Building a BIG electric pressure washer

[Dan Friedrichs]

I have access (aka - free) to a really nice triplex pressure washer pump (ceramic plungers, etc). It's belt-drive, so I need to supply a motor, hose, wand, etc.

I have a gas pressure washer, already, but it's such a pain to use (haul it out, gas it up, find a hose, hook the hose up, .....). I'm thinking it would be very nice to have an electric-driven power washer, mounted somewhere permanent, and plumbed into my residential hot water. This is just for my personal use on my small suburban home - mostly for washing off the cars and deck, etc.

At this point, I was planning to find a used 5-7.5HP 240v motor, some belts and pulleys, buy a nice high-pressure hose-on-a-reel, a nice wand, and assemble it all. Curious if anyone has done this or has any feedback about the idea.

[Matt Meiser]

Northern tool sells some. I'm not sure all pumps are rated for hot water. And to get a decent reel you apparently have to spend well over $100 because the $100 one I bought was terrible with respect to getting the hose routed at the beginning--I ended up sending it back.

[Stephen Cherry]

This is just for my personal use on my small suburban home - mostly for washing off the cars and deck, etc.



I'm all for it, just for the technical achievement, and to have the biggest, etc., but do you really need this? I think that these big machines could destroy a car, that's where you basically want to wet, gently wash, and rinse. Maybe once every leap year you need to wash the deck.

Don't want to sound negative, because it sounds like a fun project, but I used to have a little karcher electric washer, and it was plenty good for occasional use.

[John McClanahan]

I know someone who owns a self-serve car wash. He has 3 cylinder pumps with 3 HP motors. They produce about 1500 PSI using a 3 GPM flat spray tip.

John

[Biff Johnson]

There happens to be a thread going on a tractor forum I belong to where the guy is building a electric pressure washer/car wash set up for his house. Kind of dovetails with your project.

[Dan Friedrichs]

Thanks, Biff! That's exactly the kind of inspiration I was looking for :)

[Biff Johnson]

Thanks, Biff! That's exactly the kind of inspiration I was looking for :)


You are welcome! At first I thought the guy was just a little over the top...then while dragging out soap, hose and bucket to wash the car yesterday I got to thinking....

[Chris Padilla]

I bought a nice gas, cold water pressure sprayer from Northern Tool about a year ago. For sure, gas is noisier than electric but both are equally a pain in terms of hooking up water to them, purging, etc. The electric ones were pricier if psi and gpm were the same over gas. Belt drive is even more expensive but overall less wear and tear over direct drive. My PW came with a blue CAT pump, which is supposed to be the meow of high-pressure pumps, I guess. :) Not

http://www.northerntool.com/shop/tools/product_200594736_200594736 Is the one I have although mine is red instead of black.

Anyway, you can learn a lot studying the Northern Tool PW...I'm very happy with mine. Sounds like a great project!

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Per the TOSs:

Links to other websites are allowed in posts. In fact, they are encouraged. However, links for the sole purpose of marketing, generating traffic to a site, or any other commercial advertisement deemed to solicit commercial benefit are not allowed. Links to other public or private forums are not allowed. Links should be submitted as references, for the sole purpose of generating or supporting discussions on SawMill Creek.

[Biff Johnson]

Per the TOSs:

Links to other websites are allowed in posts. In fact, they are encouraged. However, links for the sole purpose of marketing, generating traffic to a site, or any other commercial advertisement deemed to solicit commercial benefit are not allowed. Links to other public or private forums are not allowed. Links should be submitted as references, for the sole purpose of generating or supporting discussions on SawMill Creek.


Seriously? That seems a little heavy-handed. Are there any other kind of forums besides public or private? Besides, this is an off-topic thread, not like it was being linked to another wood working site and it certainly wasn't for commercial benefit. I would urge the mods to use a broader interpretation of the rules on this one. It would be a shame to moderate away the sharing of useful information among members.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

Biff,

Yes....Seriously. It has been that way since the very beginning of SMC.

It was very recently discussed in the Moderators Forum. The decision was made that links to other forums are not allowed.

There is nothing stopping someone from posting the same information here as it was posted at another forum.

There are also good reasons for not allowing links to other forums:

1. We cannot control who joins here but we can and do try to control the quality of the material posted here. We have members here that are in their early teens. We don't allow profanity, flaming, etc. Even some adults find such activities offensive. We cannot control the quality of the content at other forums.

2. Other sites may decide to delete threads after a given period of time. Thus, the link becomes a dead link, going nowhere and thus just muddles a thread.

3. Even though a link at another forum is civil and proper now, one minute after the link is posted here, that could change. It would be an endless and impossible job for the Moderators to continually follow each link to insure it's was proper and civil.

4. Even linking to a PDF file at another forum consumes bandwidth at the source and the other forum might consider it theft. The cost of the download could be at the expense of the competing forum.

Believe me, it was discussed early last week and that was the decision.

[Biff Johnson]

Thanks for the info Ken, I appreciate the well thought out response. Although I don't agree, I appreciate you taking the time. I'm guilty as charged for not reading the TOS...or the small print that comes at the end of so many other things in life!

Didn't mean to take the thread off topic, spray on!