May 11, 2025 • 53 mins
The discourse presented herein elucidates the pivotal role of water treatment in the realm of detailing, emphasizing a fundamental truth: the impossibility of water softening without the incorporation of salt. Throughout our conversation, we critically examine the myriad types of purported "salt-free" softeners, which, upon closer scrutiny, reveal themselves to be merely template-assisted crystallization systems, rather than genuine softeners. Our esteemed guest, Cydian Kauffman from Pure Water Northwest, sheds light on the intricacies of water testing and the necessity of understanding one's water composition for effective detailing. We delve into the implications of water hardness on both the efficacy of detailing products and the long-term aesthetics of vehicle surfaces, thereby underscoring the necessity for professionals in the industry to be acutely aware of their water quality. This episode constitutes a clarion call to detailers to prioritize water treatment in their operational protocols, ensuring optimal results in their detailing endeavors.
Takeaways:
- The efficacy of water softeners is contingent upon their salt content, which is essential for proper function.
- Salt-free softeners are often misrepresented; they utilize template-assisted crystallization to mitigate hardness, not soften water.
- Testing water quality is imperative before selecting a treatment system; assumptions can lead to ineffective solutions.
- Both hardness and mineral composition in water can lead to unsightly spots on surfaces and require tailored cleaning methods for removal.
- Detailers should consider using a combination of water softeners and deionized systems to optimize their washing efficiency and minimize spotting.
- Understanding the chemical composition of water is crucial for achieving desired detailing results, particularly in challenging environments.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I'm going to give you the hardtruth about softeners, okay?
You cannot soften waterwithout salt.
Okay.
And there's a lot of salt freesofteners out there.
They're not softeners.
Gotcha.
They are.
They're what's called a tacksystem, which is template assisted
(00:22):
crystallization.
That's what TAQ stands for.
And what that does is it takesthe hardness and it binds it so that
it doesn't stick to things as well.
Might be okay for car washes,however, they're very, very unpredictable,
whether they actually.
(01:19):
All right, so I got aninteresting email a couple weeks
back and in the tagline itsaid, can your listeners handle the
truth about water?
And it, it really made me kindof perk up and think about it for
a minute because on thispodcast and most detailing podcasts
(01:39):
that I've ever been involvedwith or know people of or whatever,
we always talk about, youknow, the best compounds, the best
polishes, the best pads, thebest machines, yada, yada, yada.
But we never talk about thekey ingredient to everything.
I mean, it's not only the keyingredient of life, but it's the,
the, the one thing that makesour products, it's the one thing
(02:03):
that we need to do the jobsis, is water.
So, so I immediately sent a,sent an email back and was like,
let's do this.
So I've got Sidian Kaufmanfrom Pure Water Northwest to explain
maybe why we can't handle the truth.
(02:23):
And then we can dive into sometips and tricks about water and everything.
So how you doing, sir?
I'm great, thanks.
It's good, man.
You know, thanks for having meon, Alex.
No, no, you know, I'm, I'mbeing honest.
Like, it, it really, you know,I, I get emails every now and then
from people that are like, oh,you know, my person can help you
(02:45):
this, my person can help you that.
Come on.
And, and a lot of times it'slike, ah, you know, I don't know
how it would fit into adetailing podcast, but I mean, water
is what makes the detail worldgo round.
So I, I definitely wanted toget you on.
So I'm glad you're here.
Yeah, absolutely.
Thank you.
Yeah.
So what exactly, let's startexactly with what exactly is Pure
(03:09):
Water Northwest?
What do you, what do you guys do?
What do you guys make all that?
Whatever.
I mean, my answer to that's alittle bit nerdy.
Let's nerd out.
I mean, we got, we got somenerds that listen to this podcast.
We do Water science.
So we like to, we like to beas accurate and we try and set ourselves
(03:31):
up so we're less sellingproducts and more selling solutions.
Because, you know, if you're,if you're in the water industry and
you focus on products, thenyour next step after that is to do
less testing.
Because as soon as you dotesting, you're going to find out
that your product does notperfectly fit the water.
(03:53):
Right.
So we actually, what we dothat in at Pure Water Northwest is
we focus on testing first.
And the instant we test, thatsuddenly makes our job way more difficult
because then we're like, oh,you have like 50 parts per million
of chlorides in your water.
Wow.
We really actually have to dosomething different than just a standard
(04:18):
softener.
If you want to get your stuffspot free or high sodium level.
If we do a softener, you'regoing to get the same amount of spots
that you had before on yourglass or surfaces.
It's, it's going to be easierto get off, but it's going to be,
it's going to look nodifferent on the finished product.
(04:41):
So, and that's, that's ifwe're going for detailing, obviously
we also do stuff that'srelated to drinking water, but that's
a whole other can of wormsbecause there's a lot of, there's
a lot of crazy stuff aboutdrinking water.
So would you, when you sayyou, like, you do the testing and,
and please forgive me forbeing super naive about this, but
(05:04):
like when you say like testingit and looking at the different things,
like my immediately went tolike when I take a pool sample down
to pinch a penny and they gothrough and they go like, oh, you
don't have enough salt, youdon't have enough chlorine, you got
too much this, you know that.
So is it something kind of similar?
Yeah, it's kind of similar to that.
Exactly.
(05:24):
You're doing, that's calledtitration testing what they do.
And it's basically that it's,it's dropping little drops of something
in the water and then you dropother drops in.
And if it changes a certaincol, you compare the color on a color
wheel and you get a result.
I mean, that's.
If that's most of that testing.
(05:45):
Obviously there's like arsenictesting which requires like boiling
water and then taking thestuff that boils out into a different
oil solution, stuff like that.
But we're not talking aboutthat, so.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
Okay.
So on the detail side of it,you know Give us some detail science.
(06:09):
Because, you know, detailersand myself included, you know, we're,
you know, if we're doing itright, we're getting like a CR.
Spotless system or somethingsimilar to it.
And I actually talked to.
I have a client of mine whodoes like some water stuff, and he
was telling me realistically,what you should do is actually have
(06:31):
a softener first before itgoes into like your cr.
Spotless di.
Type system.
Because then what happens isit is it knocks down a lot of the
hardness so that the spotlesssystem then doesn't work as hard,
can last you a little bit longer.
(06:52):
Things like that is.
So he.
So you knew what he wastalking about.
Well, yeah, but if you testfirst, then you know how much that
matters.
So if you're in Seattle, forexample, they've already got their
water's like two grains pergallon of hardness on average.
Okay.
You probably don't knowSeattle very well, but I mean, if,
if you go.
(07:12):
Like, I, I was there for like.
Okay, so there, there.
It depends on where you are, basically.
And chlorine and chlorinebyproducts also matter sometimes,
but only when it's inextremely high level levels.
So let's just stick tohardness for a moment, though.
Hardness is basically like minerals.
(07:35):
It's rock.
Right.
Calcium, magnesium.
And then if it's allowed todry on a surface, it's like rock
stuck to that surface becauseit was in a soluble form.
And then it comes out, thewater comes off of it from evaporation
and then it's left there.
And if you looked at it with amicroscope, it would look like, like
(07:58):
little mountains on thesurface of your vehicle or on, even
on the, even on your leatheror whatever it is that it's on.
It would be.
And whether you can visuallysee it or not, and frequently you
can visually see it, it is there.
And it has an effect anytimethat surface gets wet again, it has
an effect on the ph level ofwhatever that surface, whatever that
(08:23):
is.
The water will actually havean alteration to the hydrogen ions,
which lower lowers the ph,increases the acidity level.
You know, leather wants.
Leather wants lower ph to be healthier.
Right?
Right.
Which you probably know.
And if you're, if you'regetting super alkaline water because
(08:48):
you're putting in a lot of.
You're not softening, you'reputting a lot of anon resin in, or
you're doing something elsethat makes your water more alkaline,
like for drinking, that not beas good for cleaning.
So.
And it's not that it's thatbad, but you got to ask yourself,
am I using this only fordetailing and washing or am I taking
(09:09):
a mixed use system?
And then do I need to doanything to the water after that
to make it perfect or idealfor washing?
Those CR spotless systems,they're DI systems, they're great.
DI is amazing for finishing acar to have it streak free.
But you don't need to use thatthe entire time you're washing either,
(09:30):
which you probably know or Idon't know.
Actually, I'm kind of curious.
Is that what the standard is?
Well, so I mean, I would saymost guys probably do just go ahead
and you know, use, use it foreverything because like here in Florida,
you know, a lot of, a lot ofpeople that I know, lot of detailers
(09:53):
that I know don't necessarilyhave like a wash bay in their shop.
So we're washing outside.
So even in like the pre rinse,the soap, all that stuff, you know,
a lot of times, unless you'redoing it early morning or later,
afternoon, evening time wheremaybe, you know, the sun's not up
(10:14):
as high or, you know,whatever, it's a little bit easier
to kind of get away with with that.
But that makes sense.
You know, if you're doing, ifyou're doing, you know, 9, 30, 10
o' clock and the sun's alreadyup beating on the car, you're, you're
kind of fighting that, youknow, to keep it wet to, to not spot
even, even with.
So I, I do, I do know a lot ofguys will just, you know, run the
(10:35):
system for the whole thing.
I do know that there are someguys that will usually, you know,
especially with something likethe CR spot list, they'll do like
the bypass valve.
So like what you're saying,they can turn, turn off this, the
spotless system, do theirinitial rinse, their soaping and
all that stuff and then turnit on for their final rinse to make
sure that, you know, they getthat, that street free.
(10:57):
Spot free kind of.
Yeah.
Look, and that, that kind ofidea, I would say, I mean just.
And this is where we have tomix our experience here.
Right.
But.
Right.
I would say the ideal systemwould be a softener because softeners
are so inexpensive to upkeep.
(11:18):
Right, right.
And that softener is gonnahave a little bit of salt in it,
but the softener doing themajority of the work and that alone
will take away a lot of thespotting that will make that will
leave behind just a little bitof salts A little bit of the chlorides
in Florida, probably not muchsilica over here.
There would be some silica,things like that.
(11:38):
And then the final wrenchthrough that DI system, the deionized
water is fantastic as a final rinse.
And then you are saving thelife of that di.
It's passing through thesoftener like you mentioned, anyhow,
and then you take the bypassoff so it's.
It, the, it's still passingthrough the softener.
The water that was used beforewas the softened water.
(12:02):
And now your DI water ispassing through the softener and
then it goes into the eye.
Then you spray down the carwith that.
That's like, that's an ideal scenario.
And you're replacing those DIcartridges a lot less.
Right, Right.
Yeah, that's what the, the guytold me when, when he was kind of
explaining the system to meand I'm still waiting to hear back
(12:24):
from him if, because I toldhim I would do a trade out.
I was like, dude, I mean, ifyou want to do a trade out, like,
you know, hook me up, I'll dosome cars for you.
So I'm still waiting to hearback from him on that.
Yeah.
Where are you in Florida?
So I'm in Sanford, which isjust north of Orlando.
So I'm in the central Florida area.
(12:45):
I know a good water streamingcompany down there, so.
Oh, okay.
I'm just seeing like where youare relative to like, I don't know
where.
You're probably really faraway from this.
Where's Clearwater compared?
Yeah, like way far away.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Clear water.
Yeah, Clear water is over onthe West Coast.
Super far away.
(13:06):
Okay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's a couple hours.
Florida though.
Yeah.
There's.
There's so many watertreatment companies in Florida because
the water is so hard there.
Yeah, right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So let me ask you, so thelittle TDS meters that you can buy
on, on Amazon and everythinglike that, those, those are pretty
(13:26):
accurate or not always.
How important your TDS to youto know?
I definitely use a, like I use A.
My TDS meter cost me $550.
Oh, wow.
It does TDS PH conductivityand that's all it does.
And it's a really sensitivemeter and I need to do that because
(13:52):
sometimes I run into a wellthat has like saltwater intrusion
or something.
So you're going to get like5,000 TDS in weird situations.
Yeah.
Which you obviously wouldnever want to touch that with a car.
But.
Yeah, I mean, you guys, youguys, I think ideally you look for
(14:14):
it being under 20.
Close.
Ideally closer to under 10 foryour situations.
Right.
Yeah, that's.
That's what a couple of thewater guys have told me is.
Is 0 to 10, perfect.
11 to 20.
You're, you know, you're stillgood, but, you know, and then once
you get over 21, then you'rekind of.
(14:35):
I.
It's.
It's.
You know, I don't know.
I mean, I feel like 21 to 30is probably still not that bad, you
know, but, you know, when I.
When I meter the.
The water coming out of thespigot at the shop and, you know,
it's like.
I think it was like.
I metered it last week.
It was like 207 parts permillion, which realistically, like,
(14:57):
looking at the.
The.
The thing on the back of theTDS is adequate drinking water.
Drinking water growing up inthe 80s.
Like, I drink plenty of that,you know.
Yeah.
TDS is just a mixture of,like, dozen different things and.
Right.
So you can't tell just fromlooking at TDS whether it's safe
(15:21):
to drink.
Just say.
Just so you know.
The TDS alone doesn't tell you.
But I'm not.
I mean, I'm an 80s kid, butI'm not still in the 80s, so I don't
drink out of hoses anymore.
I.
I'm.
I'm old enough now I can buybottled water.
I don't know.
I don't know if I do thatanymore either.
The.
There's some.
Really.
There's a lot of microplasticsin bottled water.
(15:44):
Oh, yeah, that's right.
I hear about that.
And it's real.
That's like.
And microplastics are.
It's really funny that bottledwater is used for this, because bottled
water better have somechlorine in it, because microplastics
are a perfect surface area forbacteria, actually.
(16:04):
So it's.
It's interesting.
Yeah.
Put.
Storing stuff.
I'm gonna.
I'm gonna.
Yeah.
I'm just gonna pitch all thewater bottles in my fridge now and
go back to, like, Coke aluminum.
Yeah.
That has its own issues, butmaybe not as bad.
Right.
(16:24):
The.
So can I ask about detailing alittle bit?
I.
I'm kind of curious about.
Is it known that City Water can.
City Water alone, just becauseit's called City water, can't just
be trusted not to leave, like,iron stains or, like, manganese stains.
(16:47):
Yeah, I mean, I.
I mean, I would.
I would hope that mostdetailers would kind of understand
that.
I was actually at a buddy ofMine at his shop one day because
he had the Cullen, theCulligan guy come because he was
looking into a Culligan like water.
Water softener system or DI system.
(17:08):
And so the guy, the guyprobably did a little bit more of
like what you're talking aboutwhere he tested the water because
he was talking about like howhigh the levels of chlorine were
and sulfur.
Like he, he actually likealmost had that pool company like
kit where he was like, youknow, doing the droppers and all
(17:28):
that stuff to be able to.
Yeah.
To be able to figure it outand everything.
So that's where, you know,realistically I, I kind of learned
a little bit of that.
I mean, obviously you.
You always hear on the news,you know, it's, you know, the, the
city water or whatever hasthis or has that.
I'm a little different.
(17:49):
I mean granted my, my shop iscity water.
But then here at our house wehave well water.
So you know, we have, we havea water.
An actual water softenersystem for the house.
You know, that, that'll takelike four bags of 40 pound salt,
you know, to fill the.
The container.
And then, you know, usuallylasts us a couple of months or so
(18:13):
because otherwise when wefirst built the house, you know,
it was.
The water smelled and we wouldtake a shower and stink like rotten
eggs and you know, definitelyhad hard water because you get out
of the shower and you justfeel ic.
So yeah, we definitely had toinvest in a, in a water softener
here at the house.
The softener alone shouldn'thave helped that rotten egg smell.
What did you do?
(18:36):
I mean, it did.
We don't really get that smell anymore.
How long has it been in with.
Oh, good Lord, man, we've hadthat thing.
Let's see, we built the housein 2003 and I want to say we probably
put that in.
I want to say like a coupleyears after being here.
(18:58):
So I mean it's been, it's beenin there probably 15, 16 years.
Yeah, we just had the guys outservicing it because it.
Something happened.
It stopped working.
Yeah.
So they had to come out andput a new little like pump motor
in or the little thing thatgoes back and forth that kind of
I guess makes.
Makes things work or whatever.
(19:18):
It's almost like a piston thatjust goes in and out.
They had to replace that andlike something else.
Yeah.
And, and then, you know, hetold us, he's like, you probably
can get another couple ofyears out of it and it's probably
going to be time to, toReplace it.
So.
Yeah, you know, but they musthave put in.
Well, that we'll see.
(19:39):
We'll see whether or not therod and egg smell comes back, because
back.
Back that 15, 16 years ago,they might have put in like a green
sand system or something thatplays kind of double duty, can pull
out a little bit of smells andisn't quite as effective with the
hardness, but does a goodenough job.
(20:01):
These days, they usually docompletely separate systems for the
hardness because then you canget it all gone.
And then the smell, which islike air injecting carbon, unless
the cause of the smell isbecause of some, like, iron bacteria.
And then you have to.
You have to oxidize withchlorine instead.
(20:23):
But yeah, so.
But that's awesome that yougot that.
What you got back then.
Yeah.
For you.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, and it's.
It's.
I've never, like, totallyopened it.
I mean, we could take the topout off the wand and it's got like,
the little computer and likethe motor in it.
But I mean, there's.
There's two kind of pieces toit, and they both probably stand
(20:45):
about, I don't know, I'd saythree, three and a half feet tall.
So the one, like I said, youpull the top off of it, it's got
the motor in it with, like,the little computer board.
And then the other one, youpull the top off it, and that's where
you put all the salt into it.
So I don't know if there'ssomething in the bottom of the other
one that maybe helps with thesmell or whatever.
Oh, yeah, yeah, that could be.
(21:07):
Yeah, yeah.
But yeah, yeah.
So I don't know.
But yeah, so, like, I don't.
You know, I would like tothink that detailers would know that,
but hopefully, if not, they'relistening to this and they're hearing
you, you know, kind of explainwhat all could be in.
In their, you know, citywater, you know, safe to drink.
(21:28):
City water, not safe to drink.
Well, I mean, any water,whether it's city water or well water,
can have, like, really crazystuff in it, like arsenic or uranium
or any of that stuff.
And you never know unless youtest for it.
City, though, they have a.
Wells, don't.
You can do whatever you want, right.
(21:48):
You can drink a hundred partsper million of.
Of arsenic and like, if youdie, you die.
But.
Right, City water, that is,they have limits set by the EPA of
what they're allowed through.
But the crazy thing is that the.
They have two limits.
(22:08):
One's called The MCL MaximumContaminant Level one's called the
MCLG Maximum Contaminant Levelgoal, and the goal is the health
guideline.
So, like, when you look at theEPA website, it'll say the MCL for
arsenic is 0.01.
The health guideline forarsenic, meaning the legal level.
(22:31):
The health guideline forarsenic is zero, meaning you can
have arsenic at like 0.009 andyou're good legally, but health wise,
no good according to the epa.
So, yeah, I mean, even citywater, it's a good idea to test.
You can have iron at justabout any level in city water, and
(22:54):
it's legal.
And because they're puttingchlorine in, it can come out colored.
So usually like, like orange color.
So usually they will dosomething like put in carbon in order
to get rid of some of that iron.
But still, some can passthrough and then that.
What that'll do is it will beon the surface and you won't see
(23:21):
it, and then once it oxidizesthrough drying, suddenly it'll be
orange.
Right.
And every.
Every detail.
Okay, good.
Is that.
Yeah, you get that.
You get that, Will.
I mean, I don't know that theyknow that it turned, you know, all
of that, but we all know, youknow, we've.
We've seen the cars.
The client brings it to us,you know, like, oh, my sprinkler
(23:43):
hits on this one side and, youknow, and it's all like yellowy orange
or whatever.
And it needs to be, you know,compound and polished out to remove
it because it doesn't just.
It can't just wash off.
And, you know, and you can'tjust throw a wax on it to remove
it.
You actually have to.
You actually have to clean it off.
You know, you have to usesomething with an abrasive or whatever.
(24:04):
So, yeah, I mean, we all, Ifeel, kind of know that.
I mean, it's either that or,you know, you get the.
The one side of the car that'sjust, you know, annihilated with
hard water spots, you know,where you could tell that they parked
at the edge of the driveway ornext to the.
The median curbing or whateverin the apartment complex, you know,
(24:26):
and come on at night, youknow, and.
And then the car isobliterated with.
With exactly water spots.
So.
So here's another question I'mcurious about.
When it comes to leather, doyou guys care a lot about chlorine
in the water?
Because I would think.
But yeah, so I would say this.
(24:46):
I mean, you Know for myselfand probably a majority of the detailers
in the industry, at least ifthey're knowledgeable enough.
If we're dealing with leather,it's your typical leather inside
the car.
Right.
Occasionally maybe amotorcycle or something like that
or whatever.
But we are primarily usingleather dedicated cleaners and conditioners.
(25:13):
So we're not using a water tolike mix something or dilute something
down.
Yeah, you're, you're typicallygoing to use.
And there's, and I'll givethem a shout out because I, I kind
of enjoy all the brands.
There's, there's, there's afew main brands that are leather
dedicated in the detailing industry.
(25:33):
It's, it's Color Lock, it'sGeist, it's the leather repair company
and it's leather reek.
And they all make leatherdedicated cleaners that are more
foaming.
So when you put it, put it onit foams up.
So that way you're not gettinga run line that if it's, you know,
got too much of a, of a harshcleaner in it, it's not going to
(25:56):
stain the leather.
And that's.
Yeah.
And that's kind of the problemwith some of the guys who are using
like an APC or a degreaserthat they're going to mix with water
dilute down and then you'rejust spraying it on the seat, you
know, and you get a, or on thedoor panel and then you get a run.
And if it's, you know, too gottoo much in it, it's gonna, it' burn
(26:18):
or, or you know, kind ofdiscolor the leather, you know, because
it's, it's just burning thedye that's in the leather.
So.
But yeah, I would say, atleast, I would like to say I'll know.
You know, you don't never wantto assume.
Yeah.
But majority, majority ofdetailers, if they really know, in
their experience they areusing a dedicated leather cleaner
(26:40):
of some sort.
So it's not, it's not.
Yeah, that makes sense becausechlorine would actually potentially
affect the oils on the leather.
But if you're doing adedicated cleaner then it'd be, they'd
be hitting that 4 ph ish,something like that, that leather
likes.
Right.
And they'd be doing the,they'd be having a mild thing to
(27:03):
remove oils.
They'd be making sure it'sleft somewhat moist, things like
that.
Right.
Like that's what the cleanersare doing.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean typically, like I said,usually they're like a foaming kind
of cleane.
Use a soft like horse, horsehair brush or something along that
line.
Okay, cool.
(27:23):
You know to, to agitate the,the dirt or the, or the grime off,
off of the top of the surface.
So dry it out too much andthen, and then typically you're putting
some sort of follow upconditioner protectant on it that's
then going to, you know,absorb back into the leather and,
and moisten it and keep it,keep it from drying out.
(27:45):
And then you know, dependingon I, I use one that actually has
a, a UV inhibitor kind ofprotectant over it as well.
Is it conditioning it but it'salso protecting it against UV to
keep the leather from dryingout and cracking as well.
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That's great.
Yeah, yeah, so that's good.
Yeah, so that's typically howwe deal with leather.
I mean I've got a buddy ofmine who in the past couple of years
took a deep dive into leather.
(29:34):
He started doing leather workjust as something to kind of like
pass a time and be a hobby.
And then the more he got intoit, the more he started learning
about like the different cutsof leather and like the different,
you know, how the differentcleaners work and the conditioners
and all this.
(29:54):
And you know, he gave me adeep dive one time when he was first
getting into it and I was justlike bro, you, you lost me me like
10 minutes ago.
You know, you're talking crazy stuff.
But, but yeah, so usually whenit comes to anything leather, like
he's, he's my guy.
I reach out to and I'm like,hey, I Got this.
What do I do?
(30:16):
Just because he spent the lastcouple of years doing.
Doing the deep dive in leather.
Wow, that's cool.
Yeah, yeah, it's nuts.
He.
He actually was.
He.
He was working for Color Lock.
I'm not sure if Brian's stillwith Color Lock, but he was working
for Color Lock, and he wasactually with Color Lock doing a
lot of work up at the MercedesBenz and BMW plants, like up in North
(30:41):
Carolina, like, going in thereand teaching their guys, like, how
to recondition the leather ifthey, you know, scratch something
or tear something in theassembly line without having to,
you know, redo the whole seatand whatnot.
So, yeah, it's pretty cool.
He had a.
He had a good littleexperience with that.
(31:03):
Well, that's neat.
You got you.
You're already doing great.
Yeah.
I mean, the last thing I mightbe able to add to this, though, would
be for people who are, like, in.
In my neck of the wood.
The Northwest, or.
Yeah.
Arizona, Nevada, or Hawaii.
Utah.
California, people.
Let's talk Hawaii.
Let's talk Hawaii, because Iknow a bunch of detailers in Hawaii,
(31:27):
and their biggest thing is thehard water spots.
Right.
So they're.
They're constantly combating that.
So, you know, what's.
What's their maybe solution orwhat is their things that they can
look into that kind of, youknow, helps with that?
(31:48):
Well, okay, this is where itgets kind of weird.
So hard water is very easy to handle.
If it's hard water we'recalling hard.
Just making sure we understand.
I can take all the hardnessout of a house.
Right.
No problem.
And you can still have all thesame amount of spots you had before.
(32:11):
Okay.
Because the spots are comingfrom something else.
Gotcha.
So, like, one of the craziestthings that you're gonna see in the
Northwest, Arizona,California, Hawaii, places with volcanoes,
for example.
Yeah.
Is silica.
Okay?
And silica is crazy.
(32:32):
Silica is, like, insanely hardto get rid of.
In fact, it plagues dentistoffices all the time when they got
to get that water down to thatreally, really etch free finish.
Okay.
No etching.
And if they have silica,they've got to do some pretty unique
stuff to get rid of it.
(32:53):
RO does not always get rid of silica.
Right.
RO will sometimes catchsilica, but in some form, silica
will blast right through an ro.
Oh, wow.
EI does not necessarily getrid of silica.
There are basically a few waysto get rid of silica, but the problem
(33:15):
is, is how many forms ofsilica there are.
Right.
So there's ionic silica andthat is charged so it can be removed
by di.
There's colloidal, there's nonionic silica.
It just, it, it would be likebreeze past the DI would be like,
I don't even know you're there.
(33:35):
I have no awareness that youexist at all.
Oh, wow.
And that's the kind of stuffthat can also get through an RO in
some cases.
Okay.
So if you're doing.
And the softener won't touchit either.
So in some places people aredoing everything they can to get
rid of hard water spots andthey're doing all the right things.
(33:56):
Everything you've alreadymentioned is all the right stuff.
Right.
Softener.
And then DI fin DI is so expensive.
You don't, you don't want tonecessarily do, do everything with
the eye.
If you can afford it, then great.
But, but silica could even beget past that and that could still
be why you have like remainingproblems with like spotting still
(34:19):
existing even after doing all that.
Okay, so let me ask you thisbecause, you know, water spotting
is obviously a, a huge topicin this industry and water spot removers
are always kind of seems likehit or miss.
I kind of have my, my thoughtson why or whatever.
(34:43):
But most water spot removersare just an acidic and more water.
Right.
Watered down because you're,you're essentially attacking the
acidic ness of whatever's inthe water spot with an acid, you
know, to kind of neutralize out.
In your, you know, in yourexperience, is there something that
(35:09):
is different or better that itcould remove water spots that you're
not, you know, spraying anacid or watered down acid or just,
you know, putting a heavycompound and a heavy pad on and just
cutting the living daylightsout of the paint to, to cut that
water spot out.
Yeah.
So that, that gets into thisother weird thing that we kind of
(35:33):
just touched on.
Water spots can be anything, right?
Yeah.
So if they're mineral depositsthen, you know, you, you're doing
that acid based stuff.
Right?
Right.
Like vinegar, sulfuric acid,citric acid, that kind of stuff.
(35:56):
But that often that can dull finishes.
If you're washing with it toohard, you have to use, you know,
stuff specialized for, foryour industry.
Of course.
Right.
So the problem with silica isit can literally etch like it can
etch glass, it can etch metals.
(36:17):
It can actually, if you'rerubbing too much silica and you can
suddenly see the, a polished surface.
If it's a lot of silica now alittle bit, you won't notice.
But if it's a lot, you can seea polished surface suddenly go dull.
Okay.
And then, and then sun.
Sun can like bake it into thesurface, right.
(36:40):
In a, in a way creating kindof a surface damage.
So if it's like acid rain orsoap scum, all that.
You guys know how to get ridof that stuff already?
Like, yeah, that's easy.
But for like that, that stuffthat's like etched silica, that is,
(37:04):
that is rough because you haveto get specialty cleaners for that.
It's.
I mean, and I, I don'tactually know them off the top of
my head because this is, thisis not that common a problem for
me to actually need to knowabout cleaning.
Right.
But I do know that that matters.
(37:24):
I was going to actually askyou about.
Do you guys ever use like,clay bars for cleaning?
Yeah.
Yeah.
What do you use that for?
So, so the clay, the clay barsor like the clay towels or the clay
mitts that, that they've kindof the synthetics that they've come
up with in the, in the recent years.
So what that does is almostlike a very minimal water, like wet
(37:51):
sanding.
So that's more for removing,removing contaminants off of the
surface that you, you know,typically wouldn't see.
So usually like your raildust, your overspray, any kind of
like.
I like to usually kind ofrefer to it as like fallout.
(38:11):
So just any industrial type fallout.
Like if you travel a lot oninterstates or highways where there's,
you know, tractor trailers andthings like that.
Somebody explained it to.
Explained it really good onetime is, you know, on, on interstates
or railways or anything like that.
You know, there's, there'salways going to be some kind of carbon
(38:34):
dusting or, or, or, you know,brake dusting, things like that.
And all that stuff goes up inthe air and what goes up must come
down and does it, you know,and it kind of like lands and, and
penetrates into the, thesurface of the pain on a micro level.
So.
Oh, got it.
To use, you know, a clay baror clay pad or towel or whatever,
(38:56):
you know, anybody's using and.
Because then what that doesis, is it'll remove it off of the
surface.
The analogy I came up withyears ago to kind of explain it to
clients is because we do claybarring and then there's also iron
removers, right?
Yeah.
You know, so the analogy I useis clay bar is kind of like shaving
(39:20):
your face, right.
Or, or your legs, if you're a girl.
Whatever, you're just.
You're just taking it off ofthe surface.
When you use an iron removerthat you're spraying onto the paint,
it's attacking the.
The pores of the paint to openup and allow that iron to actually
come out.
So then it's kind of like ifyou were to do like a waxing, you
(39:42):
know, you're ripping it out bythe root.
So a lot of times when we'redoing paint corrections and things
of that nature, not only areyou going to clay it, but you're
going to use an iron, becausethen you're fully cleaning the paint
before you get into yourcorrection work.
So, you know, if you were justto clay it and you're just kind of
(40:03):
shaving that.
That piece off of the surface,and then you do your correction,
you put your wax on it, yourceramic coating, your sealant, whatever.
Now you're just putting thatlayer on top of that contamination
that's still in the painttechnically and could eventually
work its way out.
Then you get a rough surfaceagain kind of thing.
Okay.
So, yeah, that's how that works.
(40:24):
So let me ask you this.
Is there a way to, like,looking at water spots to kind of
determine what is, you know, asilica spot that, you know, you just
kind of maybe are screwed or.
No.
Yeah, I'll show you.
Let me show.
Let me see if I can share animage with you.
(40:46):
If that.
Yeah, you should be able to doa shared screen.
There's like a little iconwith a computer with an arrow in
it.
All right.
On your.
On your screen, if you click that.
I see it.
Let me.
Let me get the image up.
Sorry.
For.
For the listeners who are listening.
Yeah, well, you know what?
(41:06):
That'll make them just have togo and flip over to the YouTube and
watch the video now.
Exactly.
So they'll watch it or listento it twice.
Yeah.
So let me see if I can get.
Okay.
Shared.
Where is it?
Okay, yeah, I see it now.
(41:27):
Okay, so can you see this?
Hang on.
There we go.
Okay.
Yep, I see that.
Okay, so these are.
This here on the left is 10hardness 420tds water that was left
to dry.
On the right, this has beensoftened down to about 300 TDS water.
(41:53):
Okay.
But it is totally soft.
Zero hardness.
Absolutely no hardness whatsoever.
Okay.
Can you tell the differencewhen I zoom in super far?
Yeah, I can kind of see thatthis edge comes out a little further
on this.
Yeah, yeah, I can see that.
But that one's a little bit thinner.
(42:15):
Yeah, but they're still both.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, I got you.
Like.
Yeah, that's, I guess that's,that's, that's what I mean.
Like you as long you got toknow what your spottings from by
testing.
Right.
And it's kind of hard becausetesting for silica is like really
difficult.
Well, not only that, but likeonce a car comes to a detailer, like
(42:37):
there's no way for us to testthe water.
No.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, so like that's that.
So, so, so we talked aboutdoing the softener before the di
for detailers out there thatare looking to, you know, get into
a system or maybe they need tochange their system out because that's
(42:58):
where I'm at right now.
I'm trying to, I'm trying tochange my system out.
I'm trying to get a new system.
So right now I'm doing all mywashing in the morning before the
sun comes up in the morning.
So I don't, I don't worryabout water spotting.
But for the detailers thatdon't have, you know, a, an arm and
a leg to spend on somethinglike that.
I know the CR spotless isprobably the most economy.
(43:19):
You know, they're usually inlike that 400, 450 range.
But what would you suggest asfar as like to add a softener onto
it?
Or is there another system outthere that maybe is the same as CR
spotless, maybe a little bitbetter, a little bit more affordable?
Would you, what do you recommend?
(43:39):
I'm going to give you the hardtruth about softeners.
Okay.
You cannot soften waterwithout salt.
Okay.
And there's a lot of salt freesofteners out there.
They're not softeners.
They are, they're what'scalled a tack system, which is template
(44:01):
assisted crystallization.
That's what TAC stands for.
And what that does is it takesthe hardness and it binds it so that
it doesn't stick to things as well.
Which might be okay for car washes.
However, they're very, veryunpredictable whether they actually
work.
Gotcha.
(44:22):
So if you buy a TAC system andit works, you're good.
And then you don't have toworry about salt.
You just replace the mediaafter 10 years.
Right.
However, in a lot of casesthose tax systems won't work.
You will have just wasted yourmoney and then you will have to spend
money on a softener.
All a softener is, don't gettoo complex about it.
(44:44):
It's just cation resin.
It's cat.
Cat ion resin.
Okay, now it's how it's putinto the system with a bed of gravel
at the bottom and a valve atthe top to manage the water that
is a little bit more complex.
And then the other thing thatmatters a lot is the water usage.
(45:09):
So if you are just runningthrough water because you're doing
wash after wash after wash,you're going to be dumping bags of
salt into that system.
Right.
Because the salt is used toclean the, regenerate the media.
And if you don't want to bedoing that constantly, you need a
bigger size system so you havea higher capacity.
(45:30):
Gotcha.
So the, the tricky stuff isnot will it, you know, what kind
of softener?
There's only so many grades ofmedia you can search online, you
can go down to your localhardware store and get a really cheap
softener.
Will it work?
Yes.
Will it work long term?
That really depends on howmuch detailing you're doing with
that.
(45:51):
Yeah.
So if you want it dialed in,you need to talk to someone like
us and we can help dial it infor you.
The exact thing you want, getyou something that will last.
But yeah, if you're on abudget, I would definitely start
with the least expensivesoftener you can get.
Just make it work till you getsome more money.
(46:13):
And then I would dial it inand get something that is more efficient.
And if I'm not wrong withwater softeners that you're using
the salt, you have to havesome way to drain it.
Right.
Because those need to likedrain out every day, a couple days
or something like that, Ibelieve, depending on how much you
(46:34):
use it.
So even if it's something youput in your shop, you have to be
able to have a way to run adrain line or something out.
Yeah, it's a spell that.
Yeah.
Because I know ours kicks onevery night at like 2:30 in the morning
and sometimes it wakes me up,sometimes it doesn't.
So yours is regenerating daily.
(46:54):
Wow.
I think, I think it might, itmight be every other day.
I'm.
I'm not sure.
Yeah, I just know sometimes Isleep through it and sometimes at
2:30 is, you know, usuallywhen the old bladder's like knocking
on like, hey, we need to go,go pee real quick.
And I lay back in bed and Ihear the, I hear the thing just,
(47:17):
you know, pouring out thewater and everything like that.
So.
Yeah.
Yeah, like I said, I don'tknow if it does it every night, but
I know it does most nights.
So.
Yeah.
Okay, well that's, it's it'sall interesting.
I mean, it's, that's, yeah,like I said, I mean, we talk on this
(47:37):
on my podcast.
I mean, I've been doing thisfive years now.
I think I'm like 390 episodesin or something like that.
And this is the first timeI've ever talked about water.
So, you know.
Yeah, so.
And I don't know anybody elsethat's talked about water, you know,
other than maybe if they werejust doing like a review on a, on
a DI system or something like that.
(47:58):
So.
You know what's funny, man?
No one wants to talk about water.
I'm in the industry.
And other than people in thisindustry who talk about water all
the time, all of ourcustomers, when they're calling us,
they're like, I don't even, Idon't even want to look at this.
I, I, my water is supposed tobe fine, but for some reason I'm
(48:20):
having all this trouble.
So fine, go ahead and check itout for me.
It's like they're almost angryat us.
And we're, we're just here tohelp you.
Right?
You're the one who neverlooked at whether or not your water
has stuff in it.
And that's the thing.
People want to just drinktheir water and assume it's good,
but you gotta test.
You just have to actually look.
(48:40):
Yeah, that's what we, that'swhat we say.
Especially when it's aboutdrinking water.
You don't want to be drinking arsenic.
Yeah, that's true.
That's true.
Now you got me thinking.
I need to go get a tester andtest all my waters now.
Well, it's easy.
There's like these syndicatedlabs online that like 200 would be
the only test you need foryour well.
(49:01):
It's 200 bucks.
It tests for 50 different things.
Send it to me.
I will analyze it for you for free.
Just.
I'll get you, I'll tell youwhat you need to know.
Right, Right.
That's good.
It's, yeah, it's easy.
Just go to like, I think it'scalled tapscore.com.
get the well s.
(49:21):
Okay for 200 bucks.
Yeah.
While we're on specific suggestions.
Yeah.
The people who have silica outthere, if you're worried that you
have silica, you should get alittle thing from resin tech of ASM
125 and run your water throughthat just as a test to see if it
(49:44):
makes any difference.
Okay.
That, that is the name of thestuff that is Silica is very difficult
it requires very specialized stuff.
So that's what it's called.
Oh, that's it.
I just had to say that in caseanyone out there is going.
He didn't say anything aboutwhat to do about silica.
Yeah, no, no, no.
(50:05):
Yeah, yeah.
Just close your business downand go into a different industry
and not worry about it.
Yeah.
So.
So.
So for Pure Water Northwest,do you guys offer solutions like.
Or.
Or systems or something like that?
So if somebody's listening tothis podcast, maybe, you know, wants
to reach out to you and maybeget, you know, pick your brain a
(50:28):
little bit more or ask youabout systems and everything like
that would.
Is that something they'd beable to do?
And if so, like, how do theyget a hold of you guys?
Just go toPureWaterNorthwest.com the numbers
right on the website.
There's also a chat feature there.
And you can.
If.
If you follow enough.
If you follow enough stepsafter that number, you can call me
(50:50):
directly.
It's pretty easy.
You'll call one of our peopleand you'll say, I want to talk to
City.
And.
And they will say, okay, we'llget it set up for you.
Yeah.
And then you'll be like,you're gonna be like, damn.
Going on that podcast and allthese details.
Everyone keeps calling me.
Yeah.
Well, maybe somebody will bein my area and needs help, and I
can.
I can technically help people anywhere.
(51:13):
I would just need to send themthe equipment.
Right.
But I would imagine if someonewants my help, they're probably going
to be in my area.
Yeah.
And we do have.
We do have listeners in the.
The Pacific Northwest area,especially Seattle.
Cool.
Kimball, I'm looking at you.
I know he still listens to this.
(51:34):
Well, listen, City and I.
I appreciate you taking thetime, let alone reaching out.
I mean, I'm.
I'm, you know, I.
You know, the fact that youeven, like, happen to stumble across
one of the podcast episodes,to even listen to it, to reach out
is.
Is pretty awesome becausethere's a lot of times, you know,
I'm like, well, you know, thisis such a niche podcast for a niche
(51:57):
industry.
And.
And, you know, I mean, I knowthere's a lot of DIYers out there
and everything that would.
Would possibly stumble across it.
But, yeah, sometimes I'm.
I'm, you know, a littlesurprised when I get some emails
from people that are like,hey, listen to this episode.
You know, thinking about, youknow, could we come on?
And whatever.
(52:18):
I mean, I just had a guy.
I just had a guy a month or so ago.
He's from Australia and hedoes marketing.
He teaches, teaches how to dolike one of his biggest thing is
like vacation sales.
So like he has a system wherelike you can buy vacations for super
(52:39):
cheap and then you runpromotions where you give away, you
know, a five night stay atlike Las Vegas or Orlando or wherever.
And it's, you know, only costlike maybe 90 bucks to buy the vacation
and you're giving it away on aservice that you're, you know, selling
for a few hundred dollars orsomething like that.
So.
(52:59):
So that was a neat one too.
So yeah, that was interestingbecause not something that, that
I would normally do.
This one, like I said, was notsomething that, you know, I normally
would have thought of, but youknow, it was very interesting.
So I'm so thank you forreaching out and thank you for coming
on and taking the time to dothis and, and hey, if anybody wants
(53:20):
to figure out about theirwater, you know, just go ahead and
call city and reach out to them.
I appreciate it, Alex.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah, no problem, sir.
Listen, you have a great nightand we'll, we'll talk soon because
I'll reach out.
All right, take care.
Sounds good.
Bye.
Hey, don't check out yet.
I'm going to give you the hardtruth about softeners, okay?
You cannot soften waterwithout salt.
Okay.
And there's a lot of salt freesofteners out there.
They're not softeners.
Gotcha.
They are.
They're what's called a tacksystem, which is template assisted
(00:22):
crystallization.
That's what TAQ stands for.
And what that does is it takesthe hardness and it binds it so that
it doesn't stick to things as well.
Might be okay for car washes,however, they're very, very unpredictable,
whether they actually.
(01:19):
All right, so I got aninteresting email a couple weeks
back and in the tagline itsaid, can your listeners handle the
truth about water?
And it, it really made me kindof perk up and think about it for
a minute because on thispodcast and most detailing podcasts
(01:39):
that I've ever been involvedwith or know people of or whatever,
we always talk about, youknow, the best compounds, the best
polishes, the best pads, thebest machines, yada, yada, yada.
But we never talk about thekey ingredient to everything.
I mean, it's not only the keyingredient of life, but it's the,
the, the one thing that makesour products, it's the one thing
(02:03):
that we need to do the jobsis, is water.
So, so I immediately sent a,sent an email back and was like,
let's do this.
So I've got Sidian Kaufmanfrom Pure Water Northwest to explain
maybe why we can't handle the truth.
(02:23):
And then we can dive into sometips and tricks about water and everything.
So how you doing, sir?
I'm great, thanks.
It's good, man.
You know, thanks for having meon, Alex.
No, no, you know, I'm, I'mbeing honest.
Like, it, it really, you know,I, I get emails every now and then
from people that are like, oh,you know, my person can help you
(02:45):
this, my person can help you that.
Come on.
And, and a lot of times it'slike, ah, you know, I don't know
how it would fit into adetailing podcast, but I mean, water
is what makes the detail worldgo round.
So I, I definitely wanted toget you on.
So I'm glad you're here.
Yeah, absolutely.
Thank you.
Yeah.
So what exactly, let's startexactly with what exactly is Pure
(03:09):
Water Northwest?
What do you, what do you guys do?
What do you guys make all that?
Whatever.
I mean, my answer to that's alittle bit nerdy.
Let's nerd out.
I mean, we got, we got somenerds that listen to this podcast.
We do Water science.
So we like to, we like to beas accurate and we try and set ourselves
(03:31):
up so we're less sellingproducts and more selling solutions.
Because, you know, if you're,if you're in the water industry and
you focus on products, thenyour next step after that is to do
less testing.
Because as soon as you dotesting, you're going to find out
that your product does notperfectly fit the water.
(03:53):
Right.
So we actually, what we dothat in at Pure Water Northwest is
we focus on testing first.
And the instant we test, thatsuddenly makes our job way more difficult
because then we're like, oh,you have like 50 parts per million
of chlorides in your water.
Wow.
We really actually have to dosomething different than just a standard
(04:18):
softener.
If you want to get your stuffspot free or high sodium level.
If we do a softener, you'regoing to get the same amount of spots
that you had before on yourglass or surfaces.
It's, it's going to be easierto get off, but it's going to be,
it's going to look nodifferent on the finished product.
(04:41):
So, and that's, that's ifwe're going for detailing, obviously
we also do stuff that'srelated to drinking water, but that's
a whole other can of wormsbecause there's a lot of, there's
a lot of crazy stuff aboutdrinking water.
So would you, when you sayyou, like, you do the testing and,
and please forgive me forbeing super naive about this, but
(05:04):
like when you say like testingit and looking at the different things,
like my immediately went tolike when I take a pool sample down
to pinch a penny and they gothrough and they go like, oh, you
don't have enough salt, youdon't have enough chlorine, you got
too much this, you know that.
So is it something kind of similar?
Yeah, it's kind of similar to that.
Exactly.
(05:24):
You're doing, that's calledtitration testing what they do.
And it's basically that it's,it's dropping little drops of something
in the water and then you dropother drops in.
And if it changes a certaincol, you compare the color on a color
wheel and you get a result.
I mean, that's.
If that's most of that testing.
(05:45):
Obviously there's like arsenictesting which requires like boiling
water and then taking thestuff that boils out into a different
oil solution, stuff like that.
But we're not talking aboutthat, so.
Yeah, that's exactly right.
Okay.
So on the detail side of it,you know Give us some detail science.
(06:09):
Because, you know, detailersand myself included, you know, we're,
you know, if we're doing itright, we're getting like a CR.
Spotless system or somethingsimilar to it.
And I actually talked to.
I have a client of mine whodoes like some water stuff, and he
was telling me realistically,what you should do is actually have
(06:31):
a softener first before itgoes into like your cr.
Spotless di.
Type system.
Because then what happens isit is it knocks down a lot of the
hardness so that the spotlesssystem then doesn't work as hard,
can last you a little bit longer.
(06:52):
Things like that is.
So he.
So you knew what he wastalking about.
Well, yeah, but if you testfirst, then you know how much that
matters.
So if you're in Seattle, forexample, they've already got their
water's like two grains pergallon of hardness on average.
Okay.
You probably don't knowSeattle very well, but I mean, if,
if you go.
(07:12):
Like, I, I was there for like.
Okay, so there, there.
It depends on where you are, basically.
And chlorine and chlorinebyproducts also matter sometimes,
but only when it's inextremely high level levels.
So let's just stick tohardness for a moment, though.
Hardness is basically like minerals.
(07:35):
It's rock.
Right.
Calcium, magnesium.
And then if it's allowed todry on a surface, it's like rock
stuck to that surface becauseit was in a soluble form.
And then it comes out, thewater comes off of it from evaporation
and then it's left there.
And if you looked at it with amicroscope, it would look like, like
(07:58):
little mountains on thesurface of your vehicle or on, even
on the, even on your leatheror whatever it is that it's on.
It would be.
And whether you can visuallysee it or not, and frequently you
can visually see it, it is there.
And it has an effect anytimethat surface gets wet again, it has
an effect on the ph level ofwhatever that surface, whatever that
(08:23):
is.
The water will actually havean alteration to the hydrogen ions,
which lower lowers the ph,increases the acidity level.
You know, leather wants.
Leather wants lower ph to be healthier.
Right?
Right.
Which you probably know.
And if you're, if you'regetting super alkaline water because
(08:48):
you're putting in a lot of.
You're not softening, you'reputting a lot of anon resin in, or
you're doing something elsethat makes your water more alkaline,
like for drinking, that not beas good for cleaning.
So.
And it's not that it's thatbad, but you got to ask yourself,
am I using this only fordetailing and washing or am I taking
(09:09):
a mixed use system?
And then do I need to doanything to the water after that
to make it perfect or idealfor washing?
Those CR spotless systems,they're DI systems, they're great.
DI is amazing for finishing acar to have it streak free.
But you don't need to use thatthe entire time you're washing either,
(09:30):
which you probably know or Idon't know.
Actually, I'm kind of curious.
Is that what the standard is?
Well, so I mean, I would saymost guys probably do just go ahead
and you know, use, use it foreverything because like here in Florida,
you know, a lot of, a lot ofpeople that I know, lot of detailers
(09:53):
that I know don't necessarilyhave like a wash bay in their shop.
So we're washing outside.
So even in like the pre rinse,the soap, all that stuff, you know,
a lot of times, unless you'redoing it early morning or later,
afternoon, evening time wheremaybe, you know, the sun's not up
(10:14):
as high or, you know,whatever, it's a little bit easier
to kind of get away with with that.
But that makes sense.
You know, if you're doing, ifyou're doing, you know, 9, 30, 10
o' clock and the sun's alreadyup beating on the car, you're, you're
kind of fighting that, youknow, to keep it wet to, to not spot
even, even with.
So I, I do, I do know a lot ofguys will just, you know, run the
(10:35):
system for the whole thing.
I do know that there are someguys that will usually, you know,
especially with something likethe CR spot list, they'll do like
the bypass valve.
So like what you're saying,they can turn, turn off this, the
spotless system, do theirinitial rinse, their soaping and
all that stuff and then turnit on for their final rinse to make
sure that, you know, they getthat, that street free.
(10:57):
Spot free kind of.
Yeah.
Look, and that, that kind ofidea, I would say, I mean just.
And this is where we have tomix our experience here.
Right.
But.
Right.
I would say the ideal systemwould be a softener because softeners
are so inexpensive to upkeep.
(11:18):
Right, right.
And that softener is gonnahave a little bit of salt in it,
but the softener doing themajority of the work and that alone
will take away a lot of thespotting that will make that will
leave behind just a little bitof salts A little bit of the chlorides
in Florida, probably not muchsilica over here.
There would be some silica,things like that.
(11:38):
And then the final wrenchthrough that DI system, the deionized
water is fantastic as a final rinse.
And then you are saving thelife of that di.
It's passing through thesoftener like you mentioned, anyhow,
and then you take the bypassoff so it's.
It, the, it's still passingthrough the softener.
The water that was used beforewas the softened water.
(12:02):
And now your DI water ispassing through the softener and
then it goes into the eye.
Then you spray down the carwith that.
That's like, that's an ideal scenario.
And you're replacing those DIcartridges a lot less.
Right, Right.
Yeah, that's what the, the guytold me when, when he was kind of
explaining the system to meand I'm still waiting to hear back
(12:24):
from him if, because I toldhim I would do a trade out.
I was like, dude, I mean, ifyou want to do a trade out, like,
you know, hook me up, I'll dosome cars for you.
So I'm still waiting to hearback from him on that.
Yeah.
Where are you in Florida?
So I'm in Sanford, which isjust north of Orlando.
So I'm in the central Florida area.
(12:45):
I know a good water streamingcompany down there, so.
Oh, okay.
I'm just seeing like where youare relative to like, I don't know
where.
You're probably really faraway from this.
Where's Clearwater compared?
Yeah, like way far away.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Clear water.
Yeah, Clear water is over onthe West Coast.
Super far away.
(13:06):
Okay.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's a couple hours.
Florida though.
Yeah.
There's.
There's so many watertreatment companies in Florida because
the water is so hard there.
Yeah, right.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So let me ask you, so thelittle TDS meters that you can buy
on, on Amazon and everythinglike that, those, those are pretty
(13:26):
accurate or not always.
How important your TDS to youto know?
I definitely use a, like I use A.
My TDS meter cost me $550.
Oh, wow.
It does TDS PH conductivityand that's all it does.
And it's a really sensitivemeter and I need to do that because
(13:52):
sometimes I run into a wellthat has like saltwater intrusion
or something.
So you're going to get like5,000 TDS in weird situations.
Yeah.
Which you obviously wouldnever want to touch that with a car.
But.
Yeah, I mean, you guys, youguys, I think ideally you look for
(14:14):
it being under 20.
Close.
Ideally closer to under 10 foryour situations.
Right.
Yeah, that's.
That's what a couple of thewater guys have told me is.
Is 0 to 10, perfect.
11 to 20.
You're, you know, you're stillgood, but, you know, and then once
you get over 21, then you'rekind of.
(14:35):
I.
It's.
It's.
You know, I don't know.
I mean, I feel like 21 to 30is probably still not that bad, you
know, but, you know, when I.
When I meter the.
The water coming out of thespigot at the shop and, you know,
it's like.
I think it was like.
I metered it last week.
It was like 207 parts permillion, which realistically, like,
(14:57):
looking at the.
The.
The thing on the back of theTDS is adequate drinking water.
Drinking water growing up inthe 80s.
Like, I drink plenty of that,you know.
Yeah.
TDS is just a mixture of,like, dozen different things and.
Right.
So you can't tell just fromlooking at TDS whether it's safe
(15:21):
to drink.
Just say.
Just so you know.
The TDS alone doesn't tell you.
But I'm not.
I mean, I'm an 80s kid, butI'm not still in the 80s, so I don't
drink out of hoses anymore.
I.
I'm.
I'm old enough now I can buybottled water.
I don't know.
I don't know if I do thatanymore either.
The.
There's some.
Really.
There's a lot of microplasticsin bottled water.
(15:44):
Oh, yeah, that's right.
I hear about that.
And it's real.
That's like.
And microplastics are.
It's really funny that bottledwater is used for this, because bottled
water better have somechlorine in it, because microplastics
are a perfect surface area forbacteria, actually.
(16:04):
So it's.
It's interesting.
Yeah.
Put.
Storing stuff.
I'm gonna.
I'm gonna.
Yeah.
I'm just gonna pitch all thewater bottles in my fridge now and
go back to, like, Coke aluminum.
Yeah.
That has its own issues, butmaybe not as bad.
Right.
(16:24):
The.
So can I ask about detailing alittle bit?
I.
I'm kind of curious about.
Is it known that City Water can.
City Water alone, just becauseit's called City water, can't just
be trusted not to leave, like,iron stains or, like, manganese stains.
(16:47):
Yeah, I mean, I.
I mean, I would.
I would hope that mostdetailers would kind of understand
that.
I was actually at a buddy ofMine at his shop one day because
he had the Cullen, theCulligan guy come because he was
looking into a Culligan like water.
Water softener system or DI system.
(17:08):
And so the guy, the guyprobably did a little bit more of
like what you're talking aboutwhere he tested the water because
he was talking about like howhigh the levels of chlorine were
and sulfur.
Like he, he actually likealmost had that pool company like
kit where he was like, youknow, doing the droppers and all
(17:28):
that stuff to be able to.
Yeah.
To be able to figure it outand everything.
So that's where, you know,realistically I, I kind of learned
a little bit of that.
I mean, obviously you.
You always hear on the news,you know, it's, you know, the, the
city water or whatever hasthis or has that.
I'm a little different.
(17:49):
I mean granted my, my shop iscity water.
But then here at our house wehave well water.
So you know, we have, we havea water.
An actual water softenersystem for the house.
You know, that, that'll takelike four bags of 40 pound salt,
you know, to fill the.
The container.
And then, you know, usuallylasts us a couple of months or so
(18:13):
because otherwise when wefirst built the house, you know,
it was.
The water smelled and we wouldtake a shower and stink like rotten
eggs and you know, definitelyhad hard water because you get out
of the shower and you justfeel ic.
So yeah, we definitely had toinvest in a, in a water softener
here at the house.
The softener alone shouldn'thave helped that rotten egg smell.
What did you do?
(18:36):
I mean, it did.
We don't really get that smell anymore.
How long has it been in with.
Oh, good Lord, man, we've hadthat thing.
Let's see, we built the housein 2003 and I want to say we probably
put that in.
I want to say like a coupleyears after being here.
(18:58):
So I mean it's been, it's beenin there probably 15, 16 years.
Yeah, we just had the guys outservicing it because it.
Something happened.
It stopped working.
Yeah.
So they had to come out andput a new little like pump motor
in or the little thing thatgoes back and forth that kind of
I guess makes.
Makes things work or whatever.
(19:18):
It's almost like a piston thatjust goes in and out.
They had to replace that andlike something else.
Yeah.
And, and then, you know, hetold us, he's like, you probably
can get another couple ofyears out of it and it's probably
going to be time to, toReplace it.
So.
Yeah, you know, but they musthave put in.
Well, that we'll see.
(19:39):
We'll see whether or not therod and egg smell comes back, because
back.
Back that 15, 16 years ago,they might have put in like a green
sand system or something thatplays kind of double duty, can pull
out a little bit of smells andisn't quite as effective with the
hardness, but does a goodenough job.
(20:01):
These days, they usually docompletely separate systems for the
hardness because then you canget it all gone.
And then the smell, which islike air injecting carbon, unless
the cause of the smell isbecause of some, like, iron bacteria.
And then you have to.
You have to oxidize withchlorine instead.
(20:23):
But yeah, so.
But that's awesome that yougot that.
What you got back then.
Yeah.
For you.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, and it's.
It's.
I've never, like, totallyopened it.
I mean, we could take the topout off the wand and it's got like,
the little computer and likethe motor in it.
But I mean, there's.
There's two kind of pieces toit, and they both probably stand
(20:45):
about, I don't know, I'd saythree, three and a half feet tall.
So the one, like I said, youpull the top off of it, it's got
the motor in it with, like,the little computer board.
And then the other one, youpull the top off it, and that's where
you put all the salt into it.
So I don't know if there'ssomething in the bottom of the other
one that maybe helps with thesmell or whatever.
Oh, yeah, yeah, that could be.
(21:07):
Yeah, yeah.
But yeah, yeah.
So I don't know.
But yeah, so, like, I don't.
You know, I would like tothink that detailers would know that,
but hopefully, if not, they'relistening to this and they're hearing
you, you know, kind of explainwhat all could be in.
In their, you know, citywater, you know, safe to drink.
(21:28):
City water, not safe to drink.
Well, I mean, any water,whether it's city water or well water,
can have, like, really crazystuff in it, like arsenic or uranium
or any of that stuff.
And you never know unless youtest for it.
City, though, they have a.
Wells, don't.
You can do whatever you want, right.
(21:48):
You can drink a hundred partsper million of.
Of arsenic and like, if youdie, you die.
But.
Right, City water, that is,they have limits set by the EPA of
what they're allowed through.
But the crazy thing is that the.
They have two limits.
(22:08):
One's called The MCL MaximumContaminant Level one's called the
MCLG Maximum Contaminant Levelgoal, and the goal is the health
guideline.
So, like, when you look at theEPA website, it'll say the MCL for
arsenic is 0.01.
The health guideline forarsenic, meaning the legal level.
(22:31):
The health guideline forarsenic is zero, meaning you can
have arsenic at like 0.009 andyou're good legally, but health wise,
no good according to the epa.
So, yeah, I mean, even citywater, it's a good idea to test.
You can have iron at justabout any level in city water, and
(22:54):
it's legal.
And because they're puttingchlorine in, it can come out colored.
So usually like, like orange color.
So usually they will dosomething like put in carbon in order
to get rid of some of that iron.
But still, some can passthrough and then that.
What that'll do is it will beon the surface and you won't see
(23:21):
it, and then once it oxidizesthrough drying, suddenly it'll be
orange.
Right.
And every.
Every detail.
Okay, good.
Is that.
Yeah, you get that.
You get that, Will.
I mean, I don't know that theyknow that it turned, you know, all
of that, but we all know, youknow, we've.
We've seen the cars.
The client brings it to us,you know, like, oh, my sprinkler
(23:43):
hits on this one side and, youknow, and it's all like yellowy orange
or whatever.
And it needs to be, you know,compound and polished out to remove
it because it doesn't just.
It can't just wash off.
And, you know, and you can'tjust throw a wax on it to remove
it.
You actually have to.
You actually have to clean it off.
You know, you have to usesomething with an abrasive or whatever.
(24:04):
So, yeah, I mean, we all, Ifeel, kind of know that.
I mean, it's either that or,you know, you get the.
The one side of the car that'sjust, you know, annihilated with
hard water spots, you know,where you could tell that they parked
at the edge of the driveway ornext to the.
The median curbing or whateverin the apartment complex, you know,
(24:26):
and come on at night, youknow, and.
And then the car isobliterated with.
With exactly water spots.
So.
So here's another question I'mcurious about.
When it comes to leather, doyou guys care a lot about chlorine
in the water?
Because I would think.
But yeah, so I would say this.
(24:46):
I mean, you Know for myselfand probably a majority of the detailers
in the industry, at least ifthey're knowledgeable enough.
If we're dealing with leather,it's your typical leather inside
the car.
Right.
Occasionally maybe amotorcycle or something like that
or whatever.
But we are primarily usingleather dedicated cleaners and conditioners.
(25:13):
So we're not using a water tolike mix something or dilute something
down.
Yeah, you're, you're typicallygoing to use.
And there's, and I'll givethem a shout out because I, I kind
of enjoy all the brands.
There's, there's, there's afew main brands that are leather
dedicated in the detailing industry.
(25:33):
It's, it's Color Lock, it'sGeist, it's the leather repair company
and it's leather reek.
And they all make leatherdedicated cleaners that are more
foaming.
So when you put it, put it onit foams up.
So that way you're not gettinga run line that if it's, you know,
got too much of a, of a harshcleaner in it, it's not going to
(25:56):
stain the leather.
And that's.
Yeah.
And that's kind of the problemwith some of the guys who are using
like an APC or a degreaserthat they're going to mix with water
dilute down and then you'rejust spraying it on the seat, you
know, and you get a, or on thedoor panel and then you get a run.
And if it's, you know, too gottoo much in it, it's gonna, it' burn
(26:18):
or, or you know, kind ofdiscolor the leather, you know, because
it's, it's just burning thedye that's in the leather.
So.
But yeah, I would say, atleast, I would like to say I'll know.
You know, you don't never wantto assume.
Yeah.
But majority, majority ofdetailers, if they really know, in
their experience they areusing a dedicated leather cleaner
(26:40):
of some sort.
So it's not, it's not.
Yeah, that makes sense becausechlorine would actually potentially
affect the oils on the leather.
But if you're doing adedicated cleaner then it'd be, they'd
be hitting that 4 ph ish,something like that, that leather
likes.
Right.
And they'd be doing the,they'd be having a mild thing to
(27:03):
remove oils.
They'd be making sure it'sleft somewhat moist, things like
that.
Right.
Like that's what the cleanersare doing.
Yeah, yeah.
I mean typically, like I said,usually they're like a foaming kind
of cleane.
Use a soft like horse, horsehair brush or something along that
line.
Okay, cool.
(27:23):
You know to, to agitate the,the dirt or the, or the grime off,
off of the top of the surface.
So dry it out too much andthen, and then typically you're putting
some sort of follow upconditioner protectant on it that's
then going to, you know,absorb back into the leather and,
and moisten it and keep it,keep it from drying out.
(27:45):
And then you know, dependingon I, I use one that actually has
a, a UV inhibitor kind ofprotectant over it as well.
Is it conditioning it but it'salso protecting it against UV to
keep the leather from dryingout and cracking as well.
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That's great.
Yeah, yeah, so that's good.
Yeah, so that's typically howwe deal with leather.
I mean I've got a buddy ofmine who in the past couple of years
took a deep dive into leather.
(29:34):
He started doing leather workjust as something to kind of like
pass a time and be a hobby.
And then the more he got intoit, the more he started learning
about like the different cutsof leather and like the different,
you know, how the differentcleaners work and the conditioners
and all this.
(29:54):
And you know, he gave me adeep dive one time when he was first
getting into it and I was justlike bro, you, you lost me me like
10 minutes ago.
You know, you're talking crazy stuff.
But, but yeah, so usually whenit comes to anything leather, like
he's, he's my guy.
I reach out to and I'm like,hey, I Got this.
What do I do?
(30:16):
Just because he spent the lastcouple of years doing.
Doing the deep dive in leather.
Wow, that's cool.
Yeah, yeah, it's nuts.
He.
He actually was.
He.
He was working for Color Lock.
I'm not sure if Brian's stillwith Color Lock, but he was working
for Color Lock, and he wasactually with Color Lock doing a
lot of work up at the MercedesBenz and BMW plants, like up in North
(30:41):
Carolina, like, going in thereand teaching their guys, like, how
to recondition the leather ifthey, you know, scratch something
or tear something in theassembly line without having to,
you know, redo the whole seatand whatnot.
So, yeah, it's pretty cool.
He had a.
He had a good littleexperience with that.
(31:03):
Well, that's neat.
You got you.
You're already doing great.
Yeah.
I mean, the last thing I mightbe able to add to this, though, would
be for people who are, like, in.
In my neck of the wood.
The Northwest, or.
Yeah.
Arizona, Nevada, or Hawaii.
Utah.
California, people.
Let's talk Hawaii.
Let's talk Hawaii, because Iknow a bunch of detailers in Hawaii,
(31:27):
and their biggest thing is thehard water spots.
Right.
So they're.
They're constantly combating that.
So, you know, what's.
What's their maybe solution orwhat is their things that they can
look into that kind of, youknow, helps with that?
(31:48):
Well, okay, this is where itgets kind of weird.
So hard water is very easy to handle.
If it's hard water we'recalling hard.
Just making sure we understand.
I can take all the hardnessout of a house.
Right.
No problem.
And you can still have all thesame amount of spots you had before.
(32:11):
Okay.
Because the spots are comingfrom something else.
Gotcha.
So, like, one of the craziestthings that you're gonna see in the
Northwest, Arizona,California, Hawaii, places with volcanoes,
for example.
Yeah.
Is silica.
Okay?
And silica is crazy.
(32:32):
Silica is, like, insanely hardto get rid of.
In fact, it plagues dentistoffices all the time when they got
to get that water down to thatreally, really etch free finish.
Okay.
No etching.
And if they have silica,they've got to do some pretty unique
stuff to get rid of it.
(32:53):
RO does not always get rid of silica.
Right.
RO will sometimes catchsilica, but in some form, silica
will blast right through an ro.
Oh, wow.
EI does not necessarily getrid of silica.
There are basically a few waysto get rid of silica, but the problem
(33:15):
is, is how many forms ofsilica there are.
Right.
So there's ionic silica andthat is charged so it can be removed
by di.
There's colloidal, there's nonionic silica.
It just, it, it would be likebreeze past the DI would be like,
I don't even know you're there.
(33:35):
I have no awareness that youexist at all.
Oh, wow.
And that's the kind of stuffthat can also get through an RO in
some cases.
Okay.
So if you're doing.
And the softener won't touchit either.
So in some places people aredoing everything they can to get
rid of hard water spots andthey're doing all the right things.
(33:56):
Everything you've alreadymentioned is all the right stuff.
Right.
Softener.
And then DI fin DI is so expensive.
You don't, you don't want tonecessarily do, do everything with
the eye.
If you can afford it, then great.
But, but silica could even beget past that and that could still
be why you have like remainingproblems with like spotting still
(34:19):
existing even after doing all that.
Okay, so let me ask you thisbecause, you know, water spotting
is obviously a, a huge topicin this industry and water spot removers
are always kind of seems likehit or miss.
I kind of have my, my thoughtson why or whatever.
(34:43):
But most water spot removersare just an acidic and more water.
Right.
Watered down because you're,you're essentially attacking the
acidic ness of whatever's inthe water spot with an acid, you
know, to kind of neutralize out.
In your, you know, in yourexperience, is there something that
(35:09):
is different or better that itcould remove water spots that you're
not, you know, spraying anacid or watered down acid or just,
you know, putting a heavycompound and a heavy pad on and just
cutting the living daylightsout of the paint to, to cut that
water spot out.
Yeah.
So that, that gets into thisother weird thing that we kind of
(35:33):
just touched on.
Water spots can be anything, right?
Yeah.
So if they're mineral depositsthen, you know, you, you're doing
that acid based stuff.
Right?
Right.
Like vinegar, sulfuric acid,citric acid, that kind of stuff.
(35:56):
But that often that can dull finishes.
If you're washing with it toohard, you have to use, you know,
stuff specialized for, foryour industry.
Of course.
Right.
So the problem with silica isit can literally etch like it can
etch glass, it can etch metals.
(36:17):
It can actually, if you'rerubbing too much silica and you can
suddenly see the, a polished surface.
If it's a lot of silica now alittle bit, you won't notice.
But if it's a lot, you can seea polished surface suddenly go dull.
Okay.
And then, and then sun.
Sun can like bake it into thesurface, right.
(36:40):
In a, in a way creating kindof a surface damage.
So if it's like acid rain orsoap scum, all that.
You guys know how to get ridof that stuff already?
Like, yeah, that's easy.
But for like that, that stuffthat's like etched silica, that is,
(37:04):
that is rough because you haveto get specialty cleaners for that.
It's.
I mean, and I, I don'tactually know them off the top of
my head because this is, thisis not that common a problem for
me to actually need to knowabout cleaning.
Right.
But I do know that that matters.
(37:24):
I was going to actually askyou about.
Do you guys ever use like,clay bars for cleaning?
Yeah.
Yeah.
What do you use that for?
So, so the clay, the clay barsor like the clay towels or the clay
mitts that, that they've kindof the synthetics that they've come
up with in the, in the recent years.
So what that does is almostlike a very minimal water, like wet
(37:51):
sanding.
So that's more for removing,removing contaminants off of the
surface that you, you know,typically wouldn't see.
So usually like your raildust, your overspray, any kind of
like.
I like to usually kind ofrefer to it as like fallout.
(38:11):
So just any industrial type fallout.
Like if you travel a lot oninterstates or highways where there's,
you know, tractor trailers andthings like that.
Somebody explained it to.
Explained it really good onetime is, you know, on, on interstates
or railways or anything like that.
You know, there's, there'salways going to be some kind of carbon
(38:34):
dusting or, or, or, you know,brake dusting, things like that.
And all that stuff goes up inthe air and what goes up must come
down and does it, you know,and it kind of like lands and, and
penetrates into the, thesurface of the pain on a micro level.
So.
Oh, got it.
To use, you know, a clay baror clay pad or towel or whatever,
(38:56):
you know, anybody's using and.
Because then what that doesis, is it'll remove it off of the
surface.
The analogy I came up withyears ago to kind of explain it to
clients is because we do claybarring and then there's also iron
removers, right?
Yeah.
You know, so the analogy I useis clay bar is kind of like shaving
(39:20):
your face, right.
Or, or your legs, if you're a girl.
Whatever, you're just.
You're just taking it off ofthe surface.
When you use an iron removerthat you're spraying onto the paint,
it's attacking the.
The pores of the paint to openup and allow that iron to actually
come out.
So then it's kind of like ifyou were to do like a waxing, you
(39:42):
know, you're ripping it out bythe root.
So a lot of times when we'redoing paint corrections and things
of that nature, not only areyou going to clay it, but you're
going to use an iron, becausethen you're fully cleaning the paint
before you get into yourcorrection work.
So, you know, if you were justto clay it and you're just kind of
(40:03):
shaving that.
That piece off of the surface,and then you do your correction,
you put your wax on it, yourceramic coating, your sealant, whatever.
Now you're just putting thatlayer on top of that contamination
that's still in the painttechnically and could eventually
work its way out.
Then you get a rough surfaceagain kind of thing.
Okay.
So, yeah, that's how that works.
(40:24):
So let me ask you this.
Is there a way to, like,looking at water spots to kind of
determine what is, you know, asilica spot that, you know, you just
kind of maybe are screwed or.
No.
Yeah, I'll show you.
Let me show.
Let me see if I can share animage with you.
(40:46):
If that.
Yeah, you should be able to doa shared screen.
There's like a little iconwith a computer with an arrow in
it.
All right.
On your.
On your screen, if you click that.
I see it.
Let me.
Let me get the image up.
Sorry.
For.
For the listeners who are listening.
Yeah, well, you know what?
(41:06):
That'll make them just have togo and flip over to the YouTube and
watch the video now.
Exactly.
So they'll watch it or listento it twice.
Yeah.
So let me see if I can get.
Okay.
Shared.
Where is it?
Okay, yeah, I see it now.
(41:27):
Okay, so can you see this?
Hang on.
There we go.
Okay.
Yep, I see that.
Okay, so these are.
This here on the left is 10hardness 420tds water that was left
to dry.
On the right, this has beensoftened down to about 300 TDS water.
(41:53):
Okay.
But it is totally soft.
Zero hardness.
Absolutely no hardness whatsoever.
Okay.
Can you tell the differencewhen I zoom in super far?
Yeah, I can kind of see thatthis edge comes out a little further
on this.
Yeah, yeah, I can see that.
But that one's a little bit thinner.
(42:15):
Yeah, but they're still both.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, I got you.
Like.
Yeah, that's, I guess that's,that's, that's what I mean.
Like you as long you got toknow what your spottings from by
testing.
Right.
And it's kind of hard becausetesting for silica is like really
difficult.
Well, not only that, but likeonce a car comes to a detailer, like
(42:37):
there's no way for us to testthe water.
No.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, so like that's that.
So, so, so we talked aboutdoing the softener before the di
for detailers out there thatare looking to, you know, get into
a system or maybe they need tochange their system out because that's
(42:58):
where I'm at right now.
I'm trying to, I'm trying tochange my system out.
I'm trying to get a new system.
So right now I'm doing all mywashing in the morning before the
sun comes up in the morning.
So I don't, I don't worryabout water spotting.
But for the detailers thatdon't have, you know, a, an arm and
a leg to spend on somethinglike that.
I know the CR spotless isprobably the most economy.
(43:19):
You know, they're usually inlike that 400, 450 range.
But what would you suggest asfar as like to add a softener onto
it?
Or is there another system outthere that maybe is the same as CR
spotless, maybe a little bitbetter, a little bit more affordable?
Would you, what do you recommend?
(43:39):
I'm going to give you the hardtruth about softeners.
Okay.
You cannot soften waterwithout salt.
Okay.
And there's a lot of salt freesofteners out there.
They're not softeners.
They are, they're what'scalled a tack system, which is template
(44:01):
assisted crystallization.
That's what TAC stands for.
And what that does is it takesthe hardness and it binds it so that
it doesn't stick to things as well.
Which might be okay for car washes.
However, they're very, veryunpredictable whether they actually
work.
Gotcha.
(44:22):
So if you buy a TAC system andit works, you're good.
And then you don't have toworry about salt.
You just replace the mediaafter 10 years.
Right.
However, in a lot of casesthose tax systems won't work.
You will have just wasted yourmoney and then you will have to spend
money on a softener.
All a softener is, don't gettoo complex about it.
(44:44):
It's just cation resin.
It's cat.
Cat ion resin.
Okay, now it's how it's putinto the system with a bed of gravel
at the bottom and a valve atthe top to manage the water that
is a little bit more complex.
And then the other thing thatmatters a lot is the water usage.
(45:09):
So if you are just runningthrough water because you're doing
wash after wash after wash,you're going to be dumping bags of
salt into that system.
Right.
Because the salt is used toclean the, regenerate the media.
And if you don't want to bedoing that constantly, you need a
bigger size system so you havea higher capacity.
(45:30):
Gotcha.
So the, the tricky stuff isnot will it, you know, what kind
of softener?
There's only so many grades ofmedia you can search online, you
can go down to your localhardware store and get a really cheap
softener.
Will it work?
Yes.
Will it work long term?
That really depends on howmuch detailing you're doing with
that.
(45:51):
Yeah.
So if you want it dialed in,you need to talk to someone like
us and we can help dial it infor you.
The exact thing you want, getyou something that will last.
But yeah, if you're on abudget, I would definitely start
with the least expensivesoftener you can get.
Just make it work till you getsome more money.
(46:13):
And then I would dial it inand get something that is more efficient.
And if I'm not wrong withwater softeners that you're using
the salt, you have to havesome way to drain it.
Right.
Because those need to likedrain out every day, a couple days
or something like that, Ibelieve, depending on how much you
(46:34):
use it.
So even if it's something youput in your shop, you have to be
able to have a way to run adrain line or something out.
Yeah, it's a spell that.
Yeah.
Because I know ours kicks onevery night at like 2:30 in the morning
and sometimes it wakes me up,sometimes it doesn't.
So yours is regenerating daily.
(46:54):
Wow.
I think, I think it might, itmight be every other day.
I'm.
I'm not sure.
Yeah, I just know sometimes Isleep through it and sometimes at
2:30 is, you know, usuallywhen the old bladder's like knocking
on like, hey, we need to go,go pee real quick.
And I lay back in bed and Ihear the, I hear the thing just,
(47:17):
you know, pouring out thewater and everything like that.
So.
Yeah.
Yeah, like I said, I don'tknow if it does it every night, but
I know it does most nights.
So.
Yeah.
Okay, well that's, it's it'sall interesting.
I mean, it's, that's, yeah,like I said, I mean, we talk on this
(47:37):
on my podcast.
I mean, I've been doing thisfive years now.
I think I'm like 390 episodesin or something like that.
And this is the first timeI've ever talked about water.
So, you know.
Yeah, so.
And I don't know anybody elsethat's talked about water, you know,
other than maybe if they werejust doing like a review on a, on
a DI system or something like that.
(47:58):
So.
You know what's funny, man?
No one wants to talk about water.
I'm in the industry.
And other than people in thisindustry who talk about water all
the time, all of ourcustomers, when they're calling us,
they're like, I don't even, Idon't even want to look at this.
I, I, my water is supposed tobe fine, but for some reason I'm
(48:20):
having all this trouble.
So fine, go ahead and check itout for me.
It's like they're almost angryat us.
And we're, we're just here tohelp you.
Right?
You're the one who neverlooked at whether or not your water
has stuff in it.
And that's the thing.
People want to just drinktheir water and assume it's good,
but you gotta test.
You just have to actually look.
(48:40):
Yeah, that's what we, that'swhat we say.
Especially when it's aboutdrinking water.
You don't want to be drinking arsenic.
Yeah, that's true.
That's true.
Now you got me thinking.
I need to go get a tester andtest all my waters now.
Well, it's easy.
There's like these syndicatedlabs online that like 200 would be
the only test you need foryour well.
(49:01):
It's 200 bucks.
It tests for 50 different things.
Send it to me.
I will analyze it for you for free.
Just.
I'll get you, I'll tell youwhat you need to know.
Right, Right.
That's good.
It's, yeah, it's easy.
Just go to like, I think it'scalled tapscore.com.
get the well s.
(49:21):
Okay for 200 bucks.
Yeah.
While we're on specific suggestions.
Yeah.
The people who have silica outthere, if you're worried that you
have silica, you should get alittle thing from resin tech of ASM
125 and run your water throughthat just as a test to see if it
(49:44):
makes any difference.
Okay.
That, that is the name of thestuff that is Silica is very difficult
it requires very specialized stuff.
So that's what it's called.
Oh, that's it.
I just had to say that in caseanyone out there is going.
He didn't say anything aboutwhat to do about silica.
Yeah, no, no, no.
(50:05):
Yeah, yeah.
Just close your business downand go into a different industry
and not worry about it.
Yeah.
So.
So.
So for Pure Water Northwest,do you guys offer solutions like.
Or.
Or systems or something like that?
So if somebody's listening tothis podcast, maybe, you know, wants
to reach out to you and maybeget, you know, pick your brain a
(50:28):
little bit more or ask youabout systems and everything like
that would.
Is that something they'd beable to do?
And if so, like, how do theyget a hold of you guys?
Just go toPureWaterNorthwest.com the numbers
right on the website.
There's also a chat feature there.
And you can.
If.
If you follow enough.
If you follow enough stepsafter that number, you can call me
(50:50):
directly.
It's pretty easy.
You'll call one of our peopleand you'll say, I want to talk to
City.
And.
And they will say, okay, we'llget it set up for you.
Yeah.
And then you'll be like,you're gonna be like, damn.
Going on that podcast and allthese details.
Everyone keeps calling me.
Yeah.
Well, maybe somebody will bein my area and needs help, and I
can.
I can technically help people anywhere.
(51:13):
I would just need to send themthe equipment.
Right.
But I would imagine if someonewants my help, they're probably going
to be in my area.
Yeah.
And we do have.
We do have listeners in the.
The Pacific Northwest area,especially Seattle.
Cool.
Kimball, I'm looking at you.
I know he still listens to this.
(51:34):
Well, listen, City and I.
I appreciate you taking thetime, let alone reaching out.
I mean, I'm.
I'm, you know, I.
You know, the fact that youeven, like, happen to stumble across
one of the podcast episodes,to even listen to it, to reach out
is.
Is pretty awesome becausethere's a lot of times, you know,
I'm like, well, you know, thisis such a niche podcast for a niche
(51:57):
industry.
And.
And, you know, I mean, I knowthere's a lot of DIYers out there
and everything that would.
Would possibly stumble across it.
But, yeah, sometimes I'm.
I'm, you know, a littlesurprised when I get some emails
from people that are like,hey, listen to this episode.
You know, thinking about, youknow, could we come on?
And whatever.
(52:18):
I mean, I just had a guy.
I just had a guy a month or so ago.
He's from Australia and hedoes marketing.
He teaches, teaches how to dolike one of his biggest thing is
like vacation sales.
So like he has a system wherelike you can buy vacations for super
(52:39):
cheap and then you runpromotions where you give away, you
know, a five night stay atlike Las Vegas or Orlando or wherever.
And it's, you know, only costlike maybe 90 bucks to buy the vacation
and you're giving it away on aservice that you're, you know, selling
for a few hundred dollars orsomething like that.
So.
(52:59):
So that was a neat one too.
So yeah, that was interestingbecause not something that, that
I would normally do.
This one, like I said, was notsomething that, you know, I normally
would have thought of, but youknow, it was very interesting.
So I'm so thank you forreaching out and thank you for coming
on and taking the time to dothis and, and hey, if anybody wants
(53:20):
to figure out about theirwater, you know, just go ahead and
call city and reach out to them.
I appreciate it, Alex.
Thanks for having me.
Yeah, no problem, sir.
Listen, you have a great nightand we'll, we'll talk soon because
I'll reach out.
All right, take care.
Sounds good.
Bye.
Hey, don't check out yet.
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