What kind of pressure washer to buy for kitchen exhaust hood cleaning? Electric? Gas?

Hey guys,

I currently own & operate a heating, air conditioning & duct cleaning business in Alberta, Canada.

I am able to get my hands on a very lucrative commercial kitchen exhaust hood cleaning contract, so I will more than likely be getting into this as well. I may go after other jobs locally as well after getting certified, but for now will only be the one contract.

I am asking for advice on what brand & type of pressure washer to buy. I have read mixed reviews about electric & gas, hot & cold. The cleaners I observed on the job used an electric/cold Hotsy set up. They seemed to do fine.

I was told a gas/hot one would be best as it will clean the fastest. My only concern with gas powered is that in these kitchens the distance from outside to the kitchen can be 150 or more feet at times, plus the weather can get very very cold in the winter time. I took a quick look at the local Hotsy store & they have 115 volt 200 degree hot units, maybe a unit similar to this would be a good compromise?

Any advice on what kind of unit to buy would be appreciated. PSI and GPM ratings would be a plus too.

Thanks,
Tom

Hey Tom, we always had both on all our vans. we had a hot water skid mounted in the van and a portable electric. We used the hot water skid or both machines on 90% of the jobs and just the electric cold water only on about 10% of the jobs. Depending on what type of systems you are trying to clean may dictate what you want to buy. Heavy build up and sticky grease almost requires hot water. Then it depends on how fast you want to clean as well. My crews ran did 3 to 4 jobs a night 5 days week on average so I needed them to work fast.

oh and we used an electric that was 3gpm 1000psi and hot water gas/diesel 4gpm 3500psi

Hi trey but 350 psi is not to high…?can it
Damage the fire suppression system?

Just fyi. This thread is a little over 6 years old. I doubt the posters are still around. :+1: