Best Pressure Washer for 2022

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July 22, 2022 at 9:27 pm #8265 Reply

angelinaimg
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A pressure washer is a great tool if you want to make home maintenance simpler. It can clean hard surfaces like driveways and patio tables with ease. Home maintenance can seem like a never-ending job, from taking care of plumbing and electrical to weeding and . However, the best pressure washer options can make cleaning the outside of your home less of a hassle, keeping it looking fresh by wiping away impurities on the hard surfaces outside of your home. While there are electric pressure washers that can get the job done, these gas-powered washers can do heavy-duty cleaning for all residential needs. I tested these washers and rated the top three for best overall, most durable, and best value. For a pressure washer to work well, it needs to have a pressure of at least 2,000 pounds per square inch. I tested washers with psi in the upper 2,000 to mid-3,000 range. One washer had a pressure of 4,200 psi for a comparable price. 
Steve Conaway/CNET
 The washers I tested are all gas-powered pressure washer models. Most electric pressure washer options will max out at about 2,000 psi. Also, an electric power washer is usually listed as a “light-duty washer” at your local hardware store, and they’re also the cheapest options — usually under $200. Although 2,000 psi seems high enough for cleaning power, especially considering most residential plumbing services waterloo (this website) (including your garden hose) sits around 60 psi when it comes to water flow, it’s still relatively low for the pressure-washing game. On the other end of the spectrum, commercial pressure washers designed for power cleaning users or professionals typically start around 3,500 psi and have a higher flow rate and water pressure than residential washers. I left those out as well, focusing instead on gas pressure washer models in the $250 to $600 price range. I considered factors such as the washer’s maximum pressure, the inclusion of different nozzle tips and even hose length. I update this best pressure washer list periodically. 

Steve Conaway/CNET

 The performance of the Tacklife model was close enough to this DeWalt unit at half the cost that it won the best overall gas pressure washer for heavy-duty cleaning. But the DeWalt still won out in several key areas. It may seem like a smaller detail, but the best spray wand goes to DeWalt. Since the vast majority of the time you’re interacting with a power washer is when you’re pointing that wand at an offending surface, I’d argue this point isn’t all that small. The spray wands themselves have a maximum psi threshold, and the DeWalt wand had the highest at 4,500, giving the highest flow rate. This wand is also the only one with a second hand grip on its barrel — a real forearm and wrist saver if you’re spending a lot of time behind the spray. Like the Tacklife, the DeWalt avoids plastic panels for a much beefier presence. At 200cc you have the second largest engine of the group, but this unit doesn’t have a detergent tank, if that’s important to you. The other feature that I loved about this was the high-pressure cleaning power hose — it ships with a steel braided pressure hose, which was an obvious upgrade to the plasticky rubber look and feel of every other hose I tested. 

Steve Conaway/CNET

 This Westinghouse model is cheap, and it has great specs and performance, but it’s also so devoid of overwhelmingly positive or negative features that it’s easy to overlook. Here are the highlights: lowest price tag, largest engine, detergent tank and all five interchangeable nozzles included. Everything else about this residential pressure washer cleaning unit is entirely middle-of-the-road. 

Steve Conaway/CNET

 All things considered, this guy ticked enough of the right boxes to come out on top as the best pressure washer. The assembly is easy enough out of the box, and the power washer itself is heavier (no plastic frame pieces) and sits low to the ground, giving it a solid feel. Of all the units I tested, this one felt the most balanced to me as I moved it around. Enough of the others felt unbalanced or wobbly for this to be a determining factor. It’s priced just below the overall average price of all units I tested, and that says something since its water pressure output and engine size are among the top specs overall. The spray wand is nothing special, but tool storage is fine, and it ships with all five standard spray gun tips (not all of them do). There is also an attached detergent tank, which I think is great, even though I personally don’t often use detergent with my own gas washer. This pressure washer model is no longer available at Tacklife, but a similar model with 3200PSI is available for $400 at or $250 at . 

Honorable mentions Here is a list of the other washers I’ve tested to date, in no particular order: : This is a good basic cleaning unit at a low price. I especially like their power cord pull location compared to most washers. Still, the lighter-duty feel of the upright form factor, plastic housings and missing yellow tip keep this one down.: Lowest cost of the group with a good wand option. No onboard detergent tank, missing yellow tip, plastic housings, loose spray wand storage and unbalanced wheel alignment prove that you get what you pay for. : Priced in the middle of the group with a good attempt at a multi-nozzle tip option, the Ryobi sports the smallest engine specs and otherwise has OK cleaning power, enough to get the job done.: One of the higher-priced units, with solid metal parts and a low center of gravity. Otherwise, no onboard detergent tank, loose spray wand storage and (at least on my unit) more than normal engine vibration.: Looks great on paper and does actually include all five basic nozzle tip types and a neat double reservoir. But you have to survive the tedious assembly and still be OK with loose spray nozzle wand storage as a tradeoff. The spec’d high pressure 4,200 psi offers no real-world advantage over the other washers, with about 1,000 less psi. Testing pressure washers isn’t an exact science. Mostly I sprayed stuff. A lot of stuff. The evaluation started when I opened each box. A couple of the pressure washers were packed so well you’d think they were solid gold, and a couple of others, well, honestly I’m surprised there weren’t more broken pieces than I ended up with (which was really just a couple of small plastic covers). I then had to assemble each washer from pressure hose to wand nozzle tip. I like to assemble things, so that part of the process wasn’t so bad. There aren’t too many surprises when it comes to pressure washer builds. It’s either going to be an upright gas powered pressure washer cart, or a low and wide (and usually heavier) type of model. Within those two main styles, you also only have a couple of options as to how those are designed. All but one of them made good use of current efficiencies in the assembly process, such as spring-loaded pins or other geometrically snapping pieces. The outlier, from the lesser-known brand Teande, still relied on bolts and lock nuts for everything. It came with a screwdriver and wrenches, but I still spent as long assembling that one washer as I did all the others combined. The next thing I looked for was how they handled the different pressure nozzle tip types. A big contention point for me is when a manufacturer decides to offer less than the five standard nozzle tips. It’s often the yellow 15-degree tip that gets bumped, and for me, that’s the money tip. I have lots of concrete outside of my house and using anything other than a yellow tip would take me forever to finish. The yellow tip is probably the one I use the most overall, not just for concrete. Yes, I’m aware you can buy one for a few bucks — but they probably only cost a few cents to make. Gimme already! I was excited when I reached this point with the Ryobi gas-powered pressure washer and its five-in-one nozzle design. Imagine: all five tips always available. My excitement faded when I realized that Ryobi, like so many others, had neglected the 15-degree tip and in its place had a second soap and detergent surface cleaner nozzle. Plus one bonus point for a five-in-one. It lost one point for no 15-degree option. It lost 10 points for getting my hopes up. The Teande’s double reservoir. 
Steve Conaway/CNET
 Speaking of surface cleaner soap and detergents, they’ve gotta go somewhere, and the best place is an onboard reservoir. I don’t often use detergents with my pressure washer. When I do, and when I need to move, it’s annoying to deal with the hose (even when the washer has a hose reel), the spray nozzle wand, the bucket of detergent and the high pressure washer itself. With an onboard reservoir, you can just move the gas pressure washer while still holding the wand, letting the pressure washer hose drag behind you. I love the simple efficiency of it. The Teande was on my bad side after the assembly process, but I did like that it tried including two detergent reservoirs, each separately controlled. Having two separate reservoirs allows you to load two different types of detergent simultaneously. This is handy if you have varied hard surfaces you’re trying to clean, and need to switch back and forth. Otherwise, with a single reservoir, you’d be forced to deplete the first detergent entirely before loading the second. The rest is really just an inventory game. All the models have power washer hoses and spray wands. As previously mentioned, only the DeWalt stood out in those categories. They all have wheels, varying engine sizes, extra parts, oil and so on. The Craftsman did have one unique feature that I liked: a rope guide for the engine pull cord that moved the resting spot for the pull handle up above the engine on the frame closer to you, if you were standing behind it. After so many hours of dealing with pressure washers, I was happy not to have to bend over quite as far to start this one. Testing With each washer, I used multiple nozzle tip varieties for each activity. I started out with a section of concrete driveway. The green tips were often too light to get the surface as clean as it could be. The red tips, although effective, only clean a small area at a time. Enter the yellow tip, which provides a great balance of focused pressure and spray width. Even though there’s only a difference of a few hundred psi between most of these washers, there were occasionally noticeable differences between them when I used the same tip. My best guess is there’s a difference in the manufacturing of the tips themselves. The most consistent tip is the 0-degree red tip. With so little room for variance, the red tip felt the most consistent between units overall. Every washer was an appropriate surface cleaner for the concrete, but it was most difficult for the ones that left out a 15-degree tip (so you then had to rely on the red tip). Here you can see the width of the fan made by the yellow 15-degree tip versus the 0-degree red tip. 
Steve Conaway/CNET
 After the driveway test, I ran each washer through a gauntlet: where the large concrete slabs meet each other to form my driveway, I’ve let the happy little weeds grow in anticipation of this day. But no weed was a match for any pressure washer with a red tip. Then I had a couple of wood options to try out. The first was a hardwood-based plywood. The second was a section of 1×12 construction-grade lumber (mostly pine around these parts, I believe). One thing I can tell you: Never use a red tip on wood. The jet spray rips though it like a tiny tornado. Once I backed down to the yellow tip, it was interesting to see how the water could bring back a fresh-cut appearance. Even the yellow tip will begin to skin these boards if you hold it in place for longer than a second or two. Most any other tip is appropriate for wood applications. The bigger surprise for me came with vinyl siding. I staged a small wall with some basic (read: cheap) vinyl siding. I was excited for the carnage to come, but it never did. I tried to damage that siding — 4,200 psi with a red tip at point-blank, the best I had — but there wasn’t a scratch. Pressure washers are wonderful options for cleaning vinyl siding. So much faster and more efficient than any manual method. I’d always worried about accidentally chewing through the siding if I got too close or chose the wrong tip, but my concern was misplaced. I still wouldn’t recommend going after your siding with a red tip, but most anything else should be fine if you follow the manufacturer’s guidelines. If you’re planning on using a pressure washer regularly, here are a few tips. Know what your target uses will be. Plan your purchase around those. For me, that includes looking at aftermarket tips. There are a lot of options out there to make your life easier. Detergents can help. If in doubt, start with the white 40-degree tip and work your way up. Wear protective gear. Consider other upgrades if you’ll be spending lots of time behind the spray, such as a new wand or high pressure hose. Also, if you’re totally new to the game, check out my . More smart home and appliance recommendations
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