Washing your Car in the Street

But we're British so 'johnny foreigners' rules don't apply to us, surely everyone knows that!

I go to the local car wash, clean it with the lance, 1 euro,it even puts polish on it. Not worth the hassle.

Totally fine with not being able to wash the car...but...how much water is wasted when people have a shower? Probably only 10% of it is actually used to wet the user and then clean them off...

marcliff wrote:

Mac3blade wrote:How are people supposed to know these rules? I imagine most people washing their car on the street are using water that they are paying for.
What is the difference between people washing their car on their driveway or on the street as the water runs out, over the footpath and onto the road anyway?
Weird laws

It's to stop a. The waste of water. If you take it to a car wash the water is recycled, filtered and used again.
b. To stop detergents and chemicals getting into the domestic system down the drains. Again, a car wash will clean and recycle the water.

It doesn't matter if you do it on the street or on your driveway, if the water runs into the public road and the sewer system you can be fined.

People should know the "rules". Many people come here expecting things to be the same as their home country and get a shock when rules of the road and other things are "different" and call them weird. Spain suffers quite high periods of drought because of the lack of rain so these rules are anything but weird.

Our neighbours were fined by a passing police car when they emptied a load of water into the road from their drive.

Had to queue for a while at the new car wash by the golf course this morning. They opened that at the right time and I must say its a good piece of equipment.

I am still slightly perplexed as to how I am supposed to wash my terraces without some water escaping down over my drive and then on to the street. Yes, i can mop them with only a damp mop but then I still think they need a hose down after to clean off the sand! Likewise, how do you drain a kids paddling pool or such like? If its outside the drains don't go down the drain as they do with internal pipes so at a bit of a loss as to how you can deal with it! Assuming you don't have the benefit of a local car wash (or just like to clean the car at home as therapy!), how can you do so without water escaping?

I appreciate the philosophy that applies as to why, and respect the Spanish rules, but on a practical level it seems very hard to comply!

It amazes me, 3 days of sun in the UK and there are hose pipe bans, in fact everything possible is done to conserve water, even cutting water supply off and having people fill buckets at stand pipes. How do foreigners to the area know this? They are told, see for themselves or check at the town hall. Spain is lucky to have 3 days of rain a year so water is precious, that is why most houses have showers, not wasteful baths, people use car washes which are cheap costing maximum a couple of euros, keeping terraces etc clean, sweep sand off and then use mop and bucket, like most other people.

Im all for rules but a few seem to contradict themselves. Detergents from washing your car in the street pollute the drains. Please tell me where the detergents used in your kitchen sink or from your washing machine go to? In addition to this, the water that I might let fall onto the ground from a couple of buckets of water would not even get as far the nearest drain anyway.

After they've been through the sewage treatment plant they are redirect to agricultural water.
Not back into tap water.

When my neighbour opposite back washes his pool it comes gushing out of a pipe in the wall all over the pavement and down the road. I videoed it today and was going to post it so you could see but as I did a sneaky video it didn't come out too well.

Looks like his pool pipework system needs re-designing somewhat but be very careful what you "sneakily" video. It might come back to bite you somewhere if posted publicly.