If you are tempted by all those cheap, new powerwashers popping up in Home Centers these days, you're in for trouble. Those price tags look low, but if you intend on actually using a powerwasher, you can't afford them. "Professional painting contractors know that a powerwasher isn't a luxury anymore. It's a basic necessity", said Richard Valentine, spokesman for pressure washer manufacturer Alto U.S./Simpson. "Everyone should have one," said Airlessco's Paul Wood. "It's an ideal way to get rid of dirt and flaking paint." In the Southeast, "where mildew is a way of life," pressure cleaning has gone far past the mere option stage, Valentine said. "You don't do a repaint without pressure washing first, and that is getting more prevalent up north, too. If you don't bid cleaning the work surface, you aren't doing a good job."

So, if you're looking for a competitive edge in cleaning on other contractors, forget about gaining it with a cheap machine. Invest in the full-size models and accessories instead. Accessories are "what really makes a powerwasher a great tool," Valentine said.

To be fair, cheap powerwashers do have their uses. They're fine for the weekend putterer who lets one sit in his garage while inviting the neighbors over to see it, or who uses it once a month to wash his driveway. But if you actually want it to do some work, you need something more substantial. "Expect to spend at least $1,500 for a reasonable machine," said Paul Wood.

The "tiny box" powerwashers sold for under $400 "have a life expectancy of only 150 hours," said Lye. If you use one for only 10 hours a week, you'll use it up in four months. "We call them disposables," said Sal Ippolitto, sales manager for Maury Powerwashers, a Boca Raton, FL vendor. "If anything happens to them, you don't repair them, you replace them. We're seeing them last three to six months."

"If you buy Landa's top of the line machine, or Alto's top of the line Simpson, you get Honda's GX motor and a belt-driven general pump that dissipates heat and reduces vibration so that everything lasts longer -- about 7,500 hours," said Lye. That's 50 times as long as a junior washer, but the top of the line models aren't 50 times as much as cheap, consumer powerwashers. "They aren't even eight times as much," said Lye. "They're a much better bargain."

In business, you want to cut costs and increase productivity. Cheap powerwashers do neither. They are "little more than pumped-up garden sprayers," said Chuck Prieur, advertising manager for Cleaner Times magazine, a trade publication for the powerwashing industry.

Weight of the water: After determining how much you'll use a machine and how long you want it to last, you want to determine the volume of water and the pressure the pump delivers. According to Ippolitto, power is the product of the flow of water coming out of the pump in gallons per minute, and the pressure of the water as it comes out of the pump. "Total machine power can be approximated by multiplying the pressure by the flow rate to give an overall power rating or cleaning units," he said, advising contractors to keep in mind that a high-pressure spray can damage softer or more fragile surfaces.

"The true power comes from the weight of the water," said Lye. "Some stores label a machine a 'contractor's machine' if it delivers a lot of psi, but that's ridiculous. If you have high pressure and low water, you have an aerosol can. What can you do with that?"

For surface preparation, painting contractors need a powerwasher that delivers at least 3.5 gallons per minute at 3,000 psi. "At 1,000 psi, you have the equivalent of a two-inch paint brush," said Lye. "At 3,000 psi, it's a 10-inch brush." Mi-T-M is pushing the edge with new portable powerwashers that deliver up to 5,000 psi, said the company's sales manager, Don Holdridge. Washing with pressures that high can replace abrasive blasting, he said.

To get contractor-level power, you need a gasoline-powered powerwasher. For safety reasons, don't use it inside without good ventilation. That might seem obvious, but the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) has records of workers suffering serious carbon monoxide poisoning from using gasoline-powered powerwashers to prepare the floors in underground parking garages for refinishing. In an effort to gauge the extent of the problem, NIOSH surveyed 416 powerwasher users in Missouri involved in cleaning buildings for rehabilitation. Thirty-eight percent of them reported using gasoline-powered engines inside buildings.

One more note on safety. For years, there was no safety standard for powerwashers, said Landa's marketing director, Crismon Lewis. Recently, as part of a movement toward safer equipment, the Cleaning Equipment Trade Association petitioned Underwriters Laboratories to create a standard, now called UL 1776. That safety standard covers such things as the electrical components of the washer system, hot and cold water, pop-off valves, and the way the wand attaches to the trigger gun. Lewis said Landa is the only manufacturer to certify its entire product line, and it stresses that safety certification in its marketing. Other manufacturers have some certified equipment, and Lewis said safety certification definitely is something contractors are looking for.

On some industrial jobs, or any job where there is grease, oil, or animal waste that you have to remove before repainting, "hot water is the only way to go," said Larry Hinkley, vice president and general manager of Delco Cleaning Systems. That also is true if you have to soften a coating to remove it before repainting. Hot-water units are best for removing latex paints, said Mi-T-M's Holdridge. The combination of high pressure and heat makes stripping latex "a reasonably easy task," he said.

"A cold-water pressure washer is not a cleaning device," agreed Lye. "It's a scraper. It uses mechanical action, like taking loose paint off a house with a metal scraper. If you want to clean a surface, use a hot-water washer. It'll melt grease."

Hot-water powerwashers heat water to 200 degrees. How hot is that? Car washes use 120-degree water. When water at a temperature of 140 degrees contacts human skin, it can cause burns serious enough to require hospitalization.

Accessorize: So, you're still wondering how to get a powerwashing edge on your competitors? After getting a powerful powerwasher, invest wisely in accessories.

The rule is simplicity itself, said Lye. "The higher the pressure, the bigger the brush. But don't forsake gallons for psi; you need both to do any work." The amount of work you intend to do with your powerwasher should determine the size of machine you need, said Airlessco's Paul Wood. "The difference between a small machine and a large machine is how quickly you get the job done," he said.

The most popular accessories to emerge in the last three years -- popular because they are productive -- are flat-surface cleaners, wands, and rotary nozzles.

A flat-surface cleaner looks like a lawn mower without a motor. Painting contractors use them for cleaning and refinishing decks, floors, and driveways.

The surface cleaner hooks up to the powerwasher hose in place of a wand. The powerwasher powers the unit and spins a spray bar with a pressure nozzle on either end. Flat surface cleaners clean from 6,000 to 10,000 square feet per hour, said Byron Becktold, president of Michigan Power Cleaning in Kalamazoo, MI, and do it better than someone with a wand.

"It eliminates streaking and fatigue," said Lye, because the operator isn't bending over and moving a wand.

Landa builds a surface cleaner with an attached wand. When the operator reaches a corner where the surface cleaner can't clean, he simply pulls the wand out of its holster and completes the job, instead of having to shut down the powerwasher, disconnect the surface cleaner, and connect a wand.

Wand innovation shows that manufacturers are "finding new methods to put water on the spot without having too use boom trucks or ladders," said Larry Hinkley. There are telescoping extension wands on the market that can reach up to 24 feet while maintaining water pressure of 4,000 psi. They aren't part of every contractor's toolbox yet, but they should be, he said.

"People who do a lot of exterior residential work can run around a house and do it from the ground," he said. "If you try to run up a ladder with a pressure wand, first, when you pull the trigger, you'll get knocked off the ladder. Second, if you did manage to hang on, you can only do three feet on one side of the ladder and three feet on the other, before you'd have to climb down and move the ladder. So extension poles are safe and fast, and virtually pay for themselves on the first job."

They can also be rented easily enough, so you can try one out before making the decision to buy one. Flexible wands, on the other hand, can bend a high-pressure spray to more easily clean such hard-to-reach places as eaves and gutters.

Perhaps the most popular accessory to emerge in the last three years is the rotary nozzle, also called a turbo nozzle. A zero-degree nozzle, which focuses water in a tight beam, has the most cleaning power, but "it's like trying to color a wall with a crayon instead of a roller," said Lye. Wider fan sprays, such as 25 degrees or 40 degrees, clean a wider area faster, but can't remove paint. Enter the rotary nozzle. A rotary nozzle spins a zero-degree jet around in a conical pattern "to clean with the force of a zero-degree nozzle, but the coverage of a wider fan nozzle," Lye said.

"It's the first good accessory to get cleaning power from a small machine, and it makes big machines much, much stronger," said Paul Wood.

Ceramic-tipped turbo nozzles work great on masonry or concrete, but "they will splinter or destroy wood," said Becktold. Deck nozzles, rotating nozzles for safely cleaning wood, are available, but not too many contractors have them, he said. That's a potential growth area for painting contractors, too, said Prieur, since the makers of wood treatments are starting to recommend pressure washing before applying their products. Sal Ippolitto cautioned against using a turbo nozzle on stucco. "If there are any loose spots on the stucco, the turbo will find them quick, and then you'll have a repair job," he said. "Turbo nozzles work on stout buildings."

Other, more specialized nozzles are available, too. Alto/Simpson has a "mini-scrub" attachment for cleaning awnings and siding. Landa has a "sand probe" for placement directly in a bag of sand -- in place of using a sand pot -- when you have a small amount of sandblasting to do. Wet sandblasting is one of the biggest powerwashing growth areas with painting contractors, said Lye, because "there is no dust and the worker doesn't have to wear a breathing apparatus; just a face shield and gloves." It works especially well for removing graffiti or for preparing an aggregate surface for refinishing, he said.

Credits for the above information go to:

Richard Valentine of Alto/Simpson, Paul Wood of Airlessco/Durotech, Roy Lye and Crismon Lewis of Landa Corp, Sal Ippolitto of Maury Co, Chuck Prieur of Cleaner Times Magazine, Don Holdridge of Mi-T-M, Larry Hinkley of Delco Cleaning Systems, Byron Becktold of Michigan Power Cleaning

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