T&T: CR Spotless

[Frank Burrows]

I fell last year and tore up my shoulder drying my EZ2CY enclosure after 
washing the boat to prevent water spots. Our marina uses a well for dock 
water and it really requires wiping everything down. While I was 
recuperating from the surgery I was determined to find a portable deionized 
water filter that would eliminate the need to wipe down the boat. I used 
the big Culligan deionization tanks in a car wash in another life and they 
were great but very expensive.

I have spoken to lots of boaters who have the PVC cylinders that are small 
water softeners and everyone says that they help but they still wind up 
wiping everything down to eliminate spots. These include brands like Boji, 
Wetspot and Spotfree. These are water softeners that can be recharged by 
back flushing with salt.

I finally found an affordable deionized water system similar to the ones 
used in carwashes. The unit is called CR Spotless and they have a website 
at http://crspotless.com
This unit uses two different resin bases to strip the water completely 
clean and there are no spots. My enclosure and decks remain free of any 
water spotting.

There are a couple of downsides to this technology. First the resin must be 
replaced when it is used up. There is no recharging, just replacement. The 
cost to replace the resin is around $100. The second downside is that the 
volume of water passing through the filter must not exceed 2 gallons a 
minute. They supply a nozzle to regulate this amount. I find the flow at 2 
gpm adequate. The third issue is that they do not recommend that you filter 
your drinking water because your body expects and needs minerals and they 
are removed in the filtering process.

The unit comes with a battery operated digital meter that reads the parts 
per million present in the water before and after filtering. When the 
output exceeds 30ppm you have to replace the resin. I have been using the 
unit for two months and it is currently only reading 3 ppm, so I am sure 
one set of resin will easily last the summer season, maybe two.

I bought the larger DIC-20 that they show on their website for $449. Costco 
sells these on line only for $419 with an extra resin set and free 
shipping. Costco also lets you return the unit for a full refund if your 
not happy with no time limit. The manufacturer markets these for RVs and 
cars but they say that they don't know much about boats.

No connection but for a weekend boater this saves a lot of time and if 
keeps me from falling off a wet deck again it is really cheap!


Frank Burrows     Destiny   1979  43'  Viking MY
      Piney Narrows     Chesapeake Bay