Pressure washer "spinner"

[Ole Anderson]

I have had a 5 hp gas pressure washer for about 15 years now, co-owned with my friend and neighbor. It has seen plenty of service, mostly power washing decks. I recently heard that they now make an add on accessory that has spinning nozzles for washing flat horizontal surfaces. First one that came up on Google was a 21" pro stainless steel model with handles for over $500. More than the washer. Then I ran across a homeowner version at both HD and Lowe's for $69, plastic housing 12" to 15" in diameter. So I picked up one at Lowes, branded Briggs and Stratton, that one was 12" in diameter, got it home and went to work. Man does that thing work well! Cleans my concrere drive about as fast as I can walk, at least faster than my wife walks at the grocery store, but that is another thread. :) The wand that comes with your PW is the handle, so there is some limitation there. My nozzle is not a quick connect style, so I had to buy a quick connect kit, about $9 at HD, Lowe's was out of stock. Only problem so far is that one of the nozzles clogged twice, and that stops the proper spinning action, I just unscrewed the nozzle, blew it out with compressed air and kept on going. I am going to pick up the quick connect filter that I bypassed the first time at HD, and that should take care of the problem. Don't know where the debris came from as I am on city water. Did my whole drive (16'x90'), my front walk, half the garage and my concrete porch in about 2 hours with no tiger striping. Woo hoo...

[Kevin Bourque]

I was watching some workmen using one of those "spinners" to clean the concrete walkway at a local convenience store. It was super fast and it didn't splash water everywhere.

[Brian Elfert]

They use one of those to clean the sidewalks at the local state fairgrounds. I worked there over 20 years ago and we used a steam cleaner with a nozzle about 4 to 6 inches wide to do that same job. It was slow and dangerous with all the hot steam. The new device is way faster and much safer.

[Myk Rian]

I have a spinner. Leaves circles on the deck.

[Ole Anderson]

I have a spinner. Leaves circles on the deck.

Well, tomorrow I will tackle my Trex deck, I pressure washed it earlier this year, but I could tell where I started and overlapped each pass. I am hoping it works as well on the deck as it did the concrete. Thanks for the heads up, I will be careful on the softer Trex material. Maybe reduce the throttle to lower the pressure. Although I think the spinner is designed for smaller washers (electric maybe) as the engine doesn't load down with the spinner like it does with the regular nozzle.

[Ole Anderson]

Update: I did the Trex and got 2 circles, obviously when from I didn't keep it moving. Still a great improvement in speed and looks from just using the wand. Bad news is that even though I put the filter just before the nozzles, just as I was finishing it it quit spinning again, so I cleaned the nozzles, OK for a few more minutes and it quit spinning again. This time the nozzles were clean. The spinner seemed free and without any wobble, so I need to take it apart to see if the problem is fixable. Got about 4 hours on it before failure. In one of the reviews on the HD version, someone mentioned that Lowe's rents them for $18 for 4 hours. Might be worth a try, especially if it is the pro version.

[Ed Looney]

Pro versions of the surface cleaner usually take at least a 4 gpm machine to run them properly. For decks a good oxy based cleaner is wonderful. Put it on with a pump up sprayer and rinse with garden hose. No overlap marks and way less loose fuzzy fibers left on the wood.


PS If you really want to use the pressure washer on wood keep the pressure down to 700 psi and the tip at least 4" away from the wood.


Ed

Owner of Hydro Clean Plus pressure washing.