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In my city you're not allowed to wash your car in your driveway I guess it's too hard on the storm drains to have soap and dirt and stuff going down them Or m

In my city you're not allowed to wash your car in your driveway I guess it's too hard on the storm drains to have soap and dirt and stuff going down them Or maybe city council is just in some kind of racket with car wash owners or something But either way, that's why we have so many car washes here... And it sucks ass

nunez 3y ago
You'll never need to worry about this if you try using Optimum No Rinse waterless wash. It cleans and details your entire car with 2.5gal of water. I've been using thus for over two years now and will not wash our cars any other way.
jjtheblunt 3y ago
This is interesting, what you mention. In the northern foothills here bordering Phoenix, Arizona, to the north, there are an understandable number of automated carwashes. However, i've found no manual (pressure wash sort) carwashes, which are easy to find in California and Illinois, for two examples. I don't know why this is.
- anotheruser13 3y ago
  In Chicago, it's always good to rinse the salt off your car to prevent rust. I recall doing this several times during many winters there. Never had a problem with rust on any car I owned.
- ohmyiv 3y ago
  Could it be that single family homeownership is higher there? I can kind of speak for some of L.A.'s use of manual car washes. There's many who live in apartments or places that don't have places to wash at home. Manual car washes fill the void for people that want to clean their own car but don't have space.
  - jjtheblunt 3y ago
    it might be. It might also be a water conservation thing, somehow, but I can't see how that would work unless they filter the water used in teh carwashes that are automatic and reuse them in some way not feasible with the power-wash-for-quarters sorts of stalls.
    - bombcar 3y ago
      The automatic systems can reuse water, and quite a bit: https://ncswash.com/what-is-a-car-wash-water-recycling-system/ https://ncswash.com/what-is-a-car-wash-water-recycling-syste... The pay/pressure wash systems I've ever seen are all older, I don't know how many new ones they're building. I suspect automatic washers are cheap "enough" now that you can't build a new pay to wash that comes out substantially cheaper. When I was a kid it was $2 for the power wash for quarters type, and $10 for automatic or by hand, now it's $8 for the automatic decades later.
notanormalnerd 3y ago
It is mostl due to the oil and other hazardous materials potentially going into the ground or the city sewer. They can't or won't clean that and it is contaminating in even small amounts. E.g. one drop of oil contaminates 500l of water. At least for Germany.
- michaelt 3y ago
  Doesn't any oil on the road etc end up in the sewers next time it rains anyway?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - throwup238 3y ago
    Yes but they still degrade relatively quickly when managed correctly so a burst of pollutants whenever it rains is better than a constant low level exposure from people washing their cars all the time. Regions where it rains frequently like the PNW have rain gardens, vegetated swales, catch basins/filters, and other mitigation strategies all over the place whereas e.g. California might just have them throughout the drainage system like at the end of the LA river.
guessmyname 3y ago
[flagged]
- HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
  I've wondered the same many times. I guess it's just a "thing" now.
- closewith 3y ago
  Most people won't know where most cities are - why not keep it general.
- jghn 3y ago
  Not everyone wants to provide geolocation data about themselves
  - guessmyname 3y ago
    Ha!, I knew someone would come back with this. Consider this: If I were to say, “In Tokyo, people stand on the left side of the escalator and walk on the right side, opposite to Osaka,” would you automatically assume I'm a Tokyo resident? Probably not, right? Had the initial commenter simply replaced “In my city […]” with the actual city name, it would likely have been interpreted as general knowledge they picked up along the way. Sure, some might mistakenly assume they hail from or currently reside in said city, but in reality, it’s not a big deal. Take me, for instance—I live in Copenhagen and I’m 100% sure no one will be able to do anything useful with that information. Providing context is key, especially in online forums like this. Simply stating the city name would have enriched the discussion far more than leaving it ambiguous.
    - raydev 3y ago
      Tokyo is fine because it's a major city with millions of people. If the commenter says "in [small town in South Carolina] for example", then likelihood for them living there skyrockets.
    - bluefirebrand 3y ago
johnwalkr 3y ago
I think generally it should not be allowed. A big component of soap is phosphates, which promote algae growth so you really don't want it in your rivers. Some cities have combined or separated sewer systems. Even if combined, it may be designed to overflow during heavy rain, so it's not a guarantee that car wash water with dirt, soap and oil will not go into into a stream somewhere although in that case you're also sending literal shit there. Also when combined, there may still be old infrastructure that drains to a stream or river so a blanket ban is a good idea. Typically a car wash would be required to have an oil-water separator (with maintenance records and occasional checks) and discharge effluent to the sanitary sewer. Not sure about everywhere but in Vancouver (I have experience working in water treatment there) you also need to have the car wash covered and send collected rainwater to the storm sewer. Perhaps there could be a middle ground where you're allowed to wash in your driveway but only with a specific soap, and not allowed to degrease your engine bay. There's basically no way to enforce that though,. Also might as well note here that in Vancouver storm drains that connect to the storm sewer have little fish stenciled by them.
- rootusrootus 3y ago
  > Some cities have combined or separated sewer systems. I wonder how many cities still have a combined system. At least where I live, I could totally see the amount of water coming from the sky regularly beating the amount coming from household drains. Along those lines, our city is spending money replacing private sewer laterals (normally a 10-20K job the homeowner is responsible for) just to cut down on the water intrusion the old laterals (especially party lines) let into the sewer. It's cheaper to pay for the new laterals than it is to build a larger treatment plant.
- hermitcrab 3y ago
  >I think generally it should not be allowed. A big component of soap is phosphates, which promote algae growth so you really don't want it in your rivers. Shouldn't we ban people showering under the same logic? I use about the same amount of soap to wash my car as I do in the shower, but I shower a lot more often.
  - 3y ago
FireBeyond 3y ago
In my city, the mayor and his family own the largest chain of carwashes in the county and surrounds... ... and the city spends thousands a year on billboards, vinyl printed banners across main roads... "Save water - use a car wash!" Ugh.
randerson 3y ago
In some cities in the PNW this law is to protect the fish and wildlife, because storm drains connect to the streams. You're allowed to wash your car in your driveway so long as it drains onto your lawn or the sewer.
ryandrake 3y ago
> In my city you're not allowed to wash your car in your driveway How does this even get enforced? Are the police driving by everyone’s house regularly, looking for those dastardly hoses? Or do they rely on nosey neighbors ratting on each other? I can’t imagine this is the most important crime for the local law enforcement to be investigating.
- jamesrr39 3y ago
  In Sweden washing a car at home is discouraged and depending on how you read the law can be illegal (it is not illegal per se to wash a car at home, but it is illegal to to let out untreated water into nature - and since waste water from car washing is not untreated and probably contains oil and metals, it is most likely illegal on this provision). Enforcement is on a council-by-council basis, but of course in urban areas I imagine this is pretty hard to enforce. In rural settings it must be pretty much impossible. Having said that, I haven't really seen many people at all washing their car at home. Maybe it depends where you live, if you have neighbours who do it a lot it probably feels like everyone does it. In the last few years, there have been a load of "wash your own car" car wash stations opening up. They're cheap (you can do the car for <100kr - $10 or so), way less than the drive in station, and have things you wouldn't have at home (e.g. cleaning underneath the car, handy for washing off the salt that has come off the road in winter). Not really enforcement but a pretty effective way of nudging people to doing the "right thing".
- asciimov 3y ago
  In my area it’s mostly done by the water department itself. They have people that drive around documenting violations, and the owner is directly billed. This is mostly done overnight. They also have a hotline for tattletales and HOAs and the police can also report you.
- lotsoweiners 3y ago
  Seriously. I could just hose down my car while I’m hosing off the driveway and no one would be the wiser
  - 3y ago
bdcravens 3y ago
I can wash my car in my driveway, but last summer when my city implemented water use controls (due to drought conditions), they didn't allow it. Oddly enough, they didn't restrict commercial car washes.
- WheatMillington 3y ago
  Commercial car washes recycle their water.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    Substantially - we're talking 300 liters per vehicle down to 30.

nunez 3y ago

You'll never need to worry about this if you try using Optimum No Rinse waterless wash. It cleans and details your entire car with 2.5gal of water. I've been using thus for over two years now and will not wash our cars any other way.

jjtheblunt 3y ago

This is interesting, what you mention. In the northern foothills here bordering Phoenix, Arizona, to the north, there are an understandable number of automated carwashes. However, i've found no manual (pressure wash sort) carwashes, which are easy to find in California and Illinois, for two examples. I don't know why this is.

anotheruser13 3y ago
In Chicago, it's always good to rinse the salt off your car to prevent rust. I recall doing this several times during many winters there. Never had a problem with rust on any car I owned.
ohmyiv 3y ago
Could it be that single family homeownership is higher there? I can kind of speak for some of L.A.'s use of manual car washes. There's many who live in apartments or places that don't have places to wash at home. Manual car washes fill the void for people that want to clean their own car but don't have space.
- jjtheblunt 3y ago
  it might be. It might also be a water conservation thing, somehow, but I can't see how that would work unless they filter the water used in teh carwashes that are automatic and reuse them in some way not feasible with the power-wash-for-quarters sorts of stalls.
  - bombcar 3y ago
    The automatic systems can reuse water, and quite a bit: https://ncswash.com/what-is-a-car-wash-water-recycling-system/ https://ncswash.com/what-is-a-car-wash-water-recycling-syste... The pay/pressure wash systems I've ever seen are all older, I don't know how many new ones they're building. I suspect automatic washers are cheap "enough" now that you can't build a new pay to wash that comes out substantially cheaper. When I was a kid it was $2 for the power wash for quarters type, and $10 for automatic or by hand, now it's $8 for the automatic decades later.

notanormalnerd 3y ago

It is mostl due to the oil and other hazardous materials potentially going into the ground or the city sewer. They can't or won't clean that and it is contaminating in even small amounts. E.g. one drop of oil contaminates 500l of water. At least for Germany.

michaelt 3y ago
Doesn't any oil on the road etc end up in the sewers next time it rains anyway?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- throwup238 3y ago
  Yes but they still degrade relatively quickly when managed correctly so a burst of pollutants whenever it rains is better than a constant low level exposure from people washing their cars all the time. Regions where it rains frequently like the PNW have rain gardens, vegetated swales, catch basins/filters, and other mitigation strategies all over the place whereas e.g. California might just have them throughout the drainage system like at the end of the LA river.

guessmyname 3y ago

[flagged]

HeyLaughingBoy 3y ago
I've wondered the same many times. I guess it's just a "thing" now.
closewith 3y ago
Most people won't know where most cities are - why not keep it general.
jghn 3y ago
Not everyone wants to provide geolocation data about themselves
- guessmyname 3y ago
  Ha!, I knew someone would come back with this. Consider this: If I were to say, “In Tokyo, people stand on the left side of the escalator and walk on the right side, opposite to Osaka,” would you automatically assume I'm a Tokyo resident? Probably not, right? Had the initial commenter simply replaced “In my city […]” with the actual city name, it would likely have been interpreted as general knowledge they picked up along the way. Sure, some might mistakenly assume they hail from or currently reside in said city, but in reality, it’s not a big deal. Take me, for instance—I live in Copenhagen and I’m 100% sure no one will be able to do anything useful with that information. Providing context is key, especially in online forums like this. Simply stating the city name would have enriched the discussion far more than leaving it ambiguous.
  - raydev 3y ago
    Tokyo is fine because it's a major city with millions of people. If the commenter says "in [small town in South Carolina] for example", then likelihood for them living there skyrockets.
  - bluefirebrand 3y ago

johnwalkr 3y ago

I think generally it should not be allowed. A big component of soap is phosphates, which promote algae growth so you really don't want it in your rivers. Some cities have combined or separated sewer systems. Even if combined, it may be designed to overflow during heavy rain, so it's not a guarantee that car wash water with dirt, soap and oil will not go into into a stream somewhere although in that case you're also sending literal shit there. Also when combined, there may still be old infrastructure that drains to a stream or river so a blanket ban is a good idea. Typically a car wash would be required to have an oil-water separator (with maintenance records and occasional checks) and discharge effluent to the sanitary sewer. Not sure about everywhere but in Vancouver (I have experience working in water treatment there) you also need to have the car wash covered and send collected rainwater to the storm sewer. Perhaps there could be a middle ground where you're allowed to wash in your driveway but only with a specific soap, and not allowed to degrease your engine bay. There's basically no way to enforce that though,. Also might as well note here that in Vancouver storm drains that connect to the storm sewer have little fish stenciled by them.

rootusrootus 3y ago
> Some cities have combined or separated sewer systems. I wonder how many cities still have a combined system. At least where I live, I could totally see the amount of water coming from the sky regularly beating the amount coming from household drains. Along those lines, our city is spending money replacing private sewer laterals (normally a 10-20K job the homeowner is responsible for) just to cut down on the water intrusion the old laterals (especially party lines) let into the sewer. It's cheaper to pay for the new laterals than it is to build a larger treatment plant.
hermitcrab 3y ago
>I think generally it should not be allowed. A big component of soap is phosphates, which promote algae growth so you really don't want it in your rivers. Shouldn't we ban people showering under the same logic? I use about the same amount of soap to wash my car as I do in the shower, but I shower a lot more often.
- 3y ago

FireBeyond 3y ago

In my city, the mayor and his family own the largest chain of carwashes in the county and surrounds... ... and the city spends thousands a year on billboards, vinyl printed banners across main roads... "Save water - use a car wash!" Ugh.

randerson 3y ago

In some cities in the PNW this law is to protect the fish and wildlife, because storm drains connect to the streams. You're allowed to wash your car in your driveway so long as it drains onto your lawn or the sewer.

ryandrake 3y ago

> In my city you're not allowed to wash your car in your driveway How does this even get enforced? Are the police driving by everyone’s house regularly, looking for those dastardly hoses? Or do they rely on nosey neighbors ratting on each other? I can’t imagine this is the most important crime for the local law enforcement to be investigating.

jamesrr39 3y ago
In Sweden washing a car at home is discouraged and depending on how you read the law can be illegal (it is not illegal per se to wash a car at home, but it is illegal to to let out untreated water into nature - and since waste water from car washing is not untreated and probably contains oil and metals, it is most likely illegal on this provision). Enforcement is on a council-by-council basis, but of course in urban areas I imagine this is pretty hard to enforce. In rural settings it must be pretty much impossible. Having said that, I haven't really seen many people at all washing their car at home. Maybe it depends where you live, if you have neighbours who do it a lot it probably feels like everyone does it. In the last few years, there have been a load of "wash your own car" car wash stations opening up. They're cheap (you can do the car for <100kr - $10 or so), way less than the drive in station, and have things you wouldn't have at home (e.g. cleaning underneath the car, handy for washing off the salt that has come off the road in winter). Not really enforcement but a pretty effective way of nudging people to doing the "right thing".
asciimov 3y ago
In my area it’s mostly done by the water department itself. They have people that drive around documenting violations, and the owner is directly billed. This is mostly done overnight. They also have a hotline for tattletales and HOAs and the police can also report you.
lotsoweiners 3y ago
Seriously. I could just hose down my car while I’m hosing off the driveway and no one would be the wiser
- 3y ago

bdcravens 3y ago

I can wash my car in my driveway, but last summer when my city implemented water use controls (due to drought conditions), they didn't allow it. Oddly enough, they didn't restrict commercial car washes.

WheatMillington 3y ago
Commercial car washes recycle their water.
- bombcar 3y ago
  Substantially - we're talking 300 liters per vehicle down to 30.