Home car washing may screech to halt

Friday, Dec. 5, 2003 | 11:29 a.m.

The soapy, suburban ritual of Sunday afternoon car washes in the driveway may be, at least temporarily, a thing of the past under new water rules advanced by the Southern Nevada Water Authority last month.

The "drought alert" rules passed unanimously last month need to be endorsed by the water distributors in Southern Nevada -- the Las Vegas Valley Water District, North Las Vegas, Henderson and Boulder City -- but if enacted, would eliminate home car washing for most.

Already, home car washes are limited to once a week per vehicle, with a garden hose equipped with an automatic shut-off, under the "drought watch" rules.

The tighter restrictions should go into effect Jan. 1 for water customers in the water district, which means that home car washing in Las Vegas and unincorporated Clark County is -- mostly -- banned. The other cities, which provide their own utility services, this month could fall in line behind last month's unanimous Water District vote.

Water officials want their customers to go to commercial car washing facilities for the service. The reason is two-fold. First, most of the car-washing companies use water far more efficiently than the average residential customer, said Southern Nevada Water Authority Conservation Manager Doug Bennett.

Secondly, the water that is used at the car washes goes into the "sanitary sewer," where it is either re-used or is returned to Lake Mead. The water authority gets an equal "return flow credit" for every gallon of water that is treated and goes back to the lake, so a gallon returned via the sewer does not count against the total of 98 trillion gallons allocated annually to Southern Nevada.

Return-flow credits, along with conservation, are increasingly important for a region skirting the margins of what it is allowed to take from the lake.

Washing a car in a driveway, on the other hand, allows water to run into the street -- a no-no under the conservation rules, Bennett said.

"We're trying to get the minority of homeowners who would ordinarily wash their car at home to do it at a commercial car-washing facility," Bennett said.

That option doesn't appeal to Jim Corbett, a homeowner in Paradise township of the county who has three very special cars, including a souped-up 2003 Corvette. Corbett doesn't want commercial car washers touching his Corvette, but that doesn't mean he doesn't conserve water.

He points out that his monthly Las Vegas Valley Water District bill is about $20, an indication of relatively frugal water use.

"I mean, give me a break," Corbett said. "We've got desert landscaping, no pool.

"I'm a car nut. There's no way I can get somebody to wash my car to my satisfaction."

Like a lot of people in Las Vegas, Corbett is upset that something he cherishes is threatened while development continues to drink more of the resource.

"Why do we allow new pools and new golf course development to be still installed, then you tell people you can't wash your car?"

Corbett, an industrial products salesman, found the option that would permit him to continue washing the Corvette at home. Under the new rules, gas- or electric-powered, high-pressure and low-volume washers are allowed.

Unlike a garden hose, which has a few pounds of pressure behind it, these powered sprayers are above 1,000 pounds-per-square-inch.

Bennett said the point of including them in the new rules was to allow companies that provide mobile car washing services to continue. Those companies usually use about 10 gallons of water or less, compared to potentially hundreds of gallons for a homeowner that simply turns on and leaves on a garden hose, Bennett said.

The policy of allowing the powered sprayers for washing comes because the water authority did not want to shut those relatively efficient companies down, and because car dealers use the same systems to keep their for-sale fleets clean, Bennett said.

The special washers are relatively expensive. Home Depot of Las Vegas assistant manager Carlos Rodriguez said his company has one model that sells for $89, and another that sells for $170.

A regular automatic shut-off nozzle sells for $3 to $10, Rodriguez said.

Bennett said the water authority would prefer that those people who do not want to use a full-service car wash go to a self-serve service, which still will send the water back to the water authority via the sanitary sewer.

He said that way, people can get the soft touch they desire while avoiding any water waste at home. With the prices for the high-volume, powered sprayers easily above $100, that same investment would pay for many self-serve washes, Bennett said.

"That's a lot of quarters," Bennett said. "We're hoping that people find it makes sense to go to one of these commercial facilities."

But for die-hards, the powered devices are an option.

"If that's something you've got to live with, you've got to live with it," Corbett said.