Sometimes it is better to save money for a while to buy a quality machine (engine and pump) so that you get something that will last with day to day usage.
Just buying something to get started is spending money, very true and will start to help you get some money but will aggravate you, make you look like it is going to take you all day long or longer just to clean a driveway, not be able to wash houses fast or efficient as you will not be able to spray up high, rinse up high, wash or rinse fast and other issues like these that you are not thinking about right now.
Before I got started in the business I cleaned my own large driveway and it took about 10 hours and wore out 3 electric machines and 2 gas machines from WM, they were just junk and not made to last on a day long project, like a lot of hardware store machines, a lot of those pumps are not engineered to last thousands of hours, probably just a couple hundred hours if the truth was known.
There is no contest to get started with a cheap machine just to be out there making money, take time and save for a little bit and buy a machine that will not only last a long time but be able to make you money without slowing you down, aggravating you on the job and not making you look like you don't know what you are doing.
Too many guys every year just want to rush into this with a little bit of money, get the cheap machine and move up but many get frustrated because they cannot do the 1 or 2 hour house wash jobs and are wondering why when in fact they were told numerous times to save for a while and buy a quality machine. They are mad because they cannot do the same quality job, efficiently and make good money because the machine is slowing them down because it is not a higher gpm machine.
PSI is not the most important thing when buying a machine. A little hardware store machine with 3200 or 3500psi but only 2 or 2.5gpm is like the car wash pressure washer, you are not going to wash a decent house fast or even medium fast. Why limit yourself at the beginning when if waited a little bit longer to get a better machine would make a huge difference in so many ways?
I don't understand why so many each year expect to find good quality or commercial equipment at the box stores. More and more shops are not honoring warranties because they don't want to pay the going rate for labor and the repair shops are tired of playing the games so more and more people are trying to take the machines back to the hardware stores but when you look at the manual or paperwork they have to ship the machine to the repair center to get it fixed since not too many local places honor those warranties anymore.
With looking at shipping prices each way, it is easier to just have the local shop do the repairs and pay for it out of your pocket each time it breaks down until it is not repairable and then just buy another pressure washer because by the time the pump is done, it is almost the same money for a new pump as it is for a whole little hardware store pressure washer and then you have a new machine with no honorable warranty but it is new and the cycle repeats itself.
If you have not checked into shipping prices but you are probably looking at about $50 or more each way to send a small pressure washer out of town to be repaired. Another reason to save up and try to buy a commercial machine locally from a reputable pressure washing supplier so that you can just have them replace/repair things that are under warranty, just your time to take it there and have it repaired, no shipping out of town each way.
It will cost a lot more money but you start building a relationship with them and you will always have a place that will repair your equipment, not all shops repair pressure washers and the local pressure washer shops that will work on the small hardware store machines have a labor rate of at least $80 to $100 per hour plus parts so it is easy to see that if your small hardware store pressure washer breaks down, the new pump and labor can easily be almost as much as a new machine that you just bought.
Just some things to think about before you spend money.
