Our product experts start by analyzing the current marketplace to identify the pressure washer you’re most likely to find on store shelves and online. From there, we focus on the brands that have performed the best and proven the most reliable through westinghouse pressure washers years of pressure washer tests at the Good Housekeeping Institute. The This Old House Reviews Team has written over 1,000 reviews on products in the home space, from cordless drills to kitchen trash cans, lawn mowers, and dining room decorations.
Materials of the spray wands and the body helped with overall appearance and usability. Some spray wands are made of plastic while some have stainless steel on the outside. Some higher-quality Champion Power Equipment wands and machines used brass fittings for the hoses. The Westinghouse – ePX3050 has a lot of power packed into its little body and is just as effective as higher-end pressure washers.
The Sun Joe SPX4000 is equipped with easy glide wheels and a big handle in order for you to easily move it wherever you want to work. Pull the wand’s trigger to release pressure from the system and drain remaining water from the hose. Some user reviews claimed certain units didn’t always seem to live up to their advertised stats so we wanted to test for ourselves. This brand was the only to offer a slick-looking reel for the high-pressure hose. Unfortunately, this feature is nearly impossible to use without getting stuck. The design of the reel exerts extra pressure by bending the hose, and once the hose gets in a bit of a tangle the reel is basically useless.
This way you don’t have to bend down and select a different tip, you can swap tips with just one hand while standing straight up. I don’t want to spend half an hour searching for a penny-sized spray tip in my backyard. But I trust Stanley’s tip storage system to be sturdy and reliable. ► Read press release from Westinghouse of their first electric pressure washers. The ePX3000 comes with 4 quick-attach spray tips ranging from 0° up to 25°.
Stanley’s electric pressure washers are all made by AR Blue Clean and appear to be the exact same but with yellow paint instead of blue. The performance of a gas pressure washer starts with the engine, and the Ryobi RY comes equipped with a 160 cc Honda engine that has a truly stellar reputation. This is the same engine as the one on our gas pick for the best mower, which is without question the most universally praised piece of equipment we’ve encountered in our years of reviewing lawn gear. To highlight the significance of adding a Honda engine, Ryobi includes “Honda” in the name of this pressure washer. The AR Blue Clean AR383, which provides a much lower pressure of 1,900 psi, delivers a higher volume of 1.5 gpm and thus a CU of 2,850, so the two machines have roughly the same cleaning ability.
The Force and AR Blue didn’t have options for more concentrated cleaning tips, and when combined with their overall lower cleaning power, they were not as effective as the Ivation. Setting up the wand on this machine is straightforward, and it was better than the other models we tested. It shares the same press-and-twist action to connect the spray wand’s handle to an extension, but it’s simply better designed.
This is a significant difference, and it made the RY the easiest washer to maneuver around, especially when we traversed a lawn, hopped a curb, and bumped the washer up a set of patio steps. In fact, this was one of the few models we even bothered to roll across the lawn—most of the others we half dragged and half carried due to the total ineffectiveness of their smaller wheels. This Ryobi model also has a padded handle, which adds to the ease of rolling it around. Because water sprays from a washer’s nozzle with such intensity, it can lift up and remove dirt, mildew, and grime that a regular garden hose simply can’t handle. Pressure washers are most often useful for cleaning decks, driveways, yard tools, house siding, fences, cars, and patio furniture. Frequently, a pressure washer can produce dramatic results, as this photo gallery of wood decks at Kramar’s site shows.
Although the washer’s main body felt a little cheap, its components are high quality, and it cleaned just as well as the Ivation. If you’re looking for serious cleaning power to blast oil stains off the driveway or stubborn tree sap off the patio, this pro-grade gas pressure washer from Generac is one to consider. It offers 2,900 PSI and 2.4 GPM, placing it among the most powerful machines we tested. While electric pressure washers are typically less powerful than gas ones, that isn’t the case with this power washer, which has a higher pressure level and GPM (2.6) than many gas models. This model also has a total stop system to save energy and extend the pump’s life. I understand that a lot of you reading this article might be buying your first pressure washer and may not understand how small that really is.