but the 30 micron filter seems to be getting most of that out). I will try the 10 micron filter next and see if impedes flow too much.
I've used the Simoniz Platinum 1800 pressure washer to wash the car as well as part of our 30 yr old wood deck and 15 yr old neglected propane bbq and I am happy with it's performance and the autostop feature.
tried my 1st towel free dry since using my rainwater wash system... This is my daughter's 2015 Golf TSi. It's been parked outside for the past year. I did a spray wax on it on the last wash about 3 weeks ago. There was minimal beading on this final rinse. I also blew about 75% of the water off with a cordless blower and then let it sit to air dry.
it's been really dry around here the past 2 weeks (no rain), so I am only using the rainwater for the final rinse at the moment. I may add more capacity to my rainbarrel system.
The rainwater carwash has been working really well. I decided to add 2 more barrels to my rainwater carwash setup to bring my capacity up to about 200 gallons. When full, it'll give me ~110 minutes of trigger time on the pressure washer to wash the cars. I spent time today and put up a little fence to make the system less blue.
This will be more than I need. If I was doing it from scratch, 3 barrels would probably be enough for even the most dedicated car washing car enthusiast.
I used flexible hose to connect the 1st 2 barrels to the 2nd pair, as I am not certain if the new stand will settle any.
05-13-2023, 09:34 AM
