Pressure washer - buy or rent?
 

I'm planning to paint the exetrior of my house to get it ready for
sale. The old paint is in decent shape, with not much peeling, so the
main function of the pressure washing will be to clean the surface, not
strip the old paint. In fact, I'll mainly be repainting the faded trim
and only touching up the walls.

I was planning to rent a 2,400 psi washer from Home Depot, but am also
considering buying a low-end consumer washer for $70-100. For example,
there's one on sale at Sears with 1,500 psi (not sure about the GPM
rating).

Would something like this be sufficient for my needs, or should I rent
the heavy duty one?

Thanks.

"Lew Hodgett" wrote in message
link.net...
wrote:

Even an old man with prostate trouble peeing on the side of the building
will be more effective than a 1500 PSI unit.

Yes, I second the suggestion for using the old man. The acid in the pee is
surprisingly effective, and you can rent one just about anywhere.

"Jerry S." wrote in message
...

"Lew Hodgett" wrote in message
link.net...
wrote:

Even an old man with prostate trouble peeing on the side of the building
will be more effective than a 1500 PSI unit.

Yes, I second the suggestion for using the old man. The acid in the pee
is
surprisingly effective, and you can rent one just about anywhere.


I like low tech, economical solutions. But this approach does seem
problematic.

FWIW my $70 low-end wallmart unit ended up in the trash because it did not
have enough oomph to be good for much of anything.

Rent at least once to get a feel for what a washer can do.

-Steve

wrote in message
ups.com...
I'm planning to paint the exetrior of my house to get it ready for
sale. The old paint is in decent shape, with not much peeling, so the
main function of the pressure washing will be to clean the surface, not
strip the old paint. In fact, I'll mainly be repainting the faded trim
and only touching up the walls.

I was planning to rent a 2,400 psi washer from Home Depot, but am also
considering buying a low-end consumer washer for $70-100. For example,
there's one on sale at Sears with 1,500 psi (not sure about the GPM
rating).

Would something like this be sufficient for my needs, or should I rent
the heavy duty one?

Thanks.

Even an old man with prostate trouble

Have prostate, will travel
wire Mike in Arkansas,
San Fransisco

Rent a HD one. 1,500 is wimpy.

Dave

wrote:

I'm planning to paint the exetrior of my house to get it ready for
sale. The old paint is in decent shape, with not much peeling, so the
main function of the pressure washing will be to clean the surface, not
strip the old paint. In fact, I'll mainly be repainting the faded trim
and only touching up the walls.

I was planning to rent a 2,400 psi washer from Home Depot, but am also
considering buying a low-end consumer washer for $70-100. For example,
there's one on sale at Sears with 1,500 psi (not sure about the GPM
rating).

Would something like this be sufficient for my needs, or should I rent
the heavy duty one?

Thanks.

In article . com,
wrote:

I'm planning to paint the exetrior of my house to get it ready for
sale. The old paint is in decent shape, with not much peeling, so the
main function of the pressure washing will be to clean the surface, not
strip the old paint. In fact, I'll mainly be repainting the faded trim
and only touching up the walls.

I was planning to rent a 2,400 psi washer from Home Depot, but am also
considering buying a low-end consumer washer for $70-100. For example,
there's one on sale at Sears with 1,500 psi (not sure about the GPM
rating).

Would something like this be sufficient for my needs, or should I rent
the heavy duty one?

Thanks.

I always find it amazing to find dozens of opened (returned) 1500 PSI
washers at the local big box for sale as 'demos'..or 'clearance'.
Why?
Fricking things are useless.

I rented a 10 HP Honda powered 3000 psi unit last summer...NOW you're
talking. Blew the paint and rust off the railing on my front porch.
Perfect!
That one liked to cut wood too... so I guess we're still on topic?

"Lee Michaels" wrote:


"Jerry S." wrote in message
...

"Lew Hodgett" wrote in message
link.net...
wrote:

Even an old man with prostate trouble peeing on the side of the
building will be more effective than a 1500 PSI unit.

Yes, I second the suggestion for using the old man. The acid in the
pee is
surprisingly effective, and you can rent one just about anywhere.


I like low tech, economical solutions. But this approach does seem
problematic.


And spendy. Just think of the outlay for beer.

I tried a low cost washer like you described for the same application you
are planning. I found it not to be any more useful than the water coming
from a garden hose. I then borrowed a 2400 pound machine from a friend and
was successful.

Don Dando


wrote in message
ups.com...
I'm planning to paint the exetrior of my house to get it ready for
sale. The old paint is in decent shape, with not much peeling, so the
main function of the pressure washing will be to clean the surface, not
strip the old paint. In fact, I'll mainly be repainting the faded trim
and only touching up the walls.

I was planning to rent a 2,400 psi washer from Home Depot, but am also
considering buying a low-end consumer washer for $70-100. For example,
there's one on sale at Sears with 1,500 psi (not sure about the GPM
rating).

Would something like this be sufficient for my needs, or should I rent
the heavy duty one?

Thanks.

Robatoy wrote:



I rented a 10 HP Honda powered 3000 psi unit last summer...NOW you're
talking. Blew the paint and rust off the railing on my front porch.
Perfect!
That one liked to cut wood too... so I guess we're still on topic?


A 1500 will cut softwood. DAMHIKT.

"Robatoy" wrote in message
...
In article . com,
wrote:

I'm planning to paint the exetrior of my house to get it ready for
sale. The old paint is in decent shape, with not much peeling, so the
main function of the pressure washing will be to clean the surface, not
strip the old paint. In fact, I'll mainly be repainting the faded trim
and only touching up the walls.

I was planning to rent a 2,400 psi washer from Home Depot, but am also
considering buying a low-end consumer washer for $70-100. For example,
there's one on sale at Sears with 1,500 psi (not sure about the GPM
rating).

Would something like this be sufficient for my needs, or should I rent
the heavy duty one?

Thanks.

I always find it amazing to find dozens of opened (returned) 1500 PSI
washers at the local big box for sale as 'demos'..or 'clearance'.
Why?
Fricking things are useless.

I rented a 10 HP Honda powered 3000 psi unit last summer...NOW you're
talking. Blew the paint and rust off the railing on my front porch.
Perfect!
That one liked to cut wood too... so I guess we're still on topic?

I rented a big pressure washer to remove loose paint off of a cedar shingle
house. It removed a fair number of shingles too. Which was OK, because they
needed to be replaced. But I had to be careful. Otherwise it would just eat
the cedar shingles away.

"Don Dando" wrote in message
.. .
I then borrowed a 2400 pound machine from a friend and

Wow, did it come on a trailer? LOL Some one was going to ask it.

I agree with the respondents that the 1500psi ones are crap.
How about buying a 2400+ psi unit?

3 years ago my neighbor & I bought a Karcher 2400psi w/
a Honda engine at Costco for $300. I figure I'm at payback
(vs rental) already.
There's now no pressure(no pun intended) to hustle thru the job
and return a rental unit.
In addition to washing the house:
Cleaning and/or stripping the deck.
Annual blasting the winter moss from the driveway.
Cleaning the mud from the toys - quads, M/Cs, etc
Degrassing the underside of the lawnmower.
Peeling the bark(and mud, grit, whatnot) off of logs/wood
before running them thru the saw/jointer/planer.
Etc, etc, etc.

You'll be surprised at how many uses you can think of for
your new "toy".

Art


wrote in message
ups.com...
I'm planning to paint the exetrior of my house to get it ready for
sale. The old paint is in decent shape, with not much peeling, so the
main function of the pressure washing will be to clean the surface, not
strip the old paint. In fact, I'll mainly be repainting the faded trim
and only touching up the walls.

I was planning to rent a 2,400 psi washer from Home Depot, but am also
considering buying a low-end consumer washer for $70-100. For example,
there's one on sale at Sears with 1,500 psi (not sure about the GPM
rating).

Would something like this be sufficient for my needs, or should I rent
the heavy duty one?

Thanks.

wrote in message

Would something like this be sufficient for my needs, or should I rent
the heavy duty one?


Neighbor have one? Does he use that particular commodity accepted around
the world for negotiations and settlement of accounts ---- the six pack?

On Mon, 27 Jun 2005 14:42:47 -0400, the opaque "Jerry S."
spake:


"Lew Hodgett" wrote in message
hlink.net...
wrote:

Even an old man with prostate trouble peeing on the side of the building
will be more effective than a 1500 PSI unit.

Yes, I second the suggestion for using the old man. The acid in the pee is
surprisingly effective, and you can rent one just about anywhere.

How much do you guys pay these old men who are full of pee?
Do you just pick them up out of the gutters Downtown every
morning, or what?

-
DANCING: The vertical frustration of a horizontal desire.
---------------------------------------------------------
http://diversify.com Full Service Web Programming

Thanks, everyone, you saved me $70. Maybe I'll try the peeing
suggestion myself before renting the HD unit, but the neighbors
probably won't appeciate the sight of me on the ladder trying to get at
the high spots near the roof ;)

Question - how many hours does it typically take to pressure wash an
average sized, one story house, including a patio? I'm thinking 5 to 6
hours at most.

How much do you guys pay these old men who are full of pee?
Do you just pick them up out of the gutters Downtown every
morning, or what?

Hey!

On 27 Jun 2005 16:14:43 -0700, the opaque "Mike in Arkansas"
spake:

How much do you guys pay these old men who are full of pee?
Do you just pick them up out of the gutters Downtown every
morning, or what?

Hey!

"Hey!" is not your rate of pay. So what izzit? ;)

--
A lot of folks can't understand how we came
to have an oil shortage here in America.

Well, there's a very simple answer...nobody
bothered to check the oil; We just didn't
know we were getting low.

The reason for that is purely geographical
- our OIL is located in Alaska, California,
Oklahoma and Texas.

Our DIPSTICKS are located in Washington, DC.

In article .com,
wrote:
Thanks, everyone, you saved me $70. Maybe I'll try the peeing
suggestion myself before renting the HD unit, but the neighbors
probably won't appeciate the sight of me on the ladder trying to get at
the high spots near the roof ;)

Question - how many hours does it typically take to pressure wash an
average sized, one story house, including a patio? I'm thinking 5 to 6
hours at most.


Another alternative -- a plain old garden hose, maybe with a detergent
sprayer attached, and something like the head of a big push-broom to 'scrub'
the siding with. Given that the paint is still good, the 'cleaning' doesn't
take a lot of effort.

In article ,
"Wood Butcher" wrote:

In addition to washing the house:
Cleaning and/or stripping the deck.
Annual blasting the winter moss from the driveway.
Cleaning the mud from the toys - quads, M/Cs, etc
Degrassing the underside of the lawnmower.
Peeling the bark(and mud, grit, whatnot) off of logs/wood
before running them thru the saw/jointer/planer.
Etc, etc, etc.

You'll be surprised at how many uses you can think of for
your new "toy"

STOPPIT!! You're making me horny!

In article .com,
wrote:

but the neighbors
probably won't appeciate the sight of me on the ladder trying to get at
the high spots near the roof ;)

....why would you need a ladder?

HEY!

I can still knock paint off a wall!


"Lew Hodgett" wrote in message
link.net...
wrote:
I'm planning to paint the exetrior of my house to get it ready for
sale. The old paint is in decent shape, with not much peeling, so the
main function of the pressure washing will be to clean the surface, not
strip the old paint. In fact, I'll mainly be repainting the faded trim
and only touching up the walls.

I was planning to rent a 2,400 psi washer from Home Depot, but am also
considering buying a low-end consumer washer for $70-100. For example,
there's one on sale at Sears with 1,500 psi (not sure about the GPM
rating).


Even an old man with prostate trouble peeing on the side of the building
will be more effective than a 1500 PSI unit.

You need at least a 2500 or preferably a 3000 PSI unit IMHO.

Lew

I wouldn't buy anything less than 3000 psi, 3 gpm. The less powerful models
are good for washing the car, but that's about all.

If you decide to buy one, take a good look at the pump. A $400 model gets
you a plastic oilless pump. If you want an oil-lubricated metal pump from
Cat (US) or Annovi Reverberi (Italy), expect to pay $800-$1000.

Gas engines require maintenance. If you aren't going to use the washer very
often, renting it might be the way to go, even if you end up spending more
in the long run. Let the rental store deal with storage, parts and
maintenance.



wrote in message
ups.com...
I'm planning to paint the exetrior of my house to get it ready for
sale. The old paint is in decent shape, with not much peeling, so the
main function of the pressure washing will be to clean the surface, not
strip the old paint. In fact, I'll mainly be repainting the faded trim
and only touching up the walls.

I was planning to rent a 2,400 psi washer from Home Depot, but am also
considering buying a low-end consumer washer for $70-100. For example,
there's one on sale at Sears with 1,500 psi (not sure about the GPM
rating).

Would something like this be sufficient for my needs, or should I rent
the heavy duty one?

Thanks.

wrote in message
ups.com...
snippage
Would something like this be sufficient for my needs, or should I rent
the heavy duty one?

Thanks.

I had several lower pressure units... bought one, "inherited" another,, both
at or below 1500 PSI.
Really slow way to get little done!

*Rant mode: ON*
I finally bought what was represented as a 2700 PSI 3 GPM unit (when
shopping, remember the GPM is almost as important as PSI).
Later during a time when the had the pump in for "warranty repair" the
company went out of business :(.
I got the pump back and got it repaired a little closer to home and found
the pump had a max. 200PSI 3GPM rating. The 6 HP Honda driving the pump
would not have been adequate for a larger pump according to Cat.
It has a sticker on it stating 2700 PSI, who to believe? ;)
*Rant mode: OFF*

The point to my ramblings above to make you aware that if buying one, get
the model number of the pump and do some research to learn if you are
receiving what you are paying for.
Now to add my two cents to the loads of other good replies you've had;

Pressure will add additional area to the cleaning "zone" and may be
controlled with a valve on the machine, or more easily by varying the
distance to the working surface.

With a low power machine, you have to get close and then be able to clean an
area of a few square inches at a time.
With mine an a special additional nozzle that throws a "cone" of single
stream being spun out of the end for the large concrete slabs and walls
(plus the usual jets for fans and streams) .

Poorly advertised or not, it will remove a cheap auto paint job, cuts wood
and plastic nicely and has an appetite for foot mats made like 3M sanding
pads {OWWC}.

It will allow for about a 10" to 12 " cone if I move slowly ( I get lotsa
spiral patterns if I don't G).

How often can you invent uses for it (to justify this with SWMBO)?
A lot? Get out the crowbar!
Not often? Rent one!
Simple.

Tom

"Thomas Bunetta" wrote in message
...
snip
I got the pump back and got it repaired a little closer to home and found
the pump had a max. 200PSI 3GPM rating. The 6 HP Honda driving the pump
snip

Should read 2000 PSI
T

On 27 Jun 2005 11:11:07 -0700, wrote:

I'm planning to paint the exetrior of my house to get it ready for
sale. The old paint is in decent shape, with not much peeling, so the
main function of the pressure washing will be to clean the surface, not
strip the old paint. In fact, I'll mainly be repainting the faded trim
and only touching up the walls.

I was going to do the same thing, but then I heard from a couple of
different sources that pressure-washing as paint prep was a really bad
idea. First one was on a rerun of This Old House a couple of months
ago, and the second was the salesman at the Sherwin Williams store.
Evidently, it can wreck the paint from the inside, even if you let it
dry for a couple of weeks. Previously, I had always scraped and
sanded, and after hearing a couple of folks warning against
pressure-washing, I figure I'll stick with the old tried-and-true
method. Could be a load of BS, but I figure they know more about it
than me and I'd hate to waste a couple hundred bucks worth of paint.

And really, if you're just mainly doing trim, it's not all that hard
to sand it down, even if you're taking it down to bare wood.

I was planning to rent a 2,400 psi washer from Home Depot, but am also
considering buying a low-end consumer washer for $70-100. For example,
there's one on sale at Sears with 1,500 psi (not sure about the GPM
rating).

Would something like this be sufficient for my needs, or should I rent
the heavy duty one?

If you're main concern is washing it, consider how deeply you really
need that water to penetrate the wood... seems like the smaller one
would work just fine to me.

"J.B. Bobbitt" wrote in message
. ..
HEY!

I can still knock paint off a wall!


Is your first name John? That's amazing, considering what you've been
through.

"Buck Turgidson" writes:

"J.B. Bobbitt" wrote in message
^


. ..
HEY!

I can still knock paint off a wall!


Is your first name John? That's amazing, considering what you've been
through.


His middle name oviously isn't "Wayne"...

--
Dr. Juergen Hannappel http://lisa2.physik.uni-bonn.de/~hannappe
Phone: +49 228 73 2447 FAX ... 7869
Physikalisches Institut der Uni Bonn Nussallee 12, D-53115 Bonn, Germany
CERN: Phone: +412276 76461 Fax: ..77930 Bat. 892-R-A13 CH-1211 Geneve 23

On Mon, 27 Jun 2005 22:30:51 -0400, the opaque Robatoy
spake:

In article .com,
wrote:

but the neighbors
probably won't appeciate the sight of me on the ladder trying to get at
the high spots near the roof ;)

...why would you need a ladder?

He must be short, and not very tall, too. gd&r

--
A lot of folks can't understand how we came
to have an oil shortage here in America.

Well, there's a very simple answer...nobody
bothered to check the oil; We just didn't
know we were getting low.

The reason for that is purely geographical
- our OIL is located in Alaska, California,
Oklahoma and Texas.

Our DIPSTICKS are located in Washington, DC.