Cost of DI water

the_GUNN_man

New member
I was wondering what it costs others out there to use DI water. I called my local water guy and he said that it would cost me about 10 cents a gallon to use DI water. Does this sound about right? It seems a little high to me. I was hoping for more around 5 cents a gallon.
 
It depends on a lot of things. How hard is your water, what you are paying for exchanges, and how pure do you need your water to be.
For me, I can wash for about 6-8 hours on a set of DI bottles. I get mine from Apollo, or Ionics. They are both the same company. I dopn't know what it costs per gallon. I go until I see them noticeably spotting, and then exchange them.

Scott
 
oneness

an additive breaks down the water tension so the water sheets off not bead. So the metals and other things that are in the hard water run off. It makes water wetter.
DI is filted so there are no impuritys in the water when you apply it.
When you use an additive, how much additive you use depends on your water's hardness.
Steve Rowlett now has a water tester. This will help with delutions of your chems. The harder the water the more chem you'll need to get the same results as someone with softer water.
In some places the DI water will save so much in chem cost's it's well worth it.
 
What Ron said. I don't wash houses, they don't do that real often where I live. I wash vehicles, and use DI water for most of that work. It all depends on what the hardness of the water is where you are.
I get 160 size bottles, and pay $37.50 a piece. They are mixed bed, so that they have both resins in them. I run two in series to make sure that they stay clear longer.
The typical size is 100 for mobile washers, so mine are a little larger than standard.

Scott Stone
 
How would using DI water compare to using a water softener plumbed into your water supply? While that won't remove all the impurities, it will remove a lot of them. I can get small softener new for around $250.00, and then all I need to add is salt periodically. I have a large softener at home, and only have to put 4 bags of salt ($5.00 each) in it about once every two months. The only other maintenance is to run a cleaner through it every 6 months or so.

Thanks!
 
Water Softner No Salt...

I have a local dist. here that sells this little straight pipe looking
object that removes all the metals from the water, but it has
to be used immediately. The way he explained it is, it connects
right after your water source and then into your unloader,
into your wand, it is not meant to work if water goes through it
then sits a while, it is not the goofy ones you see in those
cheap magazines, it is high tech, and the few people here locally that have it
swear by it. The cost I think is around $300.00 no salt no
DI bottles, no beading, just slips right off surface and they say they use
alot less chems. ..?
 
I have talked to many local water guys. The TDS(total dissolved solids) in my area is about 140 ppm on average but the last count was 160 ppm. They say that isn't too bad but you need to get at or below 40 ppm to be classified as a spot free rinse. Most everywhere I have looked around here tells me that I will be paying 10 cents a gallon for DI water. On average I think I would use what? 5 gallons per car? That would be 50 cents a car. The other car guy in town does his cars for $2.50 a car. He told me around here that the car lots like the no touch wash. Actually it is just a rinse. All the want off is the dust and bird poop. If the car needs to be washed with soap they do it themselves. I was inquiring about an RO system and I have been told in my area I can make RO water for 2 cents a gallon. That includes the cost of filters, salt, electric, water, and deprecation of the unit(over a 5 year span). I was told that an RO system can bring down the ppm by 95%. So I could take 160 ppm city water and bring it down to about 8 ppm. He told me if your area had water over 800 ppm then you would have to use DI tanks on top of an RO system to get the under 40 classification for "Spot Free Rinse". The cost of the whole setup runs about $6,000 and that would be a 1200 gallon per day set up. Seems like a lot but if you can get your hands on a bunch of car lots you will save big bucks on labor. From what I gathered from talking to various people from our local water company to the guys from Culligan is that the water here is hard enough to make DI tanks not very economical. He said I could get about 1000 gallons per tank. I think he said the tanks were $107 a piece. Guys that are in areas where the water is better then you could maybe get 1500 gallons per tank or better. That would cut the cost to about 5 cents a gallon.
 
Trying to pull me out of retirement Ron?

I haven't PW'ed in about 4 years. My wife joined the Air Force and we got stationed in northern Texas. Vinyl sided houses, decks, roofs, and new construction brick are things that have little demand here. When I got here only 2 PW's were listed. I thought I would clean up. Now I know why there were only 2 listed. My rig has sat for 4 years. I refuse to sell it.

Anyhow, I switched from DI water to RO water. The DI water is nice because it is on demand. The RO water is way cheaper but you need to have a storage tank to make water or have it flow into the tank on your rig. The other downside is having to haul full tanks. I think the ideal situation would be to use RO water when you can and have DI tanks for back up if you run out of RO. One more thing is that with RO water I wouldn't yell at the guys as much for wasting some. Now with DI water I was an A*****E. I didn't like waste because the price of exchanging DI tanks was rising. I also would use RO water for the whole wash and not just the final rinse. FYI I did a full hand wash and not just a DI/RO rinse and dry.
 
Great to See and Here from you Steve
Trying to pull me out of retirement Ron?

I haven't PW'ed in about 4 years. My wife joined the Air Force and we got stationed in northern Texas. Vinyl sided houses, decks, roofs, and new construction brick are things that have little demand here. When I got here only 2 PW's were listed. I thought I would clean up. Now I know why there were only 2 listed. My rig has sat for 4 years. I refuse to sell it.

Anyhow, I switched from DI water to RO water. The DI water is nice because it is on demand. The RO water is way cheaper but you need to have a storage tank to make water or have it flow into the tank on your rig. The other downside is having to haul full tanks. I think the ideal situation would be to use RO water when you can and have DI tanks for back up if you run out of RO. One more thing is that with RO water I wouldn't yell at the guys as much for wasting some. Now with DI water I was an A*****E. I didn't like waste because the price of exchanging DI tanks was rising. I also would use RO water for the whole wash and not just the final rinse. FYI I did a full hand wash and not just a DI/RO rinse and dry.
 
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