Water Bill and RO Waste Water

[rshiggaon]

Hello All- What is the monthly water expense you guys see in your car wash? Also, do you guys reuse the RO waste water?

We are based in Houston, TX, and see around $2,000 on avg (5 SS Bays and 1 IBA). Is this normal?

Thank you.

 

[washnvac]

There is no such thing as "normal" in my opinion. Too many variables from wash to wash; such as s/s volume, nozzle size on wands, pressure on wands, iba volume, type of iba, etc.

What is your cost per 1000 gallons; this is what most compare. My locations average about $10.00 per thousand gallons on water/sewer.

I do use RO reject in my auto rinse cycle, just before spot free rinse. I experimented using it on s/s rinse, but far too many folks would not use spot free rinse at the end, and it would spot their vehicle pretty good. So I only use on auto rinse, where I know it is followed by SF.

 

[MEP001]

Hello All- What is the monthly water expense you guys see in your car wash? Also, do you guys reuse the RO waste water?

We are based in Houston, TX, and see around $2,000 on avg (5 SS Bays and 1 IBA). Is this normal?

Thank you.

My 6 bay SS water bill is about $1600 a month, so yours sounds pretty typical of the area. I do not reuse the RO reject because I don't have a place for another tank, but I plan on building a loft in the room for one. San Antonio requires the RO reject to be recovered and used.

 

[traveler17]

As mentioned above there is no such thing as normal. I have a slower wash in a rural town that’s water/sewer bill is friggin ridiculous, runs around $1k per month. My other wash washes almost 4x the amount and water bill is less than half of the other. I catch the Reject water at slower wash

 

[rshiggaon]

As mentioned above there is no such thing as normal. I have a slower wash in a rural town that’s water/sewer bill is friggin ridiculous, runs around $1k per month. My other wash washes almost 4x the amount and water bill is less than half of the other. I catch the Reject water at slower wash

What do you do with the rejected water?

 

[rshiggaon]

My 6 bay SS water bill is about $1600 a month, so yours sounds pretty typical of the area. I do not reuse the RO reject because I don't have a place for another tank, but I plan on building a loft in the room for one. San Antonio requires the RO reject to be recovered and used.

Thanks. What you plan to use the rejected RO water?

 

[traveler17]

What do you do with the rejected water?

Same as washnvac. Use in the IBA only. Not in the SS.

 

[Roz]

Can only compare on a cost per 1000 gal basis given the variables. We pay $10/1000g for water plus x1.4 times that number for sewer. No meter for sewer and town will not listen to an study that 40% of water in a carwash does not go down the drain. We reclaim RO reject water to feel good but not a huge savings.

 

[MEP001]

I will use a float valve in the main water tank so the reject can flow via gravity. I've seen systems using a well pump to run it into the rinse line, but I'd rather keep it uncomplicated. I've already written a ladder program for a relay to control the RO system where I added an interlock to stop RO production if the reject tank gets full, with a second switch in the RO tank to override the interlock if the RO storage gets too low.

 

[SSadmiral]

We’ve been sending to reject to a gravity tank in attic then plumbed down into fresh water tank via brass float on both ss and iba tanks which gets diluted down. Fairly busy iba and self serve never had a complaint in 20 years.