California or other Water Ban people.. - Rainwater for car washes
 

Hi,

I was looking for info from people in regions with outdoor water restrictions if they use rain water to wash their cars? If so how do you filter it? Just with mechanical filtration to remove paint scratching particles?

I am setting up a rain barrel system for a new garden, and might use some of the water to wash my boxster. I have been using ONR with tap water for a few years now, and like the product.

Our tap water is very hard locally. We have our water softener set to 35 grains to get the Calcium/Magnesium out, so water spots can be a problem.

I am thinking of using two 55 gallon barrels for the initial rain catch system, but can expand that to 3 or 4 barrels if I need to hold more water. Theoretically, a 1/2" of rain on our garage should yield about 190 US gallons of water... (600sq ft garage).

Thanks,
Peter

I use a waterless car wash product so as to avoid the issue altogether.

I've got a double 55 gallon rainbarrel system up and running for our garden.

The water outlet is filtered through a sponge right now to get out most of the hard grit.

Water goes from the roof to the down spout into the 1st barrel, and there is a siphon set up to transfer the water to the 2nd barrel. I believe most of the roof grit stays in the 1st barrel.

The outlet is plumbed like a siphon, and at the inlet there is a sponge filter that gets rid of any large floaties that might still be in the water.

Washed my daily driver with the rain water and ONR, and it turned out quite well. I have some filter floss that should polish the water even more, and I will make a filter for it for my car wash water.... I mix up 2 gallons or so of ONR, and have a 2 gallon rinse pail for the MF mitts.

Me too....