I have a Husky light-duty power washer for home use. There are power washer cleaner solutions on the market, but is there anything I can use that’s not so specialized? Like dish detergent? I just don’t need another jug of something sitting on a shelf that I’m only going to use twice a year.
Don’t bother with a cleaning agent. For me, the whole concept is that a power washer cleans by using water under pressure to blow off offending material, whatever it might be. I own a medium duty washer, used exclusively (so far) to clean my exterior residence walls for painting. It does a great job and I’ve never used a cleaning agent. Used appropriately, I think your light duty unit will do a fine job without any additive.
A cleaning solution will help depending on what you’re trying to remove. Grease and oil will be removed faster with some type of surfactant. You might try taking some simple green and diluting it down so there not so much foam. Simple Green does market a power washer product as well.
Tell us what you’re trying to clean off of what.
A smidgen of dilute bleach might be good for building walls with mold or moss, greasy garage floors need a detergent as described above, a mild acid for iron stains on concrete, etc.
Your big challenge with homebrew is getting enough chemical to do some good without getting so much you leave a hazmat residue or harm your substrate. If you don’t have any idea what the dilution ratio of your washer is you have nowhere to start even guessing how strong a solution to prepare.
I clean three things:
Brick front porch and rear concrete steps to get the green & black stuff off (moss? algae? mildew? mold?)
Garage to get all the crap out that dripped off my cars all winter as the snow melted off, includes some grease & oil
Porch/deck in the back, which is Trex. Tenacious layer of pollen in the spring.
I believe that purple Super Clean can be used in a pressure washer. It’s good on grease (like Simple Green) and costs about $10-15/gallon. But I also thought the water pressure did 95% of work - with the extreme pressure and water flow, how can a detergent have time to dissolve any dirt?
Brick front porch, rear concrete steps and Trex deck: no cleaner. Use the force of the water to remove stuff. My brother-in-law would also recommend that you not hit concrete too often. He is convinced that frequent power washing of concrete material slowly strips off the surface cream, leaving exposed aggregate. I’ve seen an example (just one) of this effect myself and no longer casually wash the concrete areas around my house. I may be reading too much into one example but for me, better safe than sorry.
Garage: I agree that a degreasing agent will help remove oil and grease on surfaces. But depending on how much area is involved hands, knees, a brush and elbow grease might be more effective and less contaminating to unaffected areas.
Sorry, no home brew suggestions. I’ve never used a cleaning agent. For my small oily spot on the garage floor it’s laundry soap, water and a brush.
OK, a little googling and I found the Husky model “The Weekender™” has a bottle attachment that will deliver a 10:1 dilution.
You may want to consider TriSodiumPhosphate (TSP), at a 1% solution. You can get TSP at most big box stores that sells paint and paint supplies. It is a powder. You need to mix a 10% solution by mixing 6 tablespoons in a quart of water. Overuse of TSP can be harmful to the environment due to the phosphates. Personally, for the little amount and frequency you will be using it, I wouldn’t worry. If you were running a powerwashing business, I’d have a different opinion.
You might just try washing powder (think Tide powder) if you don’t want to buy something new. Use the same 6 TSP to quart for your 10% solution and put that in your pressure washer attachment.
If the ecological affects bother you, the stores that sell TSP will also sell TSP substitutes. You might just try washing powder (think Tide powder) if you don’t want to buy something new.
Just TSP should do it. If the algae and/or mold are not taken care of, chlorine bleach will take care of these. I use 10% bleach solutions in a hand sprayer to tackle this chore, which would be putting straight bleach into your attachment bottle. I am not sure I’d do that, I’d probably dilute the bleach 50:50 with water and put that in the little bottle.
Of course, if you have a different model of pressure washer, the dilution ratio may be different. Check your manual.
On my model, there is a bottle attachment that replaces the pressure wand. It sprays out the diluted cleaner and you spray over the desired area, like a lawn sprayer. It acts as kind of a pre-treatment, you give it a couple of minutes to dissolve or loosen the target gook. Then you switch back to the wand and turn on the pressure.
I’ve owned three power washers. On each one it mixed soap or other solution with the water when the machine was set for low pressure. You’d wet the area with the low pressure water and soap. After it sat for a few minutes you switched to high pressure which cut off the soap injection.