Nozzles

To begin I am writing this in hopes to educate the customers and future customer. Knowledge is the best tool to protect ones self from those who prey on others. This is not a step by step on how to clean or use a pressure washer one must follow instructions that came with your unit. This part of the blog is for  those who want to hire a home wash or power washing professional and be armed with some basic knowledge.

This style of tip is a meg tip but it shows the cut a way you can see how the water is reduced and reduced again forcing water through the toothpick size hole.

We use several nozzles in our line of business we have made several nozzles that help to speed up our jobs. Remember speed is an asset to us and you we save fuel, water and ware and tare on our equipment. Speed is only an asset if the job is still done right. You're going to see most operators walking around with several tips they plug into the last part of the wand which is the device that the water leaves an becomes visible. They come in different patterns just like the garden nozzle on the end of your hose. The basic patterns are 0 degree this is the strongest the small round hole condenses the stream of water to that about the size of a toothpick forcing the water out. In untrained hands this tip could be dangerous to your siding or paint. I have seen it cut wood and vinyl siding in half. Other sizes vary from this point the next nozzle creates a fan pattern of 15 degrees as the water exits the nozzle this still packs quite a bit of power and is quite aggressive wood on decks and fences can be gouged out and damaged with this nozzle too. Continuing on we come to the 25 degree tip I like this tip the best for general cleaning it fans the water out to a 25 degree pattern and is a bit less aggressive to use. Still very powerful though I have cut my work boots with it and once sliced the top of my finger quite bad with it. 40 degrees is the nest nozzle and it fans the water to 40 degrees this is good for light work and to move water down the concrete or rinsing.

Then the is a soap or chemical tip it has a large eye shaped hole in it to apply soap or chemicals you may hear it called down-streaming which mean we have an attachment that is put into our water deliver line after the pump that makes the water compress causing pressure. This attachment will allow us to pull soap and cleaners in to our water stream and them apply it to your home. This tip is what we call our low pressure tip since it does not restrict the water too much. In our line we have some tips we have made to lower the pressure but also contain the water in to a stream which is for our soft washing and soft rinse, these are special and if we are lucky enough to have you as a customer we will be happy to show you how they work. A newer tip a lot of washers us it the

Turbo Nozzle is larger due to the fact there is a device that the water moves around inside to rotate the stream of water

"Turbo Nozzle"  a dirt killer if there was ever one. It is a 0 degree nozzle that the water pressure moves around making the tip rotate you cleaning pattern is larger but you still have the 0 degree aggressive cleaning tip. With my 3500 psi washer I can cut a 3/4" hole in a 2x6 in less than 30 seconds this is still a very dangers tip to your home and concrete

Pressure and the wrong size nozzle can cut or etch concrete ruining the skim coat.

0 degree nozzle cutting the wood leaving the fence or deck ruined

Each power washer is different there are all different ratings on these machines how many gallons they put out and how much psi they put out each machine has to have a special nozzle size too. You must match a nozzle to the output of the machine then you can have the fan patterns described above. To put very simple if I put a fire hose nozzle on you garden hose how would it work My guess is not to good it is to big and if I put the little garden nozzle on the fire hose how long will it last? Professional know their machines and what they need and their requirements one size does not fit all here. Even though these nozzle are made from stainless steel or ceramics the have a live span and wear out. As I talked about in the last entry water causes friction and force this in-turn will increase the size of the hole in the nozzles this effects their cleaning power.  There are a lot of people who get a washer from the "big box store" advertise on the local C-list and think they are power washers and everybody has a brother in law that owns a pressure washer that can do it cheaper. What other business can you open for $600.00 really, 3 sections of my steam hose cost that much! Then most of them do not know the science and there is an awful lot of science behind the pressure washer (which I hope I'm explaining) do you want to trust you biggest investment to them. Research and knowledge is the key. 
We just covered the basics on tips here and I hope you have a better idea of what they do. In the right hands they are most useful and a professional washer can do more with them than you can think.