Pressure washers fall into three main product categories, which determines the material qualities, the cost of manufacture and therefore the sales price asked in the market place.
1. Hobby machines: these are the cheapest on the market and can be determined by the use of aluminium cylinder heads, high speed motors and stainless steel pistons. They are designed as limited life machines which should only be used on a 60% duty cycle. This means that during a 1 hour period the machine should only be worked for 36 minutes in total. In practice this means that if you wash your car and put it away that’s OK. If you spend three hours washing everything in sight the machine will overheat and excess wear will occur shortening the life of the product. Petrol powered machines have lawnmower engines and are direct coupled to the engine. Hoses and lances are all plastic and not very durable.
2. Commercial Machines: the next level up from hobby machines, they are better constructed with more features. Beware, some are high speed motors and some still have aluminium cylinder heads. What you want at this level of product is a brass cylinder head and preferably ceramic pistons and 1450rpm motors. Commercial machines can be 2800rpm or 1450rpm. 2800rpm motors are 60% duty cycle and 1450rpm are 100% duty cycle. (100% duty cycle can be used continuously.) Petrol and diesel powered machines tend to have pumps running at 3000rpm or 3600rpm and are better than hobby class machines with some even having brass heads and ceramic pistons too. Don’t expect then to draw their own water, this may work for the first couple of months but seal wear will soon cause the performance to drop dramatically.
3. Professional Machines: this level is aimed at professional users who want machines to work reliably day after day. All professional machines have 1450rpm pumps and motors, they will all have brass cylinder heads and the hose and gun will be steel reinforced. All 1450rpm pumps are designed to be self priming and will draw their own water if fitted with a suitable filter. Petrol and diesel powered machines will all have an intermediate reduction gearbox which allows the engine to rev to 2900rpm but the pump still revs at 1450rpm.
Click to view the Demon range of Industrial Pressure Washers or the Kranzle range of Professional Pressure Washers
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