Power Pressure Washers

Power Pressure Washers have become more indispensable over time as new designs are created for greater versatility and enable easier handling despite the labor intensive nature of commercial cleaning tasks. Most commercial pressure washers fall within the range of 4,000 PSI and above as most cleaning tasks require minimum pressure power to ensure industrial cleaning efficiency.

If you are running a commercial Pressure Washing Business, there are many uses for the Commercial Pressure Washer, namely to provide maintenance cleaning on regular basis at manufacturing plants, food processing factories like poultry farms and abattoirs, oil refineries, rigs, heavy metal engineering plants, construction sties etc. They are used extensively over long hard hours on a daily basis. Hence there are many considerations you will need to bear in mind while sourcing for a commercial machine, the considerations of which are very different from those when purchasing power pressure washers for home use.

There are essentially two key types of pressure washers that can be used commercially - Cold water and Hot Water Pressure Washers. And your choice will eventually depend on your cleaning needs and the difficulty level of the tasks.

Commercial Hot Water Pressure Washers are the right choice for cleaning surfaces with oil, grease and stubborn grim. The effect of hot water almost immediately melts away the coagulated globs of grease which would otherwise be very difficult to remove. Imagine using cold water units on stubborn masses of coagulated grease and it will take a much longer time to effectively remove. The best effects of cleaning such surfaces would be a combination of hot water as well as grease attacking detergent or cleansing agent. The hot water melts away the grease while the heavy duty detergent cleans the surface. The aftereffects of the hot water serve to disinfect as well.

That said, this does not mean that commercial cold water pressure washers are less competent. On the contrary, in fact, there are a fair number o cleaning tasks which do not require hot water for the tasks to be effective. Cold Water Pressure Washers are used in task where grease and oil do not exist. Large commercial towers and countless office buildings need to be washed on a regular basis. There are also surfaces which are sensitive to hot water and can only be cleaned by cold water, one good example of which is paint preparation work. The advantages of the cold water commercial pressure washers are that the machines are more versatile, less bulky and cheaper to maintain from a pressure washing business point of view.

Power Pressure Washers come with an average warranty of 1 year of parts and servicing although some do cover a period of 3 years for servicing. When planning to buy a pressure washer, you will need to consider many factors such as frequency of usage, the types of usage, and the type of machine considered for purchase. Often enough, electric pressure washers are effective for home cleaning, be it indoors or outdoors, as there are certain skills in using them to enhance the effects of the cleaning.

On the other hand, if you are buying a few machines to start a small pressure washing business the nature of usage would be very different from that of a home use machine. If the purpose if for business, you need to account for potential the amount of usage indoors and outdoors, all depending on your cleaning contracts. Most commercial pressure washers would be at least 3,000 or 4,000 PSI for effective industrial cleaning. Commercial Diesel or Gas Powered Pressure Washers are more often the choice for small businesses. In addition, if you deal mostly with industrial grease removal, you will require powerful commercial machines with the full array of detergent and grease removal agents. To meet such cleaning needs, Hot Water Pressure Washers are more effective than the cold water units. This would mean not only buying bulkier machines, but also having the storage space for them.

If you are running a power pressure washers rental business, whereby you lease or rent out your machines to third parties who will conduct the cleaning, you need to factor in a higher cost for wear and tear. Third parties conducting the cleaning tasks are often more concerned with getting the job completed rather than machine care.

You will also need to note whether your power pressure washers are direct drive or belt driven units. While direct drive units are more compact and require low maintenance, they wear down much faster as compared to the belt driven units. Belt driven units have a mechanism which works like a shock re-director which routes away the motor vibrations away from the pump, thereby enhancing the machine life span. The belt driven models will suit your business needs more often than not.

Knowing the differences in cleaning requirements between household and commercial pressure washers is imperative as first steps to your purchasing guide. Always remember that the nature of your business or your household cleaning needs drives your buying decision.

In Power Pressure Washers Buying Guide Series - Part 2, we share with you the key technicalities of PSI, GPM and CU, which are essential to guiding you towards the right pressure washers suited to your needs.

PSI, GPM and CU holds the key to which types of Power Pressure Washers will help your run your cleaning projects smoothly and your utilities consumption at the most optimal levels, thereby allowing you to keep overheads low. This is especially important when you are running a pressure washing business. That said, you could greatly cut your household power consumption when using the right equipment for the right home cleaning tasks as well.

All You Need To Know About PSI, GPM AND CU
PSI is technically known as pounds per square inch and most often used to refer to the amount of cleaning pressure the particular machine is capable of delivering. In layperson terms, this means pressure power and the higher the PSI, the greater the consumption of power, translating into relative utilities consumption. Most manufacturers mark their machine models with a tag of a certain amount of PSI to allow buyers to know the pressure power of the machines. This facilitates your search for the right pressure washer by easily referring to the PSI.

GPM on the other hand refers to the gallons per minute and literally means the actual flow of water or the rate at which the unit sprays water. The layperson would term this as water usage. The higher the GPM the greater and consumption of water required. GPM is sometimes included with the model number description together with the PSI.

CU essentially means cleaning units and is referred to the formula of PSI x GPM. This has become increasingly popular in recent years and gives a better perspective on the total pressure power and energy consumption as reference.

The critical aspect of all these acronyms is balance, as you need to strike a balance between PSI pressure power or GPM water usage. To this end, matching your cleaning tasks with the right machines would give you the optimal consumption. It is not always true that having a powerful pressure washer would clean well. You need to bear in mind that too strong a PSI and GPM would cause water damage to the surfaces being cleaned.

Getting The Right Power Pressure Washer To Fit Your Cleaning Needs
As a reference guide, below are a range of cleaning tasks suitable for the PSI rating of the relevant power pressure washers.

For Home Use
1200 PSI to 1350 PSI

• For light pressure washing, cleaning of grills, garden and lawn furniture, car washing, or the dog house.

1500 PSI to 2200 PSI

• For driveways, sidewalks

2200 PSI to 3,000 PSI

• For cleaning patios, balconies, decks, sidings, stubborn waxy grease, paint preparation

For Commercial Use
If you are starting a pressure washing business, you would go for power pressure washers rated at PSI 2200 to 3500 which are designed for professional use on heavy-duty projects such as cleaning heavy equipment, manufacturing sites, construction sites, for paint preparation etc.

For more details, visit our Power Pressure Washers Buying Guide Series here