Pressure Washing Pressure - How Much is to Much Pressure?
One of the questions we get asked is how much psi do I need? Customers are concerned with using too much pressure or maybe they have damaged their property in the past. Currently Mighty Mates Softwash uses about 4000 PSI or pounds per square meter. What actually more important is the gallons per minute, not the (psi) pounds per square meter. Water volume is a much better cleaning agent than the amount of pressure used.
Often we show up at a jobsite and see small swirl marks on the driveway about as wide as a finger in various places with a trail of missing aggregate. Or that new $30,000.00 cedar deck that was just installed last year chewed up with deep gouges all over the place. This is a good indication that the homeowner realizes that the pressure washer purchased at the local big box store is not quite up to the task of those large jobs. We want to educate the consumer with pressure washing information so they can save money, not ruin their property. We do run into the occasional customer who has us back year after year after spending 3 weekends to clean their driveway just to prove they could do it!
Commercial grade pressure washers range from 15 to 40 gallons per minute and can cost between $1500 to $20,000 depending on a number of variables such as hot water, mounting options and quality of components. Commercial grade pressure washers are made to run day after day providing years of service with good maintenance. For cleaning large flat areas surface cleaners are used to provide the best quality cleaning with the most consistent results. Surface cleaners range in price from $500 - $2000 and can improve the clean up speed while providing superior results. Surface cleaners also eliminate the "tiger stripes" that often appear on driveways after a driveway is pressure washed by hand. This is caused because of the inconsistent swing of the operator while controlling the pressure washing wand.
Pressure washing wood decks such as cedar takes many years of experience to clean them without showing marks. Often we see stop and start marks, pressure washing gouges, paint missing from the siding. When pressure washing a wood deck you should not use more than 1000 psi, using more can cause massive damage to the wood. The average person should not even consider the cleaning process of deck restoration. If you want to save money when restoring your deck, stain it yourself.
Article by Mark Poole
