What's in your water?

Now that I may be getting back to using ozone water again and hearing the countless ads by Z-rez about their special magic pixie dust water, I thought it was time to look at your cleaning water again.

Today, I needed to go out and re-charge my on-board softener, so it seemed like a great time to run some tests. If you think good old tap water rinsing is fine, consider the facts and test your water. I just use the "5-in-1" test strips that you can buy at a pool store or aquarium shop...they seem to be accurate enough for our usage and provides immediate results.

These are the results for my area before running it through the softener:

Ph was at 8.5 (Not too bad, but a little high)
Alkalinity at 200 ppm (Also a little high)
Hardness at over 1,000 ppm! (We have gravel for water in this area)

We are consumed over our pre-sprays and their ph / alkalinity numbers, but if I was cleaning with straight tap water, that prespray would be affected. Not to mention the machine with water that hard.

These are the numbers taken after the softener:

Ph was now at 8.0 (Acceptable level)
Alkalinity reduced to 185 ppm (Close to ideal)
Hardness was now at 75 ppm (Soft)

In my area, most cleaners are running right off the customer's spigot and consider an on-board softener as a waste of valuable space on their vans. If the customer is like me and doesn't have the house softener tied into the spigot, they are using a super hard water with a high alkaline and ph profile. The results are well known, crusty carpets and tougher to clean.

Which reminds me, I need to install a second spigot for soft water access outside the house. Oh, and replace my manual re-charge softener with an automatic unit....kind of a pita around here when you need to re-charge 2-3 times per month.

Great info!
I'll have to get some of those test strips and compare the tap water here to my water run threw my in van water softener.

I use these strips

http://www.microbeliftstore.com/home/ml1/page_140_55/5_in_1_test_strips.html

It really helps you out as you can calculate when you need to re-charge. In my case, it is every 547 gallons of water usage....about a week.

Thank you!...........I was just searching to see where I could get them.

I actually find them at the best price in the tractor supply places...don't ask me why? I bought 2 jars last month for less than 10 bucks.

Funny thing is we used that same brand for drug tests at the State Prison on urine samples, but we paid A LOT MORE!

I rent a resin tank from a water softener company for 20 bucks a month. it lasts 2 or 3 months before I have to change it out. I just let them know I am coming and they have one ready for me to swap out. it connects quickly with garden hose fittings, takes up a small area in my van and I dont have to bother recharging it they do it for me.

Fred H wrote:I rent a resin tank from a water softener company for 20 bucks a month. it lasts 2 or 3 months before I have to change it out. I just let them know I am coming and they have one ready for me to swap out. it connects quickly with garden hose fittings, takes up a small area in my van and I dont have to bother recharging it they do it for me.

I wish I had that option...heck, I wish the water wasn't so hard that I could hold out for 2-3 months. Just one of negatives about cleaning in this area.

Oh, instead of garden hoses...consider the 3/8 air hose or even the SS Washing machine lines. They last longer and look sharp in the truck.

I guilty of using tap and water and the water is hard in AZ. I can barely fit another wand in van. How much space does the softer tank set up take up in a van. Mostly the cylinder?

Mine hardy takes up any space, about 6" in diam. and less then 3' tall. I have it mounted in front of my machine behind and between my van seats so it's not taking up any precious space.

They come in all sizes, just depends on how hard the water is (how much media you need in grains per gallon) and how often do you want to re-charge.

I had a clone made of the Prochem softener with 42,000 grains instead of the 32,000, but it still only takes up 12 inches at the base and 32 inches tall. Most places can build anything that you want as far as dimensions.

milspec6 wrote:Now that I may be getting back to using ozone water again and hearing the countless ads by Z-rez about their special magic pixie dust water, I thought it was time to look at your cleaning water again.

Today, I needed to go out and re-charge my on-board softener, so it seemed like a great time to run some tests.  If you think good old tap water rinsing is fine, consider the facts and test your water.  I just use the "5-in-1" test strips that you can buy at a pool store or aquarium shop...they seem to be accurate enough for our usage and provides immediate results.

These are the results for my area before running it through the softener:

Ph was at 8.5  (Not too bad, but a little high)
Alkalinity at 200 ppm  (Also a little high)
Hardness at over 1,000 ppm!  (We have gravel for water in this area)

We are consumed over our pre-sprays and their ph / alkalinity numbers, but if I was cleaning with straight tap water, that prespray would be affected.  Not to mention the machine with water that hard.

These are the numbers taken after the softener:

Ph was now at 8.0 (Acceptable level)
Alkalinity reduced to 185 ppm (Close to ideal)
Hardness was now at 75 ppm (Soft)

In my area, most cleaners are running right off the customer's spigot and consider an on-board softener as a waste of valuable space on their vans.  If the customer is like me and doesn't have the house softener tied into the spigot, they are using a super hard water with a high alkaline and ph profile.  The results are well known, crusty carpets and tougher to clean.

Which reminds me, I need to install a second spigot for soft water access outside the house.  Oh, and replace my manual re-charge softener with an automatic unit....kind of a pita around here when you need to re-charge 2-3 times per month.

Hardness at 1000 ppm?!?!?! Wow! I thought we were bad here in East Tennessee. We're around 750 ppm on tap water.

I'm interested in the ozone water as well. I've been using distilled water when I padcap, but it's a hassle if I have a really big job. I usually compromise and go 50/50 distilled to tap.

I do notice remarkable differences in cleaning power though.

I missed the meeting with the ozone guys last week (he had an emergency dental issue), but we will be trying again over the next 2 days.

For those that followed it before, the conclusion was that it worked well on hard surfaces, but didn't have a high enough concentration for badly soiled carpets in the size of machine that I had.

The new plan is to build a device with much higher concentrations to have the impact on carpet that I was looking for the first time. Of course it would be a larger device as well, but there is room in the box truck for it.

I will keep you posted.

I tested my tap water today, and got a reading of 150 for hardness.......seems like what I would expect from well softened water? I can't hardly believe that's correct, maybe it's the inaccuracy of the test strips I got from Lowe's?............I always thought the water was pretty hard here, but it dose greatly very from city to city around here.

150 is borderline "hard", but not too bad.

You might not notice a lot of cleaning improvement since you are borderline, but you will definitely notice less scale.

Thanks.

I'll have to test my softened water once I recharge softener. And also the surrounding city's tap water to see how it compares.

That is a very good idea Davey...when I clean at the Zoo, I will often go through about 200 gallons of water, so I made a point to test it to see if I needed to use my softener. What I found was that it was about 75 ppm over the normal levels for that part of the city. Filling my fresh tank via the softener made a difference on that account.

Same goes for rural cleanings which all use well water. A sample only takes a few seconds with a test strip and a dixie cup, but that information can make a big difference.

Try dionized water. Takes up no space on truck/van. I have three tanks delivered to shop about every 6 weeks from Culligan. Tanks are good for 2000 - 2500 gallons. Costs me $160 ea time. I put this in fresh water tank whenever needed. Then also no descaling needed.

( miller ) gerry wrote:Try dionized water. Takes up no space on truck/van. I have three tanks delivered to shop about every 6 weeks from Culligan. Tanks are good for 2000 - 2500 gallons.  Costs me $160 ea time.  I put this in fresh water tank whenever needed.  Then also no descaling needed.

Sounds like a great option except I worry about dionized water's effects on some metals. Some of those minerals actually protect some metals from corrosion. Then again, you said that it wasn't being used full time, so you probably avoid that issue.

For me, softened water is probably necessary in 90% of my jobs, I don't know how well my pump and blower would survive if it was always dionized. Then again, I haven't tested it first hand either....might be interesting to soak different metals in a bucket of dionized water to see what happens (brass, copper, aluminum, stainless). The reports I read about 10 years ago showed lots of surface corrosion in a short period of time.

milspec6 wrote:I use these strips

http://www.microbeliftstore.com/home/ml1/page_140_55/5_in_1_test_strips.html

I just ordered some of these from Amazon for less than $14.

http://www.amazon.com/Ecological-Labs-TEST5-Test-Strip/dp/B000P6B3F0/ref=lh_ni_t?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER