Scirocco Central

It was my birthday the other week and my wife said she would get me a decent pressure washer.

I have searched the posts and found loads of advice although some fairly old now. Regarding whats on the market nowdays does anyone know what the best thing is to buy?i looked at some nice water cooled units with roll up hose reel but I don't want to get something too powerful. Would a hot water one wash the car better?

A hot water pressure washer does wash your better, have you ever run hot water over a dinner plate that has dried food stains on it (like curry)? Unlike cold water it would instantly remove most of it without any washing up liquid.

Problem is your talking a lot of money for one of these. I just use a Karcher K2 cold water pressure washer, nothing special but good brand, plenty of accessories, powerful enough, snow foams ok and nice and portable for handling and storage. Mine does exactly what I want it to do, cleans the car well and only cost about £80-100 from reputable shops.

I'm sure one of these would be more than adequate if its mainly for washing your car and the occasional patio slab clean.

Hope this helps

sciroccorich wrote:A hot water pressure washer does wash your better, have you ever run hot water over a dinner plate that has dried food stains on it (like curry)? Unlike cold water it would instantly remove most of it without any washing up liquid.

Problem is your talking a lot of money for one of these. I just use a Karcher K2 cold water pressure washer, nothing special but good brand, plenty of accessories, powerful enough, snow foams ok and nice and portable for handling and storage. Mine does exactly what I want it to do, cleans the car well and only cost about £80-100 from reputable shops.

I'm sure one of these would be more than adequate if its mainly for washing your car and the occasional patio slab clean.

Hope this helps

Thanks for the advice

Buy a pressure washer that can draw from a static source (like a water butt), buy a 20 litre container, fill the 20 litre container with hot water (in your house) and then carry it to your pressure washer! Job done. ;-)

I've tried exactly that with my K2, I find it works ok but you need to put the 20L container up high (Put mine on my wheelie bin so I can also move it easy using its wheels) so you get reasonably good gravity feed.

The problems I find is you have to check the temperature of the hot water (must not be above 40 degrees because of pressure washer limit) because its normally about 55-60 degrees straight from the tap. The other issue is the bore size through a standard Hozelok connection, being small its restrictive and the flow rate coming out of the lance is only about 70% of the norm.

If you do this then either use the shortest hose possible (between water container and pressure washer) or find some connection fittings that are bigger internally than standard Hozelok type (for better inlet feed)

Personally I find it a lot of messing about and stick to cold water, also I'm not sure if it does your pressure washer any good long term unless your pressure washer pump is capable of good suction instead of relying on a pressurized inlet.

Thanks for all the advice guys. What would be great is a hot water pressure washer for under £500 but I doubt they exist.

I have a simple karcher k2 cold water system. works fine for me. Cleans well and is cheap. What more do you need. Don't waste your money imo

Interestingly I'm after a new pressure washer and I've noticed these ones that can be hooked up to the water butts etc. Personally I'm worried about dragging the shit out and blasting it onto my car but it's appealing as I'm spending shit loads in water bills and have river running through my garden.... am I correct in thinking that it will work if I put the hose in the river? And does it have some kind of filter??

Sorry for jumping in your thread stu haha

whiteDevil_170 wrote:I have a simple karcher k2 cold water system. works fine for me. Cleans well and is cheap. What more do you need. Don't waste your money imo

Same here, Karcher K2 system, got autobright snowfoam lance on order with 5 litres of magifoam.

Will have some fun when its delivered.

[quote="philjay92"]Interestingly I'm after a new pressure washer and I've noticed these ones that can be hooked up to the water butts etc. Personally I'm worried about dragging the shit out and blasting it onto my car but it's appealing as I'm spending shit loads in water bills and have river running through my garden.... am I correct in thinking that it will work if I put the hose in the river? And does it have some kind of filter??


philjay92,

Yes the water butt / pond inlet hose accessory does come with with a filter. Personally I don't think this will work very well with the Karcher K2 pressure as the flow rate out the lance will be rubbish.

Wouldn't use river water to be honest, not for washing your car at least, it may not have chlorine in it (leaving water marks) but it would still be murky and silty even through a filter.

IMO.........use K2 for cold water out of tap or upgrade to the more expensive K4 for drawing warm water out of a 20l drum.

Like whiteDevil_170 said, don't waste your money.

Nice one - to be honest is rather buy noral again but this power washer has multiple uses at the moment so it's nice toknow I have the option

B&Q have a watercooled karcher on special this weekend http://www.diy.com/rooms/karcher-k4-pre ... 907_BQ.prd" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false; I've bought this one myself last year on an Amazon Lightning deal for the same price, I've had numerous karcher air cooled pressure washers over the years and have them all burn out. This one comes with a 5 year warranty and the ability to suck the water out of a bucket, it's got a filter on the end that goes into the bucket do it won't suck up any debris.

whiteDevil_170 wrote:I have a simple karcher k2 cold water system. works fine for me. Cleans well and is cheap. What more do you need. Don't waste your money imo

same. got mine for about 50 quid and does the job, cleaned my driveway nicely too with the patio head attachment.

I just had a great idea. How about getting an extra outside tap coming off a t section off the kitchen hot water pipe? I could fit a tap and have a hoselock fitting, setting the temp to 40c from my combi boiler.

I have this exact one.
Does good enough job for me.

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stor ... reId=10001" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

whiteDevil_170 wrote:I have this exact one.
Does good enough job for me.

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stor ... reId=10001" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Does it come with a snow foam lance?

Stu13R wrote:

whiteDevil_170 wrote:I have this exact one.
Does good enough job for me.

http://www.halfords.com/webapp/wcs/stor ... reId=10001" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Does it come with a snow foam lance?

It does but the karcher snow foam lance is pitiful.
Buy an autobright direct lance. TBH I don't even snow foam any more. I use auto finesse citrus power. But its quite expensive so soon as I run out I won't be using it again. PowerMaxxed TFR is getting some incredible reviews and feedback on detailing world forum. So that's my next purchase.

Stu13R wrote:I just had a great idea. How about getting an extra outside tap coming off a t section off the kitchen hot water pipe? I could fit a tap and have a hoselock fitting, setting the temp to 40c from my combi boiler.

Stu13R,

This sounds like a good idea but you have to be very careful................If you reduce your combi boiler temperature down to 40 degrees there is always a risk of introducing legionnaires disease into your house hold hot water supply. They say that your hot water (in your house) must be about 55-60 degrees (or above) to prevent this.

Regardless of the likelihood mate, I wouldn't risk this for the sake of washing your car.

hi guys have not been a member long but I was just reading the posts and just thought I would say that I have an out side mixer tap or hot or cold which ever I want to use works perfect with my jet washer

bobbyjoe wrote:hi guys have not been a member long but I was just reading the posts and just thought I would say that I have an out side mixer tap or hot or cold which ever I want to use works perfect with my jet washer

Now that's a good idea!!