If you want to make money with a hot water pressure washer (sometimes referred to as a steam cleaner) in the contract cleaning sector, you are definitely going to need auxiliary power. Perhaps you want to run a waste wash water reclaim device, or maybe you just need some powerful lights to work at night. Either way you do need electricity to power up the burner to heat the water. Not long ago, I was discussing these issues with a mobile fleet cleaning operator, and he asked this most excellent question;
"I'm thinking about electric motors on the pumps and running them from one larger generator. That way I always have on board electric for whatever I need, plus the ability to run flood lights as well for night work. Generator exhaust systems are also designed quieter - your thoughts?"
Yes, we have done this before, and if you get a really quiet large Honda generator, it's really nice to work with no noise. Onan, also makes a quiet diesel generator, actually have one of these on my motor home 7.5, it's a fantastic generator, just awesome in every regard and you can hardly tell when it's running. I like the Hondas better because they are less maintenance.
If you really wanted to go eco-friendly you could use a large generator, and that way you would always have electricity for lights, running the pumps, and the burner. And if you had LP to fire the burner, you would be both clean and quiet. You should also know that most of the skid pressure washer units do have two 110 outlet plugs on them, but, we always upgraded our units to have 17.5 amps.
This way they could run a 5 hp craftsman vacuum cleaner shop vac, lights (2) 1 million candle watts on tripods, and the burner too, although that maxed it out, so you couldn't start the vacuum motor because it would spike and trip the circuit breaker. Believe me you will get into situations depending on which type of cleaning you do, where you need all that and more, and if you don't have it at the time, you'll be cursing yourself for not putting in the capital investment to do the job right - you'll probably wish you had more.
However, if you do upgrade to 17.5 amps or greater, you will need a larger motor on your skid unit. I believe some of the units we were building had 18 to 22 hp so that we can do all that for industrial work.
So, you can get by without a generator and still have amperage for reclaim device vacuum pumps, lights, vacuums, etc. - even power tools on the job too. I suppose, the reality is you want to make sure that you can do all the work that you set out to do, and you want to be able to take all the jobs that pay the most money.
If you are just going to do busy work and cleaning auto dealership car lots, you may as well just get a small cold water unit, rent a couple C and W de-I tanks, or put in RO system that your house, fill up 500 gallon tanks, take the GPM down to 2.2 to 3.5 gallons per minute and 1500 - 2200 PSI and go to town. Please consider this.
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