How to Hit — and Miss — With Your Pressure Hose
The most common mistake made when purchasing pressure hose is equipping a machine with a hose that has too low a working pressure. A 3,000-PSI machine should be equipped with a hose that has a working pressure of more than 3,000 PSI. This advice comes from years of field experience using various hoses. Always size the working pressure of the high-pressure hose over the pressure washer operating pressure.
As an former contractor using a two-wire, higher pressure hose was never my first choice simply because it typically weighed almost twice as much as a one-wire hose. Now days when comparing a 50-foot, one-wire, 4,000-psi hose to a two-wire, 6,000-psi hose, the weight difference is as low as 2 pounds per section.
Hose technology has changed dramatically over the years. Before, if a hose would last a month, you would “kiss the ground” and bury it in the nearest dumpster. Now, we have customers who tell us that our serpentine hose will give them as much as six months of service.
Here are a few recommendations through this pressure washer hose guide:
- Purchase a 6,000-psi hose even if you are running a 3,000-psi system. The hose will last twice as long and even though it weighs a couple of pounds more it will make your muscles bigger!
- For all of you truck washers out there, never position your equipment in the parking lot in such a manner where other tractor-trailers are driving over your hose while you are washing. This is responsible for more hose failures than any other single happening.
- For all of you who have been buying blue or yellow nonmarking hose for all of these years, there is no such thing! The only true nonmarking hose in the industry is gray. Why? Gray hose does not contain carbon-black. All other colors do and this is what causes marks as the hose vibrates on the surface.
