Did you know that the average person at the self-serve car wash uses over 15 gallons of water just to wash their car?  At the drive-through or automatic car wash, the number can be 50-75 gallons.  In nearly every case, these car washes send the dirty water into the sewer.

Some car washes, of course, recycle their water by cleaning it on-site and using it again.  That’s rare, however, and even then, water ends up in the sewer eventually.  Or the garbage cleaned out of the water goes to the dump or into the sewer.

You can wash your car at home and be a much better husband of resources by doing that.

The average home owner puts over a hundred gallons of water onto their lawn every week.  More precisely, the average home owner sprays 100 gallons of water towards their lawn.  Not all of it ends up there.  That is also a large use of water.

A solution to both problems is to combine them.  Pulling your vehicle onto the lawn (better yet, two or three) can do that.  Plus, it’s a family activity that can be a lot of fun.

Using soap (preferably natural, non-detergent soap), a bucket to mix suds in, and a garden hose with a sprayer on it, you can make your car shiny easily.  Using non-detergent soap, like that found in some hand soaps, natural ivory, etc., will not remove your paint’s wax coatings, which means less work for you in the long run.

Pulling the car(s) onto the lawn, place them as close to center as you can or uphill from center.  Squirt a little soap into a 2-3 gallon bucket and spray water to fill it.  Then wash the car with a sponge, old rags, towels, whatever.  Once they’re scrubbed, rinse with the hose again.  Get any spots you missed, rinse again, and dry.

All of that water (which, admittedly, is more than would have been used in a self-serve bay) goes into your lawn.  That waters the lawn and the ground is a natural filter to clean impurities.

With all of that said, here are some caveats:

• Do not wash or scrub alloy wheels, engine compartments, brake liners, or undercarriages on your lawn.  This is where most of the grease, metal flakes, and even asbestos are found and you definitely don’t want that on your grass or in the ground water.  Surface wash only on the lawn.

• Use non-rinse cleaners for tires/wheels and use the wash bay to high-pressure wash the engine and undercarriage every month or so.

Overall, though, combining your car washing with lawn watering saves water and it gets you and your family outside in the sunshine together once in a while.  What could be wrong with that?

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