That’s cause I won’t to go out of business faster than you want to grow yours lol. Hot dog stand is looking better than ever before. Or maybe go to Spain and sell generators on street corners.
I call BS…I’d wager you don’t want to cram into an airplane to make a few bucks any more than you’d like to mail out flyers…or go out on the big open water, much less fly over it 
I also knew going out of business was actually on your “to do” list.
obviously, this is an issue.
i’ve been working with a 210 bar electric pressure washer, with a imho weak 3GPM flow, and it’s been doing well enough on some terrains i’ve been testing it on (some terraces, some concrete driveways, some paveways) and some roof terraces, but obviously it needs 220v from the wall OR, a really big battery pack.
since i would like a more powerful system, well, atleast one with far higher GPM flow, this one alone does not suffice. however, if i would connect two in parallel for example, i also need to double the energy supply, and yes, that makes things far, far worse.
again, with laws preventing gasoline vehicles to be sold as of 2025/2030, i am expecting there’s going to be a bigger issue in the future for gasoline generators and fuel prices already aren’t fun, and 2025 is just 2 years away, and if fuel prices are going to skyrocket even more, like they did with the Ukraine invasion (we felt that here quite hard, i was paying about 9 USD a gallon, just for the pressure washer, haven’t even included the cost of the vehicle.
hence, i’d rather be a step ahead than a step too late. infrastructure here is suddenly in a hiper boost in placing fast charge stations all around. Additionally, fully electric vehicles are fully exempt from road taxes, and i’m applying for the same tax-free benefit and government subsidy that my neighbour got whom managed to place a solar panel system of 26 solar panels and gets at least 100 kwh a day in summer. he paid 0% taxes on the equipment and additionally got part of the system subsidized due to ‘pot of money’ the Spanish Gov’ment has laid down to motivate people to produce their own energy.
( smart plan, as the demand on the grid growing out of control with the increase in EVs ).
there are starting to come out better and better EV utility cars and i might be tempted to go for a EV bus with a 75 kWh battery pack running on 400v tri-fase, withan integrated 11kwh charger and a fastcharge time of 30 minutes for 80% and it has a very decent payload and towing capacity. most of my clients aren’t really far away and the tourism sector is installing fast charging stations in the province like their lives depend on it, and between 14:00 and 16:00 it’s lunchtime anyway, and there is a government card with which you can charge for free with a EV.
meaning, if i’d opt for a full EV, there’s a lot of financial benefits the coming years, and there is even an option for a 400v output socket on the vehicle. the battery pack is 68 kWh usable and i could use half of it’s capacity to power the pressure washers and still have life in the car to get to a fastcharging station or drive home and have 2 hours to charge and do another job, IF i were to run my pressure washer 100% of the time all day long.
however, i would still need a proper pressure washer and BAR/PSI is close to what i would be looking for but GPM is pretty low.
hence, the search for a solution.
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I get it, it’s started in California here, but I’d more likely be looking for a more regulatory favorable field to be getting into if it were me.
that’s why i’m inquiring.
also, ‘eco’ is a really big thing here in Europe, and as such, being ‘green’ (despite it being a fairy tale) also is good for image.
and again, the government is, imho, doing a dumb but beneficial thing by handing out ‘free fast charging’ cards with unlimited usage, which is valid for 5 years, but ‘only’ for 1 registered vehicle.
that means i can fast charge during lunch, and i can fast charge at the end of the day ( i normally finish between 18:00 and 20:00), get my groceries, do some stuff on the tablet, and then drive home on a 80% charge, then charge at home for the remaining 20-40 percent depending on distance.
if i were to do fast charging twice, that gets me about 160 kWh of charging for free, instead of it being like 25 USD to do at home, for the next 5 years. If i’d have solar panels and batteries, i could virtually charge the remainder 20-40 % ‘for free’.
so again, we end up between 4000 and 5000 saved either way, which to me, is worthwile quite a lot, including saving a sh*tload on diesel for the vehicle itself.
5 years of ‘free charging’ means i get to save about 25000 USD, which gets me 50% in the pocket of new EV bus in 5 years, or gets me to buy a 2nd one in 5 years time and expand my business.
It’s (mostly) a different set of parameters in your case. It seems you’re htinking it through. My only comment from the start could be summed up by “don’t forget to consider the probable efficiency losses when figuring your savings”. If you’re saving $5k a year, that’s ballpark 5%…it would only have to cost you 20-30 minutes of your day to make that a net zero gain.
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Ah yes, now i understand what you’re saying.
sorry for the long read below.
True, it’s not a gigantic saving. And i understand that out of pure practicality, people generally don’t use it.
I get that, and there’s a near non-existant market for electric pressure washing.
The simple fact is my neighbor installing Solar Panels and saving a sh*tload on his electric bill and charging his EV essentially for free, got me thinking of considering electric machinery.
I quickly ran into the huge cost of proper batteries to power such a setup - let alone the fact that i’m not too comfortable with having like a huge array of batteries so close to water, but EV vans already have a big powerful array of battery installed from the factory without posing danger.
Again, most clients are relatively close ( there was as good as nobody doing this work anyway, and i offer competitive pricing and in my first few weeks doing this i gained two residencial complexes i now do twice a year for a nice price, the first time it was really really filthy, and got about $ 50k for the whole complex (about 100 houses, 3 floors high, about 40 or 50 m2 each level). I might have underpriced it, especially considering the amount of cleaning agent i wasted (it wasn’t SH btw, but a special facade cleaning, as the SH did virtually nothing). So i spent about 10k of special cleaner of it on the job, plus the fuel cost and i went through a pump. Virtually i had no idea what i was doing but it worked and i damaged zero plants and properties, i worked 6 days in the week from 9 in the morning till 8 in the evening, and finished the job in like 4 weeks. Client was extremely satisfied, If i remember correctly when i took off the cost i think it landed me like i guess about $ 30k or something like that.
Customer was (HOA) so satisfied with the patio’s i rinsed away as well because of the cleaning agent that ‘flush cleaned’ the small terraces / entries / rear patios, that i landed doing the terrain for about 20k (lots of walkways and terraces around the swimming pools), that i just used a very low amount of bleach, and i offered doing a swimming pool clean in the winter, they had in total 4 communal swimming pools of about 120 m2 and 3 m deep. cleaning that landed me another like $ 4000, so i got 50k from that client in like 2 months of work. I now have a contract with that HOA client once a year in April, where i do everything i did before bar the swimming pool for 40k, and in August i do a simple ‘water only’ pressure wash on the walkways which gets me like 10k and i manage to do it in less than a week.
I’ve been asked if i can also do the parking this year but i’m just a 1-man job and i don’t have enough time to do it in april ( i would have to do about 100 parking spots ) and i haven’t done a parking like this yet, only like a bunch of private property driveways.
anyway, client lands me like 40-50k annually, and the results of that job landed me another client nearby with a 14-house complex (much smaller but the houses are bigger), and gets me another 10k done in a week, and it landed me yet another residential complex which makes me about 25k.
I then also started doing roof pressure washing ( i couldn’t get the terracotta roof tiles clean with SH, so had to use special cleaning agent and pressure ), which lands me about 700 USD each roof ( about 100 m2 ) for a first-time clean (really dirty) and an bi-annual softwashing clean for about 300 a roof). I’ve got about 30 clients i do a year like that, added solar panel cleaning, and I also do like 15 or 20 residential home patio cleans (all tiled floors) for about 500 USD each which i manage to do in about a week or so.
the rest of the year i’m mainly busy with facade cleaning.
So i really don’t need to travel far at all, and all these clients are literally within a 20 mile radius.
The high investment costs of all this stuff would be greatly reduced by a lot of government tax benefits, especially considering a proper EV van has the battery reserve to power the equipment, which got surprisingly high in kWh when going ‘industrial’ spec.
Yes, efficiency savings is a thing, i admit, and it also has to actually work together. I did some ‘pilots’ so to speak pressure washing with electric machinery i decided to buy with a good discount locally.
I gave the clients I tried it with a discount if they’d consider letting me use their outdoor socket to power the pressure washer. I simply connected my 200ft hose to the pressure washer instead of the gasoline one, and unrolled a 60m 3000 w electric cable to the client’s socket, which are generally close to the client’s water supply anyway.
I also generally use a 12v flow pump on a 12v car battery because water flow here can be problematic, and it helps keep the buffer tank sufficiently filled to not have a lack of flow.
I’d mostly love to get my hands on the Ford F150 Lightning but it’s really expensive here in Spain. I could use that as personal vehicle too, and i’d like to make a ‘detachable’ rig that i can simply ‘slide’ on the truckbed. I have it now on a trailer, but again, considering a EV bus/van would make it a bit easier to drive around.
So the actual idea and concept comes from combining a bunch of things together, and it saves me a great hussle of going to the fuel station and carrying a bunch of gas tanks with me. Something i don’t really enjoy anyway, it always spills, and i’m always afraid that a spark or something ignites.
Also, it would save a lot of noise too,
and if i can promote my company like this ‘eco’ ‘green’ i think i can land a couple more clients and expand where my inlaws are hoping to join me.
So sorry for the long story, but that’s really where things are coming from.
Again, i get that people use gasoline power for a reason, yes, i get that. However, the combination of all factors really got me thinking.
Still, you’re right. Essentially the higher cost of EV vehicles, the cost of investing in everything, and the energy needed to power DO make an impact on the total picture. I must say though that i do believe that here in Europe things are also a bit different than in the USA. Unfortunately, a lot of decent softwashing and power washing machinery is readily available at the states, which are reaaaallly limited here in Europe and VASTLY more expensive.
Which ALSO got me thinking: if i can manage to build a succesful setup, i can build these myself and start selling these to customers.
So that’s really why i am trying to see the possibilities here.
The truth is, i honestly don’t have a deep understanding how the pressure pump itself really works like, in simple terms, i just slap it on, connect it to the lines, and do my thing, and up untill now, it has worked.
I think this endeavor of yours is noble and honestly certainly could be the future. However I dont think you’re likely to find the help here that you are looking for. I would try to find some other industries with similar sized equipment and see if there are discussions there. You only need to find an electric motor and a pump. How to get that motor to move is your challenge. Maybe ten years from now we will all be ordering our electric rigs from Spain! Goodluck to you and please keep us updated. Sounds like a very interesting project and could ultimately change your life and the industry worldwide!
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Honestly it’s more or less a case of thinking about the future and not getting stuck/lost and losing my business / great deal of my income.
At the same time, it would also be a nice extra form of income to generate. I don’t think i would be able to like create a business in that where i can ‘replace’ doing the cleaning with that, but who knows. It’s more of a case of a buffer. there’s 12 weeks where there’s really as good as zero work to do in winter ( not that it’s that cold , contrary, but it’s a tourism area and it’s a bit ‘deserted’ here in winter ).
Now normally i take 3 of those weeks to go on winter holiday and 1 week of doing general house maintanence stuff, annual finances, etc, and the rest of the 8 weeks i more or less have a small/simple job here and there, which i usually then spend on going on a fancy dinner, buy some fancy clothes, etc, and really take time to rest, and make some trips.
If i could use that time to make and try out some builds, untill i find a decent balance, that would be great and i’d love to make some packages and see how it sells. I don’t think much, but if i can make a bit on the side, that’d be great.
I was thinking of building something myself. However, what i’m mostly running into is not even neccesarily the motors or power source. Even a general water pump is not an issue, there are plenty i can find that are pretty ‘cheap’ too and have high GPM, like 26 GPM. Obviously not 12v, that must be said.
however, it’s 3 bar pressure, so it serves nothing for pressure washing.
hence, one of my biggest questions is how exactly does the actual pressure washer pump work, and where can i find builders. The biggest thing also is that all that i have been able to run into make about 3000-4000 psi, but finding one that actually produces 8 GPM, now that is really a thing i believe i discovered 1 or 2 but none ship to europe/spain.
locally, there’s a shop selling this stuff about 30 minutes away, but he doesn’t have that high GPM products and he doesn’t know where to get it.
So i’m now thinking about combining 2 pumps to make 8 gpm, but obviously, that is not ideal as it also needs 2 motors and it keeps adding movable parts and as such breakable parts.
anyway. have to find some industrial machinery manufacturers it seems.
just a question, how much do you guys generally spend on pressure pumps annually? do you go through more than 2 and how much does that more or less set you back? i get the engine serviced at the end of the year and if we’re in a heat stroke (last year couldn’t do squad for 3 days with 42 degrees celcius in the shadow) i also take the moment to get the machinery serviced.
last year i spend like 800 usd on pumps.
Market to tourism businesses in winter, you can get it looking good for when the tourists come back with minimal disruption to their guests.
I see 5.5gpm 3k psi electric pressure washers in my market in New Zealand. I haven’t looked in to how they run or how big you can go.
Maybe car wash industry might have answers? I’d think they wouldn’t have small engines stopping and starting for customers, may be electric.
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Fresh out of the shower with my fancy sitting around pants and sardine’s and saltines for supper cause the rest of the family is off somewhere.
If you save up the money that usually goes towards all the fancy dinners and fancy clothes you will be able to buy gas for your pressure washer instead.
You’re welcome.
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That’s the funniest thing today, but if it makes him go off on another two page rant you are out of the herd
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Maybe we need to change “Resident Grump” to “Fancy Pants”… 
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I got class. I’m sitting on about 2 dozen Hawaiian shirts. Latest is a Tori Richards Watermark. Fits fine under my Liberty overalls
Name dropper… I have no idea who any of those people are.
- Rocking my first Hawaiian shirt with Paniolos on it. Pure silk. Dad bought it in Saigon in 1969 but it took me awhile to grow into it. I wore it everyday except when Mom made me take it off too wash it.
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And we’re busting out baby pictures now lol I will raise you your Paniolo shirt with my collars on collars obsession
