The Best Generac Pressure Washer
Your Complete Buying Guide
If you were a faithful customer of Sears and Roebuck the odds are pretty good that you remember coming across power tools, portable generators, and power washers from Generac stretching all the way back until the early 1960s.
Originally these tools were made by Generac but sold under the Craftsman brand-name and they used to only be available at Sears. However, things started to shift and change around 1994 with new leadership at the company. They maintained their partnership with Sears (until Sears filed for bankruptcy and spun off the Craftsman brand-name recently) but also started to sell their own branded power washers shortly.
Top 5 Generac Pressure Washers on Amazon
So, why buy a Generac Pressure Washer?
Generac is very much a vertically integrated company that allows them to exercise a lot of control over their products that companies that outsource their components can’t enjoy.
This gives each and every Generac power washer a lot more consistency, lot more dependability, and a lot more reliability compared to competing options. This company has eight different manufacturing locations around the world (five of which are based in Wisconsin, one in Italy, one in Mexico, and another in Brazil) where their parts and components are made – giving them a global reach and access to inexpensive components, materials, and labor that lets them keep prices low without cutting quality.
Generac also has in-house engineering, design, and manufacturing teams that give them a lot more control over the specifications and capabilities of every individual pressure washer they produce. This is a little bit of a rarity in today’s outsource friendly and globalized manufacturing environment.
What Separates The Best Generac Pressure Washers from the Rest of the Pack?
On-demand power has always been the name of the game for Generac, regardless of whether or not you are looking into one of their electric powered pressure washers or one of their more traditional gasoline-powered models.
Some of their most popular units can produce PSI ratings of 6700+, where others can get all the way up to 8600+ psi without any trouble at all. One of their electric models taps out at just about 7000+ psi, rivaling many of the more capable gasoline powered options from direct competitors without all the noise, dirt, grime, and maintenance that the internal combustion engines inevitably bring to the table.
Intelligent design is critical when it comes to these pressure washers, and there’s a reason why the folks at Briggs and Stratton spent so much money in 1998 to eventually buy up Generac and “lock them out” of the pressure washer business for 10 years, slapping their branding on the designs and products this company had been responsible for.
Over that block of time (that “under the radar decade”) the company continued to innovate, continued to improve designs, and prepared for their ability to reenter the market with new solutions that were more forward thinking than anything else available – and they knocked that out of the park!
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How Generac Power Washers Stack Up Against the Competition
Fellow American company Simpson is probably the closest competitor to the Generac pressure washers, and both of these companies have a lot in common. For starters, a lot of their technology has been licensed by other companies in the business so that they can slap their branding designs these two pioneered – really showcasing just how far ahead of the rest of the competition they are.
Some of the best Generac power washers are little bit more expensive than Simpson power washers, however, even though the quality across the board is pretty similar.
Karcher power washers by another direct competitor, but this European company features German engineering and almost unreasonably high-quality materials for the pressure washers that they produce. Karcher products are a lot more expensive than Generac pressure washers, even those that have comparable PSI and GPM specifications.
Honda is another company that can go toe to toe with Generac, even if you will have a tough time finding Honda branded pressure washers anywhere outside of the Japanese market (unless you’re willing to import one directly). 16 different companies all over the industry use Honda engines in their pressure washers because of their durability and their performance, and many of these engines are admittedly slightly better designed than the ones you find from Generac.
Accessories, Parts, and Add-Ons to Help Squeeze Even More Performance Out of Your Generac Pressure Washer
One of the first upgrades you want to make when purchasing a Generac pressure washer (or any pressure washer, for that matter) is a number of different degree nozzle heads.
Generac pressure washers are going to come with a Zero Degree pressure head right out of the box, capable of shooting a high-powered and concentrated stream of pressurized water directly at whatever you are cleaning. For most situations, this pressure head is going to be overkill and you want to have a couple of different choices that help you dial things back regardless of what your PSI settings are adjusted to right now.
Secondly, you want to make sure that you invest in brass couplers and fittings across the board. The metal fittings from Generac are pretty high quality as it is but brass gives you an extra level of safety and security that you just won’t have with any other construction material. This is an inexpensive upgrade that will protect you and your investment (not to mention your property and anywhere else nearby should a catastrophic failure occur with lower grade materials).
Extendable washing wands are another must-have accessory, particularly if you want to stay as safe as possible with your feet firmly planted on the ground when using a pressure washer as opposed to climbing up the ladder and running some serious risk. These kinds of extendable and telescoping accessories can give you anywhere between 5 feet and 10 feet of extra reach.
Floor-sweeping units that look like oversized shop brooms with rotating little nozzles and scrub brushes can make quick work of caked on dirt, gunk, and grime. It’s not a bad idea to get a couple of different sized scrub brushes ready to go so that you can tackle a lot of service area all at once and get into tight little nooks and crannies with no difficulty, too.
Finally, it’s not a bad idea to get your hands on the upgraded high-pressure hoses for your Generac pressure washer. These hoses should be rated at a pressure 500 psi higher than what your machine is capable of, giving you a little bit of an extra buffer zone to protect you from accidental blowouts or high-pressure catastrophes.
Add these accessories to your Generac pressure washer and you are going to be ready to rock and roll right away.
In Conclusion
These are high-quality units across the board, helped by the fact that this company designs, engineers, and then manufacturers all of their own pumps and engines directly in house. Quality control is handled by the Generac company and it isn’t outsourced to various partners around the world, giving you a much more complete in a much more consistent system across the board.
Generac is also regarded as one of the best places to work with top-tier customer service and support should you need to take advantage of it. They have a fantastic warranty program that you will be able to depend on, and customer reviews regularly attest to the fact that they go above and beyond what they advertise protecting with their warranties – pleasantly surprising customers should they need to take advantage of this extra level of safety and security.
Last update on 2023-09-05 / Affiliate links / Images from Amazon Product Advertising API
