A month ago I had my driveway widened. It's something I've been wanting to do for a while. Since we bought our new car, I needed a place to park my truck alongside the house. Anyway I had about 9 yards total poured. In the process of excavating for the new concrete the Bobcat driver managed to rubber up my existing driveway with tire tracks everywhere.
I made a stink about it, and the guy apologized and knocked $200.00 off the job. I contacted a few commercial pressure washing outfits, but most of them charge too much for small jobs because it's not worth their time. They want to do gas stations and parking lots. So I ended up biting the bullet and buying one. Home Depot had a nice Ryobi for $400.00 with a Honda engine. It received good reviews, but when I looked at the thing it just looked cheap.
So I went to Lowe's and bought this model:
https://www.lowes.com/pd/SIMPSON-PowerSh...CARB/1000151725
A guy on another forum I frequent has been using a similar model for years, and he's been very happy with it. It has a 6.5 H.P. Kohler engine, and 3,300 PSI pump output at 2.5 gallons per minute. And it's got a much nicer and larger triplex pump than what the Ryobi had. It's more of a commercial type of unit. I also bought a 15" rotary cleaning head attachment to go with it. Along with a rotating cleaning nozzle.
The unit came fully assembled except for installing the handle and connecting all the hoses. The last 2 days I've been breaking my back hanging racks and shelving trying to get my garage organized so I'll have a place to store it. Between that and getting this thing all ready to go, I'm going to take a break before I go out there and try it out. Today I'll take a trip to Tractor Supply and get a good 3/4" hose to feed it. The manual say's to be sure it receives 5 gallons a minute to the pump at 20 PSI. If the intake part of the pump starves for water, they can burn out real quick. My hoses are all 5/8", and while they might work O.K., I'm not going to risk getting cheap in the wrong place, so I'll just get a good one.
I'm going to be running it off a hose bib that tee's off the main water line where it comes into the house. So between that and a good hose, I should be good to go. I'm anxious to see how well it all works. I've got enough concrete now where I can get my money's worth of out of it.
I made a stink about it, and the guy apologized and knocked $200.00 off the job. I contacted a few commercial pressure washing outfits, but most of them charge too much for small jobs because it's not worth their time. They want to do gas stations and parking lots. So I ended up biting the bullet and buying one. Home Depot had a nice Ryobi for $400.00 with a Honda engine. It received good reviews, but when I looked at the thing it just looked cheap.
So I went to Lowe's and bought this model:
https://www.lowes.com/pd/SIMPSON-PowerSh...CARB/1000151725
A guy on another forum I frequent has been using a similar model for years, and he's been very happy with it. It has a 6.5 H.P. Kohler engine, and 3,300 PSI pump output at 2.5 gallons per minute. And it's got a much nicer and larger triplex pump than what the Ryobi had. It's more of a commercial type of unit. I also bought a 15" rotary cleaning head attachment to go with it. Along with a rotating cleaning nozzle.
The unit came fully assembled except for installing the handle and connecting all the hoses. The last 2 days I've been breaking my back hanging racks and shelving trying to get my garage organized so I'll have a place to store it. Between that and getting this thing all ready to go, I'm going to take a break before I go out there and try it out. Today I'll take a trip to Tractor Supply and get a good 3/4" hose to feed it. The manual say's to be sure it receives 5 gallons a minute to the pump at 20 PSI. If the intake part of the pump starves for water, they can burn out real quick. My hoses are all 5/8", and while they might work O.K., I'm not going to risk getting cheap in the wrong place, so I'll just get a good one.
I'm going to be running it off a hose bib that tee's off the main water line where it comes into the house. So between that and a good hose, I should be good to go. I'm anxious to see how well it all works. I've got enough concrete now where I can get my money's worth of out of it.