Pressure Washing Questions

[George7941]

It took me three hours with my small electric pressure washer, Sun Joe SPX2598 1500 psi/ 1.2 gpm, to clean the patio. The patio is about 30 ft by 15 ft. The stones cleaned up nicely. I was covered in mud when I was done and so was the white stucco of the house. I washed out the mud from the stucco with the garden hose. I did not use any bleach or any chemical at all, just cold water. What was on the surface of the stones was organic green matter, from decomposing leaves etc.

I read about the surface cleaner attachment. Home Depot has a 12 in Ryobi
https://www.homedepot.ca/product/ry...c-pressure-washers-surface-cleaner/1001058680
Is it worth getting?

Ryobi has a 2700psi/1.1gpm pressure washer
https://www.homedepot.ca/product/ry...old-water-electric-pressure-washer/1001708880
Does this have enough output to drive the surface cleaner?

Does the surface cleaner clean the joints between the stones? I noticed that the joints were quite a bit harder to clean than the surface of the stones. Spraying the joints with just the wand kicks up a lot of mud, no matter how the wand is aimed. Is there an attachment to clean joints, or at least contain the flying mud?

 

[Rand]

You can use your current pressure washer with the attachment.

That electric is about the same as what you have.

the numbers given are a GPM and a PSI.. not a PSI at a GPM.. so the numbers are fairly meaningless.

"delivering upto 2700psi or 1.1gpm" would be a better wording.
in other words you can have needle spray at .5gpm and 2700 psi etc.

even the cheapest gas will be lightyears stronger/better/faster.

other pressure washers get closer to the truth for example greenworks rates their electric

• Power: Powerful residential electric pressure washer with 2700 MAX PSI, 2.3 MAX GPM (GPM ranges from 1.2 GPM to 2.3 GPM with included nozzles)

You arent getting [email protected]. Its more like [email protected] and Soap [email protected]... but thats more info than you get with UPTO wording.

 

[fsdork]

I began typing a response, and Rand pretty much summed it up. I agree the Greenworks model at 2.3 GPM looks like one of the better values in the consumer market. To get anything much better, the budget needs to go up substantially. I'm not sure what the US market is like right now, but Greenworks seems to be pushing end of season sales up here.

 

[George7941]

The Ryobi costs more than twice as much as the Sun Joe I have, so I assumed it has a much higher output.

 

[DemoFly]

Run the surface cleaner with your current pressure washer.

Pressure washers are a ridiculous market. That ryobi is more expensive than the active 2.0 which is essentially the best electric pressure washer under $1,000.

Pressure washer ratings are also dumb. 2700psi is the max pressure of their high pressure (center dot) nozzle, and 1.1gpm is the rating of their highest flow nozzle included. It's not a rating of a single nozzle.

Some manufacturers cheat this by using a "soap" nozzle for gpm ratings, and that nozzle is hardly a restrictive orifice at all.

 

[SC Maintenance]

I have the cheapest harbor freight pressure washer you can buy. I think it was like 50 bucks with a coupon. If you need 1700PSI then you get a tiny little orifice / jet. I adjusted it to about a 2 inch spray pattern. Still had plenty of pressure to clean my driveway but worked much faster. I think it took about 4 hours total - driveway is about 1000 square feet - 20 x 50 ft - ish.

My neighbor has a sun joe with the circular surface cleaner attachment thing. He uses it to freshen up his driveway but said it doesn't work that great if its really dirty but does if it is not. He offered to let me borrow it, but i don't borrow tools.

 

[Oro_O]

I think the cleaner will work w/your washer.

I have a Sunjoe 3000, which is rated 2,000 psi. I used it just yesterday on a driveway w/a Ryobi 15” rotary cleaner attachment (rated for 2,500-3,000 psi gas driven pressure washer). It worked well despite the mis-match.

- The rotary cleaner was from when we had a higher pressure Honda gas washer, which was junk from day 1 and never ran well. I got the Sunjoe recently as a replacement.
- The performance gap from my 2k psi/15” cleaner is comparable to your washer/12” cleaner. I bet it would work fine.
- The rotary cleaner is great on dirt, mold, etc. and will save you a lot of time on those areas. BUT - it won’t blast out moss if that is a consideration as it does not generate as much pressure up close as the wand alone.

This drive had not been done in years and had some areas of real moss, and I had to really get the nozzle up close and tediously blast that off bit by bit. The rotary cleaner wont give enough pressure right up close for serious cleaning like that. This however this was in the PNW here and your cleaning needs/moss issues may not be as bad.

By the way, if you pre-treat the deck, drive, etc. with a spray solution and let it set a while, It will make the cleaning a lot easier. Does not need to be a fancy store-bought solution; DIY ones with bleach or vinegar, some TSP work just great. You can google some solution recipes, there are various ones. I used bleach and TSP and sprayed it on with a garden back-pack sprayer. It really helps.

Hope that helps.

PS - make sure that the end of your washer is compatible with that cleaner attachment,or an adapter is availabe. My Ryobi does not have a quick-connect like that as pictured on the 12” you linked. It has a standard garden hose thread, as does the end of my Sunjoe wand.

 

[George7941]

Any tips on how I can minimise the mess (both on me and on the house walls) when blasting out the moss in the joints? That was the toughest part of the job. Cleaning the surfaces of the stones was relatively easy.

 

[football]

A surface cleaner will keep the mess down.

 

[blkwtr]

I bought a small Ryobi electric pressure washer to clean boats and trailers and it works great but it took all day to clean my driveway and sidewalks.

I then bought a Stihl Dirt Boss which I think is 2700 psi and 2.7 gpm, along with a rotary surface cleaner. It's way better and faster than the electric Ryobi which now sits on a shelf in the garage.

 

[Rand]

The surface cleaner keeps most of the dirt under it from flying.

since it goes in circles and not a line you might have to do some crack touchup afterwards which will still be messy but less so.

 

[oil pan 4]

You can have 1.1gpm or 2,700psi, not both at the same time.
It's probably making about 1gpm at 1,000psi with typical spray tips.

 

[RyanY]

The surface cleaner is THE ONLY way to clean a patio/driveway! I just finished my driveway (30x15) and patio (24x13) about an hour ago. It took 3 hours total including moving the furniture and stopping for beer breaks. And no splash on walls, etc.

My onlybadvice is to go slow with the surface cleaner and overlap each pass. Else you will have a streaky result.