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I just want to clean the drive and patios really well with a patio attachment thing so I don’t drench myself with just the lance every year- my old nilfisk patio cleaner was so pathetic I just binned it, so am a bit cautious of buying another whole unit to discover it’s equally as crap.
Or are they all crap? Internet unclear.
I have a nilfisk one and find it does exactly what I need it to, sorry I doubt that helps much
The answer to all things Pressure Washer, is "Kranzle"
(With umlouts over the 'a' making it 'Kraenzle' really).
But... you have to get your wallet out.
It's like buying a proper bike, when everything that else is just the equivalent of a BSO.
We borrow my uncle's Karcher occasionally. The patio cleaner attachment looks like a big upturned bowl that has a little spinny 3 arm rotor under it with a jet on the end of each arm. Despite the jets looking a bit small and rubbish it's surprisingly effective and because it's enclosed is pretty much mess fee. Recommended*
*Don't know what model of cleaner it is, There's been discussions on here before about different qualities available some with plastic pumps that are apparently not as reliable.
I have the Lidl parkside pressure washer and the patio cleaner attachment. Works perfectly. Did my monoblocks last weekend and they look brand new
What you have to look at is the flow rate, not just the claimed pressure. Using the pressure figure is like saying it's "1000 volt motor is more powerful than a 500v motor. That's only part of the equation.
I've got a Kranzle 1050 TST (one of 3 variants in their 'bottom of the range' model. It's like going to the gun fight with an M16 when the Karcher I had was turning up with a pea shooter.
i hired from the buliders merchant, got a petrol jetwasher on wheels. Was awesome, cleaning made everthing like new and lasted years
I see someone has recommended the Karcher patio cleaner tool...and I was coming here to do the exact opposite - it is incredibly poor - it stops spinning as the bowl thing with bristles just fills with water and doesn't let any out so the spinner stops spinning. Moving it forwards doesn't seem to get the water moving either, so you then need to hold the bristles jus off the ground so the water escapes...the spinner then spins but isn't close enough to the ground to do anything.
Honestly, a total bag of bobbins...much quicker to spray the patio with something like Muc-off pink and then lance it. That was far easier than the patio cleaner head. If you want to make it even easier, Muc-off pink and a wee scrub with a brush and then the lance.
My previous Nilfisk came with the standard patio cleaner. It immediately broke after ingesting a tiny bit of concrete that came out of the drive. Nilfisk replaced it with a slightly larger one, good on them.
Been using it for years until this spring when the pressure washer broke (think there was water in the pump over winter)
Got a new one and it was cheaper to get another bundle pack with a new cleaner. The new cleaner is much much faster, I think the old one didn't have enough flow rate so you had to move it very slowly, the new is much faster and more effective. Tried the old one on the new unit and still rubbish.
It's a Nilfisk Core 140, other improvements over my old one (a centennial I think) are the hose reel that actually works, a hose that is much more flexible, and you don't need to disconnect it from the machine to wind it up.
Exactly the opposite experience with my Karcher. The patio attachment works just great. The one I have doesn’t have bristles like the old version. It’s worth bearing in mind that the bristles aren’t there to scrub, they work like a hovercraft skirt. Just let the thing hover and move in sweeping pattern. Don’t press down, it’ll make it clog and stop moving.
I wasn't pressing down...the only way to get it to spin was to lift it off the ground by several mm - enough to let the water not back up and flood the unit. That was fine to get it spinning but it was then too far from the ground to actually clean anything...entirely possible the expectation was you needed to make 10+ passes to get it cleaned, but that wasn't ever going to be reality. If the new one is better and actually works then that is great, but the one I've got with bristles is utterly useless.
Basic karcher with the bristles here. Nice and easy to use with the hovering sort of sweeping motion seems to work really well. Cleaned the patio quickly and without too much mess. Just general dirt and nothing too bad like staining to clean tho.
I have a nilfisk one and find it does exactly what I need it to, sorry I doubt that helps much
Ditto.
If you are trying to shift lichen/algae then would also recommend an application of Wet & Forget - but that really needs to be done a couple of months before attacking with the pressure washer.
The answer to all things Pressure Washer, is “Kranzle”
More specifically their "dirt lance" which has a warning not to use it on the car!
+1 for hiring one. the big type on wheels blasts hot water too.
If you are trying to shift lichen/algae then would also recommend an application of Wet & Forget – but that really needs to be done a couple of months before attacking with the pressure washer.
Dilute sodium hypochlorite and washing up liquid were pretty effective for me, applied 30 minutes before spraying and brushed into the blocks.
Hit it with the pressure washer and finished up with another spray of bleach to make sure everything was dead.