What to Look For in a High-Powered Pressure Washer
High powered pressure washers are powerful cleaners that use highly pressurized water to clean surfaces like glass, wood, cement or concrete. These are best suited for commercial and industrial settings, where tough stains and grime are found.
How to Decide Which Pressure Washer You Need?
When you set out to purchase a pressure washer, the first step is to assess your cleaning requirements. What kinds of environments do you have – home, commercial or industrial? How much power you need?
Different flow rates, pressure levels, and temperature levels provide different ranges of power. High steam temperatures, high flow rates, and high pressure levels are effective for removing heavy-duty grease and grime. High-powered pressure washers offer pressure levels ranging from 3000 to 7000 PSI and flow rates from 5 to 7 GPM. However, commercial applications may require only cold water or hot water machines with more moderate pressure levels and flow rates.
Features to Look For
While many pressure washers employ a single temperature option, a combination of cold water, hot water, and steam temperatures in a single machine makes any pressure washer more effective and suitable to a variety of jobs. Today, there are triple function pressure washers that offer wet steam cleaning in addition to hot and cold water pressure cleaning.
While cold water can tackle most stains, hot water and steam loosen stains faster, which makes for speedier cleaning. In an industrial setting, where stains of grease and heavy-duty grime are abundant, effective pressure washers should be able to produce wet steam of extremely high temperatures -– 300 to 330°F.
An added option for industrial users to increase the power of their cleaning is chemical infusion control. Pressure washers with this feature allow users to have control over the addition of cleaning chemicals to make the cleaning process faster and more effective.
Things to Bear in Mind
A wide variety of heating and power configurations are available in pressure washer equipment. There are propane, gas, and electric powered pressure washers. These can be heated by gas, oil, kerosene or propane.
For mobile use, a pressure washer that is powered by gas or propane is best. This allows users to work in remote locations, away from an electrical source. However, these machines produce exhaust and generally are not used indoors.
For stationary or indoor use, an electric powered unit will do the trick. These electric pressure washers produce no exhaust and generate lower sound levels for use in any indoor environment. However, they do require use in proximity to an electrical outlet.
Last but not the least is the power-flow combination to choose. High flow rate pressure washers provide sufficient water to remove contaminants and materials from surfaces faster. However, high flow rates and pressure levels can damage delicate surfaces.
The way to choose pressure washers is to know what types of applications you will face. This will allow you to select the right flow rate, pressure level, power source, and temperature setting to meet your needs. |
