Gas or Electric Pressure Washer?

[canoetrpr]

Hmm. I'm tempted to pick up a little electric one seeing that many of you have had a decent experience with them. I only need it to wash down the tractor every so often and maybe wash down the dog runs every so often. Any decent gas operated ones seem to be at least 2x the price and I don't need something else to maintain

 

[MrJimi]

I have an electric one, the kind that has the motor sitting on top like at northern tool and it always starts and I never have to mix gas or clean carburetors
looks like this one here
I like it

 

[mjarrels]

I have one that runs off my air compressor... only about 500 PSI but works great!

mark

 

[derekuk101]

Thanks for all of the discussion. I decided to go with the electric Karcher K5.85m. It is in the prosumer class of washers with 1850PSI and an aluminum pump. I bought it for $200 from Karcher K5.85M-R - Reconditioned Prosumer 1850 PSI Electric Pressure Washer

It is remanufactured, and I'll let you know how it turns out when I get it.

Thanks again.

 

[Soundguy]

Yep.. no cheapy carb to clean after setting all year..

soundguy

 

[Bird]

I went pressure washer shopping today , looked at all the gas units first, tipped one of the boxes on its side (man it was heavy!) to read the specs and started to smell fuel so quick turned it upright and ran to the next store

Home Depot had an electric Husky 2000 psi for 179.00, I convinced myself that I could come back in a couple of years and drop another 500.00 on a gas unit if I really needed it, and headed for home to try it out.

Set up was straight forward, screw the handle on, attach a garden hose, attach the pressure hose and wand, add some cleaner to the tank and plug her in. It came with 2 wands, one with soap and rinse settings, the other a rotating cone. Seemed to clean adequately; washed the clay off the tractor bucket OK albeit not as efficiently as I had hoped. Loved the quiet, the fact it ran only when the trigger was pulled, the light weight and the modest price. Oh, and the fact that it won't strip the paint off the family mini van means the kids have another chore to add to their list All in all, a satisfying purchase.

So you have a one year newer model for $10 more than I paid for my 1800 psi model on 3/22/07. Otherwise, it sounds like we have about the same thing. I used it a few times last year, but then had not used it for several months. I thought I'd flushed it good the last time I used it, but last weekend, I got it out to wash our minivan and pickup, and found that it ran, produced pressure well, etc. Everything was good except it would not dispense detergent. The manual only showed to clean the nozzle with a stiff wire. I tried that, along with a number of other things, none of which helped. So Monday morning, I went online to the "chat" customer service and "Adolphe" started telling me of things to try, and as he named each one, I'd tell him I'd tried that with no luck. So he said the only thing to do was to open it up (remove the front cover), disassemble the "Detergent Suction Assembly", clean it thoroughly, put it back together, and if that didn't fix it, to order new parts.

To open it up, you just have to remove 7 screws from the back side (I almost didn't find the bottom 2). And with my usual luck, and more tools than I'll ever use, 6 of the 7 screws are recessed so far in there that I didn't have a Phillips screwdriver long enough to reach them. So I had to go to Home Depot and buy another screwdriver. Of course, I had no idea what I was doing; sure wish it had come with a parts list and exploded view. But to make this long story a little shorter, it's actually very simple once you open it up, and cleaning the Detergent Suction Assembly fixed it.

And the other good news is that I wondered what it looked like inside and now I know.

 

[wedge40]

I've had a B&S gas one for about 6 years now. And the only problem I had was it got too hot in the shed and gas tank cracked. But I alway hook the water up and get it flowing, not just turned on but the nozzle is open, (velcro straps are nice.) then I start the machine. When I'm done I leave the water running a minute or so after turning it off. Seems as good as the day I bought it.

Wedge

 

[JSharp]

I just got a Campbell Hausfeld PW1800 electric -

Product - 1800 PSI Electric Pressure Washer - from Campbell Hausfeld

You can find them for $170-$200 everywhere.

It works ok if a bit slower than the large gas models. It's 1800 PSI, 1.6 GPM, has 2 pressure detergent tanks that are usable on low pressure, and the lance parts just snap together.

It works pretty well. So far I cleaned the siding on the back of my house in about 1/2 hour and have cleaned some concrete with it. It'll be plenty for cleaning the tractor and lawn equipment.

I'm happy and like soundguy said - No cheap carb to keep clean...

 

[davitk]

ahhhh, yes, there's nothing so relaxing as watching your child work

 

[Gravdigr]

We use a gas pressure washer. It's a craftsman 6.5hp (I think) and it has the detergent hopper for cleaning the greasy stuff. With quick change nozzles it can be soft enough to use on my new car or agressive enough to strip the paint from my in-laws patio.

For general cleaning or demudding of my equipment, trucks, and 4 wheelers I have something different I use. It's actually an acessory for 1 of my 4 wheelers. For 1 year yamaha made a model called a terrapro. It's basically a 350cc moto 4 with a pto...yes a 4 wheeler with a pto. This terrapro came with a tow behind 48" pto powered finish mower connect to the axle via 2 point hitch. It also came with a 100 gallon water tank used for spraying. We never sprayed with it but if you hook up a 5/8" hose up to the pto powered pump you can empty that tank in 20 mins or less. That's a lot of flow and with a good garden nozzle it will cut through several inches of dry mud like a knife through butter. By far the best thing I found for cleaning dirty stuff.