How to choose a spot-free drying system and make it more economical to use: The CR-Spotless Integrated Resin Bypass
A water deionizer, often referred to as a spot-free drying system is the Holy Grail of those who are destined to wash outdoors. While a few may have the luxury of expansive garages with built-in drainage & shelter, washing for most of us means a driveway, a hose, a few buckets and, unfortunately, bright sunshine. Fear not, however, as there is a suitable remedy that just got easier (and less expensive over the long haul) to use!
A leader in the water de-ionizing field, CR Spotless has recently released and integrated bypass to help preserve and extend the life of your resin by making it easy to transition from filtered to unfiltered water. No more DIY plumbing, piping, valves or splitters are needed as the ability to switch is now as simple as turning the built-in lever. Pull it out of the box, connect the water and you’re ready to go!
But maybe you’re not ready to go yet; maybe you’re wondering what this whole ‘spotless-rinse’ thing is all about. No need to wonder, just continue reading to get a little background on what could be your answer to the burning question “Is it too sunny to wash my car today?” With a spotless-rinse system, it’s *never* too sunny…and it may even prove quite handy when the sun is nowhere to be found too!
What is a spotless system and how does it work?
At the end of the day, it’s a filtration system. A bit more complex than sifting out dirt with a paper element like many auto air filters, deionization involves things like cations, anions, ions, resins…and yes, I Googled that as me and chemistry, physics or whatever discipline this falls under have never been best of friends…worst of enemies, actually. Suffice it to say that the water comes in one side, passses through the resin canisters and comes out the other side purified of all the nastiness that can leave water spots on your hood, that nastiness being things like sodium, calcium magnesium and other ‘solids’ that leave their residue behind when a typical drop of water evaporates…leaving a water spot. Remove the residual calcium & minerals and, well…no more water spots!
How important is a spotless water system?
If a picture is worth a thousand words, imagine what a video from Todd is worth! Check out what he has to say:
Will I be able to wash my car spotlessly forever with a water deionization system?
“Nothing good lasts forever…” and eventually the resin becomes saturated and needs to be replaced. Just how long that will go between replacement depends on a few things but is primarily contingent on the quality of your source water & how much you use each wash….or the lack thereof. A few other contributing factors to the eternal “How many washes will I get” question:
- Are you using a pressure washer or a free-flowing hose when washing/rinsing? An open hose and even one with a nozzle will flow more Gallons Per Minute than a pressure washer, using up more water/resin.
- Are you using the water from the system for the entire wash or only the final rinse? Using for only the final rinse will use less deionized water/resin. This is where a handy bypass proves its value!
How can I estimate if this will be practical for me?
You can somewhat estimate (in general sense, certainly not pinpoint, lab-approved accurate but close enough) with 3 pieces of information:
- The Total Dissolved Solids (TDS) reading of your source water, measured in Parts Per Million (ppm). You can measure this with a $10 TDS meter you can grab from a variety of online vendors/sellers.
- How many gallons of water you use washing your car. Some estimates range from 8 – 15 gallons but it will depend on if you’re using a hose (which flows more) or a pressure washer (can estimate usage *very roughly* with the GPM rating & ‘trigger time’ during a wash). An even simpler way to find true water usage is to spray into a bucket for a minute and see how much water ends up in the bucket.
- The volume of resin in your system. For what it’s worth, the DIC/DIW-20 has a resin volume of .26 cubic feet (0.13 in each cartridge) or 7.4L total if you’re into the metric system.
In my situation, the DIC/DIW-20 produces approximately 430-450 gallons of Spotless Water with my source water of 135ppm TDS. If I’m using 8-10 gallons of water per wash I get 40+ washes for the approx $129-$139 cost of replacement resin, enough to last me an entire Summer washing 2 cars. Is that worth it? For me, certainly so and I can stretch it out to even more washes by only doing a final rinse with the DI water.
Please bear in mind that the above was calculated by a math-phobic person so, well…your mileage may vary! The process involved measuring a DIW-20 cartridge for height and diameter,calculating for an approximate volume of resin (x 2 for the dual cartridge system) and then finding an online DI Resin Capacity Calculator to plug in PPM of source water & volume of resin to get approximate gallons of DI water. The litany of errors that may have occurred during that process, even with Google, may be very impressive indeed…or I just got VERY lucky!
CR Spotless does offer some guidance with their systems but not accounting for source water quality, it is extremely ‘general’ in nature; their Estimated Volume of DI Water Produced by system:
- CR Spotless Simple Chuck: 400 gallons
- CR Spotless High Output DIC/DIW-20: 300 gallons
- CR Spotless Medium Output DIC/DIW-10: 150 gallons
How do I know when to replenish/replace the resin? Is it hard to do?
When to replace it is quite easy to determine as the CR Spotless Systems all come with some type water quality indicator. The High & Medium output units come with an integrated/attached digital meter to show Parts Per Million TDS and the SImple Chuck has a color-change indicator on the side of one of the filters that lets you know it’s time for new cartridges. CR Spotless recommends a resin change when their PPM meter shows anything over 0 but you may find you can stretch that a bit…or maybe not. Only using it in your particular situation will be able to let you judge on a suitable replacement value.
Changing the filters (Simple Chuck & High/Medium Output Systems) or merely replacing the resin in the cartridges (Medium/High Output only) is easy and covered in these videos:
Simple Chuck Cartridge Change:
Recharging Medium and High Output Systems
So there it is…how I figured out if spotless water system would be valuable to me and in the interest of convenience and overall efficiency, it is. A few of those reasons:
- My driveway is in full sun during peak wash season (May thru September) so unless I want to wash a car at 6am or after 8pm, I’m washing in pretty much full sunlight. I don’t like washing in full sunlight, it kind of becomes a race to get the panels foamed, washed and rinsed before the horizontal panels begin to dry. I don’t move that fast nor do my neighbors like hearing pressure washers and twin-motor air-dryers at those hours so everybody wins if I can wash in more ‘normal’ times of the day.
- Overall the value of the $129 resin replacement over the source of a wash season is more than reasonable enough given the convenience and results it provides. If I had a higher PPM reading for source water, I could eliminate some of the DI water use by bypassing the system for pre-rinsing wheels, filling wash & rinse buckets with non-DI water. The new integrated resin bypass on the CR-Spotless systems makes this an easy, quick, one handed task when I want to bypass. Yes, I could build my own bypass with a few valves and some external piping but, well, I’d rather have a system designed as a bypass from the manufacturer from the start. It’s pretty much the same reason I like Eley Hose reels, hoses & fittings; yes, they are a bit pricey compared to hardware store items but they work easily, flawlessly and last for a VERY long time.
- Think of a spotless rinse system like a VCR (yes, I’m that ‘experienced’) or a DVR or streaming content; you can easily & safely time-shift your washing to when you *want* to do it as opposed to when you *have* to do it; convenience is king!
A few other items:
- What is the shelf life of the resin?: Approximately 1 year
- Can I let the system sit unused for an extended period of time?: Well, like anything involving moisture, the resin can develop algae & mildew if left unused for 60-90 days
- Will soft water help with resin life?: Not particularly; the TDS of water coming out of the softener (which does little to remove the minerals that cause water spots) will be the same as water that bypasses the softener so in ‘spot-speak’, it won’t really help.