A project that had been hanging over my head for a while, presented the opportunity to try a new pressure washer that was being brought to market by Campbell Hausfeld®.  CH needed a place for a photo shoot, and I needed to use a fairly serious pressure washer.  Now I gotta tell you, I’m not the hugest supporter of pressure washers.  In general, a pressure washer is one of those tools that can make an arduous task a little less of a pain in the tail - you know, it injects more of that try-to-get-the-most-out-of-everything-you-do philosophy of ours into the situation.  But, unless you have a whooole lot of stuff around your place to pressure wash, this is one of those categories where you might want to get to know your local rental house real well.  Most jobs on which I would use one, require a bit of power, so the average electric unit just won’t cut it.  Since those types of jobs are few and far between, I just can’t see spending the money, then having to maintain and store something that would fit my needs.  I know from experience, pressure washer hose is a pain in the butt to roll up right, the gun/wand bit is long and unwieldy-and the wand racks never hold them right.  That’s just aggravation that I do not need.  My husband gets a few jollys with the electric one that we do have, washing cars, his ATV, etc.  But I’m sorry, when I go to wash my car, I’m really not willin’ to mess with more than a bucket, a sponge, a hose and a shammy.  I am not dealing with all that cord and hose and whatnot.  This is just me, but it makes more sense in my happy place to rent what I need, when I need it and be done with it.

The folks from CH brought this one over and hooked it up.  Pretty simple process, except we needed an adapter for the 20 amp plug.  I knew that all of my house breakers were 20 amp, but I had no idea that a 20 amp cord may actually use a weird plug.  Be forewarned that if you decide to rent or buy one like this for your project needs - check the plug situation before you go home!  The only other little quirk was that when it's first plugged in, there's a reset button on the cord that you have to push in order for the pump to turn on when you flip the switch.  In technical terms, the cord is equipped with its own GFCI (Ground Fault Circuit Interrupter for the uninitiated).  You see these things on most electric equipment that tend to be used in wet areas, like hair dryers and such.  The outlet that we used was a GFCI outlet as well, so if nothing else, I was safe electrically.

One of my favorite things about this pressure washer was that unlike a lot of electric pressure washers, the on/off switch was not only very easy to find, but easy to engage.  It's a toggle switch instead of one of those rubber/plastic encased nightmares usually found on an electric unit.  Since this was a non-production test unit, I'm told that the production version is a rotary one using the same general principal that we used to see on grandma's stove.  Still, way better than the "how far down am I gonna break my nail off" version of the more common power switches on these things.

The biggest happy surprise was still to come - it was really quiet - no louder than a vacuum cleaner.  I swear, it seemed like the longer I used it, the quieter it got.  I'm sure that it was just my imagination, but I'd rather be imagining happy talk than thinking "isn't it beer-thirty YET?!"  It really did the trick on this job.  The only complaints that I have are that my hand's a little sore (and I even wore work gloves) from working the trigger for so long, and the garden hose/pressure hose/cord was teency bit of a pain in the patoot the couple of times that I had to move the business around (nature of the beast).  I have to say that judging on the features and performance of this pressure washer, it’s getting one of my rare 5 fingernails. 
I’d rent this bad boy any day of the week.

Campbell Hausfeld's model CP5216, from their commercial/industrial line.