In large parts of the UK we’re now two months into a hosepipe ban and cars are getting mucky. As much as I admire the spin of the water companies for promoting the ‘proud to be dirty’ campaign, my in-built automotive OCD means I get twitchy about pollen landing on my cars, let alone bird poo and actual mud.
Insert 'big butt' jokes here...
While I enjoy using a bucket and sponge for the actual car cleaning, I (and, I suspect, many others) miss the ease of being able to rinse the car with a hose and pressure washer before the actual spongy, soapy, washing part and also to remove the soapy water afterward.
So are there any ways around the hosepipe ban?
A quick read of the ‘Temporary Use Ban’ doesn’t leave a lot of room for manoeuvre this side of a £1,000 fine. However, as a well-known brand of pressure washer is advertising, you can use a water butt (or other rainwater container) to supply your hose and pressure washer.
You can connect your washer directly to the butt...
There are basically two options of how to connect a pressure washer to your rainwater supply. Most water butts now come with the universal click-connect ends to the taps so you can attach the hose direct from water butt to pressure washer. Although, given the muck that’s likely to be in your water butt, you’ll probably want to fit a filter too. These can be found for less than a tenner either online or from garden centres.
And, assuming your pressure washer is able to suck water (and most do), and your water butt is close enough to your pride and joy, you’re away and ready wash your car like normal.
However, you can also buy a suction hose and filter for your pressure washer (between £10 and £30 online) which means you can use a bucket filled from the water butt.
Technically, it’s against the regs to fill the bucket from a mains tap and then use that with the suction hose. And you definitely shouldn’t leave the tap running into the bucket with the suction hose drawing water. Oh no.
...or draw it in through a suction pipe
Using the bucket of rainwater method it’s possible to measure how much water you actually use when pressure washing your car (I told you about my OCD didn’t I?). Turns out, you can rinse a Subaru Impreza WRX wagon-sized car (twice) with less than 12 litres.
If I were using the ‘throwing buckets of water over the car’ method to rinse, then it would be six times that amount.
Setting up and using the suction hose was all surprisingly easy, the only thing you have to be prepared for is a long wait while the pressure washer initially sucks air.
I even installed a dedicated car-cleaning water butt (I’ve mentioned my OCD, right?) which, given the fact that since the hosepipe ban was introduced it’s been pretty rainy, is now almost full. Given the water butt holds more than 200 litres I should be able to wash my car until the end of the ban.
The only other trick I’ve been using to keep up on the car cleanliness stakes is that after it’s finished raining I’ve been nipping out to wipe my cars down. This does a great job of keeping the pollen and dust from building up.
A bucket of rain water is the portable option
You may laugh at all this, but the alternative is to pay for a wash, and I’m never happy with other’s standards. Wonder why that is?
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