California and pressure washing

[mrkotfw]

Hello all,

I have a new project that I will be starting soon. I'm going to create a thread fairly soon in hopes of providing good entertainment for everyone!

I live in California and I'm researching on pressure washing. Seeing that we're in a drought and I could be fined up to 500$ if caught. With or without the fine, I still wouldn't do it.

In short, I'm looking to clean the pan using a steam pressure washer. There is a station near by (in Pleasanton) that give for free up to 300 gallons of recycled water.

This sounds very promising. The only problem is that it has a much higher concentration of salt.



What are my options?

[Mike Fisher]

A real steam cleaner like the truck shops have does the best job on greasy suspension/pans etc. Start your own build thread in Reader's Rides with before & after pictures.
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[Hnoroian]

Solar distiller = pure water
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[dirtkeeper]

Pressure washers are already pretty conservative on water use. Doubt you would use more than 75 gallons probably less.

[mrkotfw]

[mrkotfw]

[Cali_Army_Guy]

Soak the pan in a degreaser then trailer it to a car wash and use all the water you want.

[dirtkeeper]

[EverettB]

[RareAir]

Get under the car and use a tool (spatula, chisel, flat blade etc..) and remove as much of the dirt/mud/oil/grease build up as much as possible.

Then use a pressure washer to remove what ever remains. Much easier on water consumption
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[grandpa pete]

Easy off oven cleaner before you go to the car wash
NOT the fume free stuff .
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[raygreenwood]

Having worked for a California based industrial chemical company at one point in time....I sold and installed industrial pressure washers as well.

As others have noted, pressure washers are fairly low water usage....at least most are.

The ratings on pressure washers confuse most people...and they do this for sales numbers.

Some notes:

All pressure washers you will find on the market have ratings that use PEAK /highest pressure as the pressure rating and GPM water flow at the lowest unloaded pressure.

For example...a pressure washer rated at 1200 psi and 1.8 GPM (this is actually a mid grade to crappy pressure washer like you find at Sears)......will only put out 1200 psi when the unloader valve is cranked all the way tight....and puts maximum load on the motor.

The life will be short unless this is at least a 3 HP heavy duty motor and a triplex ceramic lined pump.

And...the most important item...is that at 1200 psi the actual water output drops to about 0.9 GPM.

Pumps like this are very ineffectual at maximum peak pressure because there is very little water coming out to do any "work" at that pressure.

A "better" spec of 1200 peak psi pump would have a minimum flow rating of 2.5-2.8 GPM...and usually move from 110 volt 30 amp to 208V single phase at 20 amp.

At 1200 psi...it can run all day....and its actual GPM output will be about 1.8-2.0 GPM....and will actually get things clean and not just blow crap around.

In reality...having the crappier pump...uses more power....and also uses roughly the same amount of water as the bigger flowing pump...because you have to pressure wash twice as long to get anything done.

Also....do like many car washes do. If you want to get California drought proof/ingenious....Make yourself a sump/cistern. I have seen many places that do this.

Set yourself up in and old bathtub or shower or something to catch your drain run-off.

Take two old plastic drums....put coarse rocks in the bottom of both about 6" deep.....a layer of pebbles 6" foot deep...and fill to about halfway with washed sand from home depot.
One drum will be for really dirty initial washing. Put an extra 10" of sand in that one. The other drum is for your cleaner rinse.

You should be able to put about 25-30 gallons of water in each one these drums with all the filter material.

Get a cheap electric high flow/ low pressure pump to feed fron the bottom of each drum to the pressure washer.

For 90% of your parts pressure washing work you can have a closed loop system that does not take water frm the tap or put it down the drain. Every so often add a few ounces of clorox to the water and scoop out the top sand with the crap and grease and let it dry then dispose of it.

Ray

[UGBUS1964]

I don't believe the drought laws apply to your situation. All the pressure washer rules seem to revolve around concrete, driveways and home exteriors. Further, you are allowed to "wash" your car as long as the hose has a shutoff of some sort. This would be a one time chore as opposed to overwatering yor yard week after week. You sound like you are responsible and I'm sure you are doing your part in other areas of conservation. I wouldn't worry about it too much and get the job done. Of course manually scraping the bulk of it off is going to save a lot of water. Also, if you were to use the recycled water, the one time exposure to slightly higher salt is t going to do much. If you are concerned, use the recycled water for the bulk of it and do a final rinse with your potable water.