Water blasters

[Rupe]

Never owned one.

Do they need mains pressure or can I run one off a gravity feed tank?
Would a electric or petrol one make a difference?

Anyone recommend a well priced one?

[328FTW]

They can run off gravity feed, at least ours does. Petrol just makes it more mobile with less cords, electric ones are not bad though. Had both but no real preference.

But it really depends on what you want to do with it. Just cleaning a car then a little cheap electric will do but if you need some grunt you need something with a good name behind it. Or even a little diesel powered one if you're super serious.

[Ender EnZed]

If you just wanna clean the KX then even the cheapest electric Repco model will do you a shit load better than the hose.

More money will get you more power but for bike cleaning you don't wan't too much.

[awa355]

The advertising guff that came with our little unit said it used less water than a jet nozzle on a garden hose. I'm using mine today to clean up the house walls.
I wouldn't use it on a vehicle though. Flat panels might be okay but not around the window frames or door edges. It will push water in where a garden hose wont.

[Akzle]

as said it's going to come down to application.
there are some neat and (relatively) inexpensive 4x4 (portable, 12v) ones, there's the bunning 60$ shitters (which work...) then there's the uber-meke deck scrubby multi head clit twirling ones...

[scott411]

petrol ones are way better, but more expensive, they use more water as well, but do a much better job of cleaning everything,

the electric ones, (esp the cheap ones) have high pressure but not high flow, meaning they do not clean stuff as well, but damage decals etc easily,

[Banditbandit]

For the water blaster to be efficent the water feed in needs to be at least as fast as the feed out ..(the blast pressure is generated by the size of the nozzle not the speed of the water in)

I ran a water blaster off a gravity feed tank when I painted a house a few years ago ... I had to pause the balster every so often to let its water tank fill up ... the feed in from the gravity feed tank was not as fast as the feed out of the water blaster ... it did work with no loss of blast force ... but with large pauses while I waited for the blaster to fill its tank ..

[Rupe]

For the water blaster to be efficent the water feed in needs to be at least as fast as the feed out ..(the blast pressure is generated by the size of the nozzle not the speed of the water in)

I ran a water blaster off a gravity feed tank when I painted a house a few years ago ... I had to pause the balster every so often to let its water tank fill up ... the feed in from the gravity feed tank was not as fast as the feed out of the water blaster ... it did work with no loss of blast force ... but with large pauses while I waited for the blaster to fill its tank ..

Probably should of said, I have just moved and now on tank water. With the dry weather at the moment washing the bike is a waste. However I have a large shed that collects water into and old tank. I would not drink this water, so is fine to clean the bike with. The flow of water is fairly slow though as just using gravity.

Still not sure if a petrol or electric one would serve best?

[bogan]

Probably should of said, I have just moved and now on tank water. With the dry weather at the moment washing the bike is a waste. However I have a large shed that collects water into and old tank. I would not drink this water, so is fine to clean the bike with. The flow of water is fairly slow though as just using gravity.

Still not sure if a petrol or electric one would serve best?

Gravity fed tank is less of an issue than the size of the pipes from it. My old man has a similar setup, to waterblast we need the run a feed pump (which is fine cos he needs that to fill his tractor sprayer anyway), without the feedpump the flow is probably a fifth to a tenth what you get out of a mains pressure kitchen tap if that is any way similar to your 'fairly slow' situation.

I've not seen any inherent difference between petrol and electric other than the obvious portability, both have good models and piss weak models. Shop around, compare prices of similar quality blasters and go from there I reckon.

[scott411]

Probably should of said, I have just moved and now on tank water. With the dry weather at the moment washing the bike is a waste. However I have a large shed that collects water into and old tank. I would not drink this water, so is fine to clean the bike with. The flow of water is fairly slow though as just using gravity.

Still not sure if a petrol or electric one would serve best?

the petrol ones i use will suck the water out of a drum, so the gravity feed will be fine, most electric ones i have seen need main or someother pressure source,

[Rupe]

the petrol ones i use will suck the water out of a drum, so the gravity feed will be fine, most electric ones i have seen need main or someother pressure source,

Sweet, job done.

[meteor]

My electric Karcher will suck water from a bucket but i just connect the hose to it. Make sure you at least get a metal (alloy) pump, the plastic pumps with die after about an hours constant use. I've had 4 now, even some cheaper Karchers uses plastic components so make sure you know what you're buying and don't think just because it's branded it'll be good. My 2 cents :)

[steve_t]

My electric Karcher will suck water from a bucket but i just connect the hose to it. Make sure you at least get a metal (alloy) pump, the plastic pumps with die after about an hours constant use. I've had 4 now, even some cheaper Karchers uses plastic components so make sure you know what you're buying and don't think just because it's branded it'll be good. My 2 cents :)

No probs with my Karcher with its plastic impeller but if you want a metal impeller, you'd be avoiding Karcher and going with Gerni or Nilfisk for a cheap electric water blaster / pressure washer

[meteor]

No probs with my Karcher with its plastic impeller but if you want a metal impeller, you'd be avoiding Karcher and going with Gerni or Nilfisk for a cheap electric water blaster / pressure washer

I had a Karcher K3.8 and the pump died within a few weeks. They replaced the pump and that lasted 2 washes so I went back to Karcher and they told me that the plastic pump models are only meant for limited occasional use. If I wanted something to clean off a fence or long driveway, a few dirt bikes etc then I'd need to go to a metal pump. Why? I don't know, just saw the result. If your one works for you, great. They had a new but old stock heavy duty jobby that they gave me a huge discount on so I was happy and never looked back. I have heard those Nilfisk ones are pretty good though so agree with you there.