Choosing the Right Pressure Washing Equipment For Your Needs

Determining what type of equipment you should use for pressure  washing is dependent upon what you will be doing with the pressure washer.  If you are just going to use the pressure washer to clean your home every six months or wash your vehicles then you won’t need equipment with  a high PSI rating or gallons per minute (GPM) rating then if you were going to use the equipment to start a power washing business. 

The two main things you should be aware of when deciding on purchasing a pressure washer is the pounds per square inch (PSI) and the gallons per minute (GPM) or flow rate of the unit. The PSI is an indicator of the amount of force water shoots out of the end of the trigger gun and the GPM is the measurement of how much water flows out of the end of the trigger gun per minute. The GPM is often called the flow rate of the pressure washer.

The gallons per minute rating is typically considered more important than the PSI in the commercial side of the business because the higher the GPM the faster jobs can be completed because there is more water shooting out of the end of the trigger gun, which means more cleaning power.

Many times when you are cleaning various surfaces you won’t need anything over 2000 PSI because you can damage common surfaces, but what you will want to have is more of a GPM rating for your pressure washer.

If you are like the home owner mentioned above you really only need a 1000-2000 psi machine with a 2- 3 GPM rating.  Of course you will want a higher rated machine if you are going to start a pressure washing business, but that’s a good average to use for the common homeowner doing his or her own residential work. 

Another important thing to consider is the type and quality of the pump that is on the pressure washer. The pump is the source for most of the maintenance problems on the pressure washer.  You need to make sure you purchase a unit that has a commercial grade pump on the machine and is rated for at least over a 100 hours of use.