Pressure washers - clean that shite!

[dollywobbler]

I don't currently have a working outside tap and DO have a fleet of filthy classics. I've wanted a pressure washer for some time, and the Land Rover reinforces the requirement for one - though blasting away the salty muck from the others is also a high priority.

 

I've got a stream running along our border, and wondered whether I could draw water from that for the pressure washer - I know some have an ability to pull water from a store (ie water butts, another possibility) with a filter on the end. Anyone got any experience of this? Also, any recommendations on washers? I don't need daft amounts of pressure as I want to shift the dirt, not blow holes in the 2CV's panels. I've seen some recon Karchers on Ebay looking suspiciously cheap, but is cheap bad news?

[r.welfare]

I'm not sure on the idea of drawing water from the stream to run it, but I've had one of the diddy Karcher jobs (sort-of the size and shape of a cylinder vacuum cleaner) for about 7 years now and it's still working fine. It was well under a ton from memory, and I expect a similar replacement these days is probably more like 50 quid.

[Father Ted]

POSSIBLE but not ideal - I know my Karcher wont work without a certain PSI/ feed of water per minute - whether or not that can be generated by the flow of a river or stream I couldnt tell you.

A Drainage pump omn the other hand has the capacity to run your stream dry and jet wash everything in sight....

[cobblers]

It's piss easy to fit an outside tap (providing you have a cold water pipe running anywhere near an outside wall) with a kit like this:

http://www.screwfix.com/prods/10101/Plu ... 0Tap%20Kit

 

I've fitted a few of them, dead easy really providing you have a long enough drill bit (Hard to get in non SDS square crazy shank, but I usually just lob an SDS bit in a normal drill and hang on for dear life)

 

 

 

As for the pressure washers, as mentioned they generally require a bit of input pressure before they will kick in. I don't think the pumps physically need it, but they generally have a pressure switch just to stop people trying to run then with the outside tap still switched off or the hose kinked.

 

 

I reckon that if you bridged this, most pressure washers would run fairly happily out of a water butt. They won't be self priming, so you'll need the water source to be above the motor to give a tiny head of pressure to force any air through the lines before the pump can kick in which will probably rule out running it from the stream.

[dollywobbler]

We have a tap, but the water supply isn't getting to it. Besides, we're going on a water meter and it pisses down most of the time, so harvesting rain water seems sensible! (though a 1000 litre IBC may be more sensible than a normal water butt - it is Wales after all!)