Pressure Washers - Selection and Uses

Pressure washers are awesome for cleaning stuff outside. Combining more power and less water usage should be enough reason for anyone cleaning things to buy one, right? Well, not really. There is always the "Do I have a use for it" argument because these are fairly substantial investments.

Pressure Washer Uses

With so much power available, what should you clean with a pressure washer? Well, my first pressure washing experience was my car. It was followed by siding on the house. You could also clean a grill, your deck, the driveway, patio furniture, or anything else where you won't harm it with the power. The main point is it's got to be a solid item. Don't wash your dog with one.

Selection Criteria

There are a lot of things to consider when determining what pressure washer to purchase. The main thing to decide is between electric and gas powered. Gas powered is an excellent choice when portability is worth the premium and you will only be using it outdoors. If you want to take one with you on that weekend getaway to the cabin, for example, gas powered is probably going to be useful since you won't really know availability of outlets ahead of time. If you're cleaning professionally, plugging a cord into the side of a customer's house doesn't look professional at all. Also note that 4 cycle engines are required in California due to emissions regulations, so electric is a much more affordable choice there.

Pressure washers are also available in hot or cold models. Cold water pressure washers don't cost nearly as much, but they also don't do as good when cleaning really dirty or greasy areas. Pros should consider hot water, but the average home user will probably be happy with paying less and picking up a cold water model.

Pressure Washer Related Terms to Know

It'll pay off to understand the terminology before trying to get too in-depth with comparing pressure washers. I tried to get most of the common phrases here, but feel free to drop a comment if I missed something.

Amps (A) - Electric motors typically have an amp rating to compare power between models. You can read a bit more on Amps here. Generally, higher numbers say more power in the motor.

Belt Drive - A motor with a belt drive has a belt between the pump and the spindle of the motor. The belt is a wear item and needs to be inspected regularly as it may stretch or break with age. This type of motor typically has a reduction unit (large wheel on one end of the belt, small wheel on the other) making the motor turn more or less (depending on model) to do the same work as a direct drive unit.

Cleaning Unit (CU or UCE) - This is water pressure X water flow. Higher numbers here basically means more cleaning power.

Direct Drive - A motor with a direct drive has the pump directly mounted to the spindle of the motor. This tends to have the longest life and lower power consumption for the same amount of work as a belt driven unit (higher efficiency on direct drive).

Gallons per Minute (GPM) - This is a measure of the amount of water actually consumed. High pressure with a low GPM rating isn't as effective as the same pressure with a higher GPM rating.

Horsepower (HP) - Gas powered washers are rated in horsepower, which is just a measure of the power produced by the engine.

Nozzle - There are many types of nozzle available depending on the particular use. These are simply the tips which direct the water out of the hose. These are the simplest part, yet are the most important piece when cleaning*.

Pounds per Square Inch (PSI) - This is a measure of the water pressure. More pressure will result in quicker cleaning.

Pump - The working portion of any air compressor or pressure washer is the pump. Some industrial pressure washers even use multiple pumps. Most will at minimum have multiple plungers, and more plungers means a smoother flow of water.

* A Note on Nozzle Selection

The spray angle of most nozzles is adjustable. The wider the fan pattern, the lower the ability to cut through dirt. Zero-degree nozzles provide the most power. Fan angles of 15°-25° cover larger areas and are typically good choices for stripping and washing. Angles of 40° or more are a good choice for general washing applications. There are also nozzles known as "Rotating Nozzles" which are used for some cleaning applications as well. It's always best to make sure you're not using too much power for what you're cleaning, so if in doubt start with the widest angle and narrow it if you need more power.

Availability of Parts

As with any power tool, something may eventually break. Make sure that before you spend potentially hundreds or thousands of dollars on a pressure washer you can get parts when something breaks or you misplace something. Our most popular model has historically been the Porter Cable PCE1700. It's currently the only electric model we carry (electric is usually more popular due to lower cost), although we have a gas powered model at the same price. As with most any Porter Cable tool, we have the parts available on Tool Parts Direct. Many inexpensive pressure washers make parts tough to find, so sticking with a known brand is typically a good idea.

Bosch 36V Litheon Advantages

As I've stated two times prior, Bosch gave us some of their marketing materials which I'm sharing and commenting on for the next few weeks surrounding their launch. Today, I'll be focusing on their stated advantages from Litheon technology.

Litheon Advantage #1
Longest Cycle Life

Longer cycle life means that there are more charges per battery, which over time means you have to buy fewer replacement batteries. The result is that over the lifetime of the product, you've got a lower cost to operate.

Bosch had testing done in Bosch Labs (no bias there, right?) with the methodology of a constant amp draw on the battery to simulate applications such as 1/4" x 3.25" lag bolts and 1.25" spade bits. Personally, I don't consider that a normal "continual use" application, but the results were interesting none the less and they did verify them then by an outside lab as well.

Makita showed 20% the number of cycles of the Bosch Litheon. Milwaukee showed 33% as many cycles. Bosch's Litheon batteries 3 - 5 times as many cycles vs. either of these competitors. Now, that brings up the question of how, and they tried to answer that.

Battery Design Criteria

Bosch focused on three design criteria. The first was higher voltage, the second was electronic cell protection, and the third is an optimized battery design. According to Bosch, Makita fails all three, Milwaukee only increased the voltage, DeWALT increased the voltage but they don't know about ECP and it wasn't an optimized design, but of course the Litheon tools passed all three.

Higher voltage seems pretty self explanatory, but it also means that the battery doesn't have to work as hard for the same job. They equate that to an 8 cylinder car vs a 4 cylinder car driving uphill. The 8 cylinder has more power in reserve, so it isn't working as hard doing the same job.

Electronic Cell Protection (ECP) is something unique to Bosch products right now that prevents overheating, overload and deep discharge and guarantees a long lifetime to your battery.

Optimized battery design means incorporating cooling ribs made of a highly conductive material to accelerate heat removal from the battery.

Litheon Advantage #2
Superior Run Times

Where it really starts to get interesting is when you look at the runtime data that their lab and the 3rd party came up with. Bosch doesn't just show they can take more charges, but they show that each charge does more work per charge. In fact, up to 15% more than V28 and twice that of LXT and NiCad.

They used a hammer drill / driver for their testing and ran 4" lag bolts. The data was amazing. The Makita ran 40 bolts, the Milwaukee ran 77 and the Bosch ran 90. When changing to a 1.25" spade bit, the LXT made 47 holes, V28 accomplished 87 holes, but the Litheon made an amazing 101 holes.

Litheon Advantage #3
More Total Work

I disagree that this is really another advantage, but it is another way of stating the two prior tests effects when combined. If A is bigger, and B is bigger, A x B will be bigger. That's not a third test.

By combining the data, they say that the Makita battery has 14% of the Litheon's life, and the V28 has 33% of the Litheon's life. Suffice it to say that double the work per charge plus 5 times as many charges as the Makita has me curious about how well they recreated real-world usage. We probably won't know for a while yet, but it'll be interesting.

Concerning Results

One area of concern with their testing is if they ran the Makita into deep discharge as that would shorten life substantially, but the ECP on the Bosch is a nice feature to prevent that to say the least. For those that don't know, deep discharge can actually ruin a battery in a short amount of time by reverse-charging one cell so it can't hold a charge any more.

Their method was "based on a constant amp draw on the battery to simulate applications such as". So, a simulated load says this is better. But it doesn't take into account the way a tool actually works the battery. I have yet to find a piece of wood that is a little different on the end to make the initial cut motion the same load as the rest of the board when drilling, and knots tend to always find their way into the path I want to cut / drill.

Also, when the tool starts to slow down you'll normally pull the battery and put on a fresh one. With just placing a continual load on the battery, it can't possibly stop at that point, it will for sure keep going to the point of over discharged.

The Remaining Problem

So what all this amounts to is that Bosch gave some hard tests to the batteries and showed that theirs do perform well. Now that we know this, we're supposed to wait until this Winter to buy a drill? I don't think so. That's just way too long. I noticed they didn't compare the 10.8V Litheon to what's on the market now.

Doing up a huge promo pack about non-existent products, hmmm... is Bosch taking notes from Microsoft? Or are they perhaps watching the delayed launch of the PlayStation 3? Either way, you can't buy this drill yet. Only a couple of 10.8's and their 36V Rotary Hammer.

Bosch Litheon Tools - Current and Planned

In part two of my series on Lithoen, I'm going to take a look at the tools they're offering and planning. Of course, more will be offered as time progresses.

Superior Power to Weight Ratio
Of course, the big thing is the power-to-weight ratio. That was covered in more depth here, but it's worth mentioning again as they describe this for each power level, especially when looking back to the questions I posed in the last article about comparing 36V to 18V.

10.8V Litheon Tools
By taking advantage of the higher energy density, Bosch says that the 10.8V Litheon can provide the power of a nickel-based battery at a fraction of the weight. Of course, it doesn't say the voltage, but their next statement, when combined with the previous link, says they think 18V. They say Litheon can also provide double the power at equal weight in 36V. Sort of makes you wonder why 36V is only double that of 10.8 since they implied that 18V didn't gain anything over 18V Ni-Cd.

I'd also point out that Bosch shows that the 10.8V Litheon tools get a 70% charge in just 15 minutes. That's absolutely amazing and it should make it much easier to have some power when you need it, even if the battery goes dead. Just do something else while you wait a few minutes to charge it some... very cool.

Current 10.8V Litheon Tools
The current tools are the I-Driver and the Pocket Driver. What's very interesting here is the fact that they show no other planned tools on this page, although there's got to be something. They don't normally create a line of batteries for just 2 tools, so I guess we'll wait and see what else comes out.

The I-Driver is a very versatile little device with it's pivoting head and narrow profile. I anticipate this being a very useful tool down the road, with better adoption if more 10.8V tools get introduced.

The pocket driver is also incredibly useful. At half the size of a 12V compact driver, it's just really small yet powerful, which makes it incredibly useful. Some of the comments on a previous post make it apparent just how much people like and want this one. Again, more 10.8V tools will help justify the batteries, but this one seems to be a hit anyway.


36V Litheon Tools
Not to be outdone in power, the 36V line is offering not only as much power as many corded tools, but in some cases they'll be promoting cordless tools with more power than their corded lines. It seems silly, but they really want to push this new technology. Also, the 36V batteries will get 80% charge in just 24 minues. That's another huge win for high voltage.


Current 36V Tools
At this time, they have one tool in the 36V line that is available for purchase in the US. It's a 36V 1" rotary hammer. The design is decent, the balance didn't seem too bad, and 9.6lbs isn't terrible. This is one of the tools they claim has more power than a "Yellow" corded model. I'm not going to touch that claim, but it's certainly interesting.

Future 36V Tools
Coming soon, they show a 36V Hammerdrill / Driver, a 36V Drill / Driver, a 36V Reciprocating Saw and a 36V Circular Saw. Those all seem like great choices for making powerful, but will it be more power than needed at the expense of weight and battery size? I guess we'll have to wait and see, but I will say that it all looks pretty promising.

Bosch Litheon vs The Rest

Bosch gave us some of their marketing materials today on Litheon technology and it has a huge section on the competition. I feel some of this warrants a little sharing with my readers over the next few days, as well as some questioning.

Lithium-ion Benefit: 2X the Energy Density

This is absolutely true. The benefit of any Lithium battery technology is higher energy density. That's how cell-phones have become so small and light when compared to those from 10 years ago. Their page on "Energy Density" shows three options.

1) Big Power. Small Package.
This is referring to their 10.8V Litheon. They state that it has the power to perform up to 80% of common drilling and driving applications. Obviously, 10.8V is going to be lighter, so that's a pretty cool deal if it really can handle 80% of the applications.

2) 18V power at a less weight.
Ok, so if the 10.8V is "Big Power", then why do they feel that Makita (the obvious choice to target with this particular message) doesn't get any power benefit using Li-Ion in their 18V tools? Sort of looks like their marketing department has a double standard here to me.

3) Serious Power. No Weight Penalty.
This is about the 36V Litheon tools. They claim twice the power and run time as 18V NiCd. I haven't personally tested them, but I could believe that they could get twice the runtime and twice the power. But that's compared to 18V Ni-Cd, which isn't an apples-to-apples approach. I love advertising that just might get one by you. How would this compare to 18V Lithium-Ion? That'll be covered in a few days.

In any event, I said it before and I'll say it again - Bosch is very smart in going for the low end and the high end both with Lithium Ion tools. They're going to get the people that want the light weight as well as those that want the macho power. Now, if they'd just release more of them already...

Power Tool Warranties

For years now, power tool manufacturers have held fast the "Industry Standard" 1 year warranty. Well, that isn't the case any more. In fact, 2, 3, and even 5 year warranties are offered by many of our manufacturers now. But are they pulling a fast one here?

While I generally agree that the longer warranties provided by Makita, Bosch, Hitachi and Milwaukee are a nice step in the right direction, they're also not really doing much for the customer. It is true that they're giving a warranty that is longer, but it doesn't cover anything more than manufacturing defects. Normally, when you see something that isn't being manufactured properly, the problem will show up within the first few uses. If it doesn't show up then, it probably won't show up for a very long time.

The only time we see failures after 12 months with any consistency is one of two cases.

1) There is a recall about to happen / has recently happened.
2) The breakdown was from wear and tear or abuse, not from a manufacturing defect.

So on the surface the longer warranties look great. But when you dig a bit deeper, there's not a whole lot of substance to them. It's just another game of chess, and we're being treated as the pawns. Even so, I don't think they should get rid of the longer warranties. I'd just like to see them start to cover a bit more.

Search from FireFox

For those of you who don't know about FireFox, it's a competing web browser to Microsoft's Internet Explorer.



Once you have FireFox installed, browsing to the ToolBarn.com homepage will show you a link right next to the search box, labeled "FireFox Search Plug-In". Matt has created a plug-in that allows you to search ToolBarn.com very quickly. You would simply choose the TB logo from the drop-down search box at the top right of the browser (next to the address bar), then put in the search phrase you're looking for on our site. You'll be immediately taken to the search results on our site for that phrase.

If you can think of any other features you'd like in the search tool, let me know and we'll see what we can do.

Looking for a few good people.

As we continue to grow rapidly, we're always looking for some good people to fill new jobs at our company. In an effort to better communicate those opportunities, I got Jackie N in human resources hooked up with an Omaha careers blog. She'll be posting any openings there and I'll be making them more "Search Friendly" for people both on ToolBarn.com and searching through external engines, such as Google. Hopefully this will help us find the right people faster so we can keep your orders flowing to you quickly.

If you've got some skills that we could use here, let us know. We may not have that job open right now, but maybe we will down the road a bit or maybe we'll create a new position. Getting us a resume is the best way to find out.