RP Wait until you wash your truck when your here in MO. sometime! Calcium & Lime stone "chunks". Our water might could be considered a solid materail. In therory you can hold a water hose on your car and strip the paint off of it in enough time. It's the finest media blaster known to man, strip the paint and polish the metal all at once.

 

If all goes as planned, my truck won't be on Missouri soil. Just the company truck...

Thanks again for all the help folks!

RP

 

There are skads of water softeners out there, and most will do the trick if sized correctly. But, I think the best is made by Kenitico, which uses NO electricity. R.O. systems are very good, but they are complex and very expensive and cost a lot to repair.

Get a Kenitico (and no, I don't work for them, and don't have one, but wish I did).

 

Rock pick dont confuse salt water or softened water with RO water or Deionized water.

softening water does not remove all the minerals in the water....thus you will still have white spots on your truck.

Only deionized or reverse osmosis water systems remove the majority of minerals which essentially tries to give you pure water.

Any RO system will be low flow and slow. You would be going through a lot of filter changes and be a pain in the butt to get enough to rinse your truck.

The closest thing you will get to a RO for your truck in the Mr. Clean auto dry kit from your local hardware store.....It comes with ro filters and you spray your truck down.

Only problem with those are.....the filters are expensive....so the harder or more minerals in the water...the quicker you will go through the filters..

 

R. P. You have been given excellent advice. Just one more thing, if you do go for a softener, you dont have to soften the water to your whole house. Softened water with sodium Zeolite is not good for drinking or watering plants. you can hook it up to just a part of the system, bath and a outside faucet or whatever.

 

Thanks guys... I've learned a lot from you all...

I'm going to move forward with something... just not sure what yet...

I hesitate to install a mega-expensive system in this house as I don't see us here more than another few years but, then again, the water is just short of absolutely horrible.

We'll see...

Thanks again folks!

RP

 

You can't just take it with you and patch the line when you leave?

 

Should beable too...

 

Come on RP - working in our line of business you know the only thing carbon filters do is remove organics!

If you don't want to drink the water that is softened, run a seperate linie from your incoming water line before the water softener, and put a small faucet on your sink where the sink sprayer is. You can use this faucet to drink from and water any plants. Depending on how much you use your hose spickets, you may want to keep them seperate as well. If you do a lot of watering your yard (or garden), you will go through a lot of salt, and you risk the accumulation of salt in your soil, which will eventually kill you grass (or mess up your garden).

Here is another tip:
Never wash out the water softener tank, or drain the tank into your yard. If you do, the brine solution will kill the grass and you'll have a giant brown spot in yard for the rest of the year.
On the other hand, rinsing the tank out an a gravel driveway is a great way to keep from having to mow the driveway.

 

Oh. That's what that big carbon vessel does on that pump and treat huh? HAHA!

Easier said than done. I'm on a slab and I'm not going to go tearing the house apart running new water lines. It's just NOT going to happen. I don't see the investment in this home being worth it to me honestly as I don't see us here for more than a few more years. Naturally, I could pack it up and take it with us but, I'm a habitual perfectionist and I don't see starting this project if I can't do it the way I want to with a return on my time and effort.

With that in mind, I'm going to probably try that stupid Mr. Clean Auto Dry thing and only use the filters for rinsing. Further, I may invest in some resin water hose in-line filters.

This entire discussion came back to the surface after washing my truck the other day and realizing that I was having to do two and three times the work to obtain a spot-free finish (and still didn't make it). Further, I detail vehicles for several regular clients on the weekends and this hampers me in getting a finish to where I really want it to be plus, it often adds a step or two to remove the spots on the finish.

So, in closing, it's just not going to happen on this house... Yes, it has value. Yes, I'd use it. Yes, I'm sure I'd be happier in the shower but, I'm just not willing to invest this amount of time into something that I'm only going to utilize for a few years and then have to cap everything off and move.

My next house will have one and it'll be done to my spec and done right. Hindsight is always 20/20.

LOL!

RP