I’m at a point in my small business where I’m getting more requests for quotes on “larger” driveways. Majority of the clientele that I cater to have 400-800 sq ft driveways, but I did one last year just shy of 4,000 sq ft and now I’m planning on doing one close to 4,200 sq ft which has me looking at renting a machine. With my current machine, a 3.5 gpm washer with a 15” surface cleaner, I’m obviously not super efficient in any aspect of house washing, but surface cleaning would be where I’m at my slowest I’d say. I washed my own driveway this morning with the following method:
1- Blow off with hand blower
2- Pre-wet
3- Pre-treatment of HW mix downstreamed
4- Surface cleaned two different directions
5- Rinsed
6- Post-treatment of HW mix downstreamed
7- Left final treatment to dwell/dry naturally
Not including hose roll out/roll up, etc, I spent about 35-40 minutes on about 700 sq ft of driveway. I know that’s not great by any means, but share with me how quickly y’all are knocking out “x” amount of square footage and with what setup.
For kicks, here’s me moving as fast as I can on my driveway today:
I’d say the biggest jump in efficiency came with the change from 4gpm to 5.5. It doesn’t sound like much but I was much faster with my 16" Whisper Wash. Of course 8gpm is a gamechanger but you’re looking at $3500+ for that bad boy.
If the drive has good drainage I can do a 600 sq/ft with my 8gpm 19" in about 30-45 min. I just post treat 2% unless it’s really nasty.
There’s a guy locally selling a used one with 1,100 hours on it for $1,800 with a k7 and a spare unloader. But then there are some 4/4’s and 5.5’s selling for less than $1k locally as well.
I thought the same thing when i read that. But i don’t really have experience with surface cleaning concrete but wouldn’t it vary a lot depending on how dirty it is?
But yes get the 8gpm. As i said previously now that i’m used to the 8gpm the 4gpm i kept as backup feels like a toy. Rinsing with it feels ridiculous. Buy an 8 now, thank us later.
I think it has more to do with how “ground in”/attached the dirt and mildew are to the concrete.
I’ve been through some nasty concrete with this setup but it always gets the job done, slowly. Hoping to hear back from others who’ll share what their experiences/expectations have been .
Going from 4gpm to 6.8, I was expecting a 70% boost in flow but I think it doubled; likely because I wasn’t actually getting 4gpm in the first place. It’s not just more efficient, it makes the job twice as easy. The SC floats way better so it’s totally effortless to move around. The ZK1 unloader was a golden upgrade as well. The hoses are easy to drag around as if the machine we off & there is no Dirty Harry recoil like my old rig. That will surely help pressure hoses last longer. Less work + less wear & tear on the body, especially the trigger hand. Not to mention, less time on the job = more free time or more time for other jobs.
On the 24” Predator video that was the very first run with it ever. So I definitely was gauging the speed and had to touch up some areas.
But after 9 months of use we consistently see 150sq ft a minute regardless of how dirty. We’ve seen as high as 225 sq ft a minute but that was on a parking lot that wasn’t very dirty.
We post treat every driveway with 3% as well.
Regardless skip an 8 and move to a 10 if you’re cleaning a lot of concrete. Like any situation the tool must fit your needs.
We don’t downstream at all and apply all chemicals through gas soft wash systems. So our pressure washers are exclusively for cleaning concrete and in Houston was have a lot of concrete. Increasing the efficiency of that was key for us.
I appreciate you sharing that. I heard you at the end of the first video state you’d need to go over it again, but even then, after hitting it twice at that speed, or once at a slower pace, a good post treat and you’re still way outperforming my rag tag setup.
