Advanced options
A professional drive/patio clean runs GBP 3-6/m2 (GBP 100-250 for a typical job): the pro brings a petrol machine with 5x your machine's flow rate and takes an hour where you take an afternoon. The buying case is the usual one-use-a-year trap in reverse: patio + drive + fence + wheelie bins + car + garden furniture is easily 3-4 days a year once you own one: pressure washers are the rare purchase where usage EXPANDS to fill ownership.
What The Pressure Washer Calculator Works Out
- Hiring per year: the day hire rate x the days you clean. Tool shops charge GBP 30 to GBP 50 a day for machines a grade above what the same money buys outright over three visits.
- Verdict and break-even: the purchase price divided by the hire rate gives the hire days that would have paid for a machine, usually two to four. Capable domestic electrics cost GBP 80 to GBP 150; the premium German tier at GBP 200 to GBP 400 buys build quality and accessories more than cleaning power.
- The shed truth: frost kills more pressure washers than use does. Drain the pump and store it indoors and a GBP 120 machine lasts a decade.
- Years kept and accessories (advanced): spread the purchase over its real life and add the kit the box does not include. The rotary patio-cleaner head (GBP 30 to GBP 60) halves both the time and the stripey-finish problem.
- Professional clean (advanced): price per visit and visits a year. Pros charge GBP 3 to GBP 6 per m2, or GBP 100 to GBP 250 for a typical drive and patio, and bring a petrol machine with five times a domestic unit's flow rate.
- Running cost per cleaning day (advanced): machine wattage x hours of washing at your electricity unit rate, plus the water used at about GBP 3.50 per cubic metre on a meter. A 1.8kW machine running three hours uses 5.4 kWh and 1,200 litres, roughly GBP 5 a day all in.
- Owning, per year and per cleaning day (advanced): machine and accessories divided by the years kept, plus running costs, so the true cost of each Saturday with the washer can be set against a hire day or a pro visit.
- Cheapest route and comparison table (advanced): buy, hire (including any delivery charge) and professional totals over your chosen years. Hire wins for a single moving-out clean, buying for the ordinary owned-house cycle, and the pro for big resin or render jobs where flow rate, chemicals and insurance are the real product.