If you’re like me, you don’t mind some yard work. While I hate doing chores like pulling weeds, I enjoy being out there and trying to get my lawn right. While it’s always a work in progress, I’m glad to be doing the work. I’ve learned that, when you own a home, there’s always something to work on.
After a few years of neglect, our home desperately needed a full cleaning. I’m not talking about the inside of the house either, although that is another place that always needs cleaning. With two small kids, we are constantly picking up, wiping down, and doing everything in between. The outside of the home needed a facelift. So I got a power washer to do the heavy lifting for me.
Related
Robot vacuums are getting cheaper, but I still won’t buy one for this reason
Get the job done right the first time.
Using a power washer can be a simple task
This is a serious cleaning tool
The siding of my house looked green on one of the sides. Other areas just looked dirty. We have gray siding, so dirt can be noticeable. But the green side of the house is one that faces the road, so you can see it from the street. This wasn’t providing our home much curb appeal.
The Bauer 2000 PSI Power Washer has been a game-changer for getting the job done quickly. This wasn’t a small home upgrade, but it also didn’t set me back a ton of money and has already paid for itself. It’s an electric pressure washer, so you have to plug it in. But the 35-foot power cord is decently long, so that isn’t a big issue. When I have to move it around the home, I plug it into an extension cord.
It has sturdy wheels, so you can wheel it without much effort. Being able to roll it on grass, pavement, and pavers with ease has been a big plus. It doesn’t weigh much at 32 pounds and it’s not bad even when the soap dispenser is full.
The hose length is 25 feet, which can feel small in just a short amount of time. But, if you keep the washer moving, it can work well for you. Hooking it up to my outdoor faucet was simple, as there’s a nozzle ready to attach right to the spigot with just a few turns.
The green hose that you see in the photos is a replacement. The previous one that came with the washer became too kinked and didn’t hold up well. I replaced it with a sturdier hose.
The Bauer 2000 PSI Power Washer also comes with different nozzles for you to use for different reasons. I like that it offers different angles of the nozzle because you can spray at a 0°, 25°, or a 40° angle, depending on which one you’re using. There’s also a soap nozzle that works when you put soap in the tank.
The Bauer 2000 PSI Power Washer packs a punch
This provides you with a strong stream
Credit: Chris Hachey / MakeUseOf
This electric washer prides itself on making an impact when its water is dispersed. The manufacturer has a lineup of 1000, 2000, and 3000 PSI washers. I didn’t think I needed the most powerful option, so I went with the middle one. It’s plenty strong, as the 14-amp motor provides a 1.3 GPM flow rate.
When you hold the cushioned handle and press down on the trigger, this begins churning and provides a steady stream to attack the dirt you want to get rid of. I started working on one side of the outdoor wall and carefully moved along it to get every inch. As the power washer ran, the stream never dipped, keeping steady pressure and keeping a pointed jet right where I wanted the water to go.
This was crucial because it kept my workflow consistent. I was able to go back and forth, up and down the wall. After about 20 minutes, I had finished a large section of one of the walls and knew that I’d be able to get this going quickly. This is a much easier task than donig something like raking leaves.
The only thing that does get tiring after a while is the reverb in your hand. While the grip is simple to hold, it does give you constant vibration into your palm and fingers. After a while, this can wear you down and you’ll want to take a break.
So, between working and resting, I was able to finish all the walls of my home in a few hours. This even included the high, second story areas, as the stream’s strength reached up there.
This can clean other areas and items
It’s helped clean large portions of the outside of my home
Credit: Chris Hachey / MakeUseOf
Not only have I used my power washer to clean my house, but I’ve also used it for other places on my property. When my wife and I bought our daughter a playhouse, it came unassembled and unpainted. We had to paint every part of it before we put it together.
So we got a paint sprayer and had to lay out hundreds of pieces of wood. There was only so much cardboard we had and only so much space to lay things out in the garage. We had to extend it to our driveway as well. As the painting went on, some paint got on the driveway. In order to clean it off the driveway, the power washer took care of cleaning the pavement.
Our back deck was painted an ugly color right before we moved in. It was a light blue, which showed dirt so obviously. In order to clean the deck, we power washed it. Despite trying to take it easy, we noticed that some of the paint was chipping off as we power washed it.
At the end of the day, this wasn’t a huge issue, as we knew we wanted to stain the deck differently in the future. This helped us get rid of the bad coat of paint and prepared us to put down the new one. It took a few hours, and more paint scrapers, to get rid of the paint we wanted to and then we painted over other areas as well.
A power washer can do a quick job of your cleaning
I hadn’t used a power washer prior to purchasing one to clean the siding of my home. I’m really glad I made the investment as it has been invaluable in giving our home a much-needed change. It’s easy to store, as I keep it in my shed, and I have enjoyed using it and watching it blast away dirt at every moment.
