Drought Cleaning?

[Exonian]

Shudder at the thought of waterless cleaning but…

Despite the fact it has done practically nothing but rain since the start of last September my local water authority have just reinstated a hosepipe ban in late April. Go figure. Obviously the constant deluges haven’t been wet enough despite my garden being a permanent quagmire. 

Well, I guess that means a late spring, summer and probably autumn without a hosepipe or pressure washer to clean the rainy filth, seagull poop and dead flies off with.

Did I mention it rains a lot here?


Can any of you detailists recommend a safe (for paint) regime for cleaning the car sans mains water? A little and often thing that doesn’t cost a fortune and doesn’t involve scratch and swirl cleaning emporiums.

I mean I *could* fill up buckets and lob that over the car but I really can’t be bothered as it’s quite a walk to the tap from the car.

In the meantime, spread the word far and wide: don’t go on holiday to Devon. Skegness is nice, go there instead. Tell your friends, colleagues and families. Seriously, Devon is crap, the sea is full of wee and poo and the people there are nasty. Tell everyone!
(That way the zillions of tourists won’t nick our water and I can have my hosepipe back)

[Tractor Dave]

You are welcome to pop over the bridge to me in Wales and borrow my pressure washer. No hose pipe here and as you say, non stop rain all winter. Even raining this morning. 

[Adam T7]

I live near Manchester, lots of rain and water here☔️💧
Last time we had a hosepipe ban was 1983 (I think).

[SRGTD]

@Exonian; I’m assuming it’s just hosepipes that are banned as far as car washing is concerned, and not car washing altogether (i.e. you can still wash your car using buckets of water).

Last time there was a hosepipe ban in my neck of the woods I used a large-ish garden pressure pump spray (I think mine is either 8 or 9 litre capacity) - similar to the one at the link below - for pre-washing before my normal three bucket wash and for post-washing. You do need to pump it up periodically to re-pressurise it as you work your way around the car, but that gives your arm a good work-out . Not as good as a high pressure hose or pressure washer, but it’s better than nothing IMHO and it kept the neighbours entertained.

https://www.toolstation.com/hawksmoor-pressure-sprayer/p44493?store=%7Bstore_code%7D&utm_source=googleshopping&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=googleshoppingfeed

Mine did a decent job of pre-rinsing (probably wouldn’t though if the car’s absolutely caked in mud); not quite so good at the post-wash rinse if the car’s well lathered up, but a couple of buckets of water sparingly poured over the car afterwards soon sorts that out, and has a similar effect to using an open ended hose for the final rinse in normal times sans hosepipe ban.

[Snoopy]

Odd how all that hand washing everyone had to do during Covid + warm weather but no water shortage 

[willni]

You can always go to a proper detailer to get a safe wash, around here they're about £20-£30.

Other than that, think fluffy microfibres in a bucket with car soap. Snowfoam in an aeration sprayer to foam the car, then fold the cloth its quarters, wipe in a straight line, turn over the next quarter, wipe, fold over to next quarter etc etc. So the microfibre only touches the paint once.

Tedious but a relatively safe wash method.

If you're experiencing this frequently but do get a lot of rain, you could consider rain water tanks to collect water for use around the garden and the car, just need to filter it. Detailed thread regarding this below:

https://www.detailingworld.co.uk/threads/rain-water-harvesting.415276/

[Exonian]

You are welcome to pop over the bridge to me in Wales and borrow my pressure washer. No hose pipe here and as you say, non stop rain all winter. Even raining this morning. 

Thanks for the offer  might be a bit grubby again by the time I get home though!
My lad lives 15 miles away where there are no restrictions, best offer he gave me was I could dip the car in the muddy puddle outside his house! 


@SRGTD, great suggestion on the pump action front. It would probably half kill me priming it but worthy of consideration

@Will, I’d pass out if I had to pay someone £20-30 to wash my car! 😁

Your other suggestions both excellent.
Thanks for the link too, people’s ingenuity and dedication amaze me 

[willni]

You are welcome to pop over the bridge to me in Wales and borrow my pressure washer. No hose pipe here and as you say, non stop rain all winter. Even raining this morning. 

Thanks for the offer  might be a bit grubby again by the time I get home though!
My lad lives 15 miles away where there are no restrictions, best offer he gave me was I could dip the car in the muddy puddle outside his house! 


@SRGTD, great suggestion on the pump action front. It would probably half kill me priming it but worthy of consideration

@Will, I’d pass out if I had to pay someone £20-30 to wash my car! 😁

Your other suggestions both excellent.
Thanks for the link too, people’s ingenuity and dedication amaze me 

People pay £5-10 for cheap car washes to scratch them so I don't think it's unreasonable  , depending on how often you want it washed that is, bi-monthly or monthly wouldn't be too bad, but weekly would be.

Personally if I were doing the water filtration system I'd box it out with timber cladding, ideally to tie in with a wheelie bin hide or a pergola, and placed side by side (assuming it works that way as well).

If doing the 15-20 microfibre route, I'd recommend this as a foamer https://www.iksprayers.com/en/ik-e-foam-pro-12-82678.html, IK are very good sprayers and are the only ones I've found to be durable. You could even get a normal one for just water to rinse off.

[Exonian]

I generally wash my car weekly or more frequently if needed even in winter so £20+ would be painful!! Maybe as you say, once every couple weeks or so in summer wouldn’t be so painful. Worth a thought.

I think the rain water water filtration system is a bit hardcore for me now I’ve read up on it. We have veto soft tap water where I live so never needed a filter for that. Water spotting isn’t a huge problem here with tap water. I just threw out an old kettle recently which was suffering extreme old age, it was probably nearer ten years old and didn’t have a hint of lime scale in it, and boy did it get a lot of use.
So that means a pump spray system is my favoured option.
Foam, shampoo then pump spray rinse.
So thanks for the links and advice