How To Pressure Wash A Concrete Driveway

How's it going ?

You guys Scott with everyday home repairs .

And today I want to show you a better way to clean your concrete driveway .

Now , if you're just driving down the street , there's about an eight in 10 chance that you'll see somebody just out there with a pressure washer and a wand and just , just blowing off the dirt and debris and kind of moving that across their driveway .

Now , that was me in the past and it wastes a ton of time .

So let's jump in and show you the better way to clean the driveway .

It will save you time and give you a better end result .

So let's cover three things so you can get ready for your job first up , get a plan of attack .

You want to start where you have the highest level of concrete and it slopes away from that point why we want to do that because you don't want to start at a low point , get that clean and then work your way up to a high point where the mud , dirt and debris will then just come and settle on the surface you just cleaned .

So start at the high point and let the dirt and debris go over the still dirty concrete and then work your way across .

So I'm gonna start by my garage and work across and then work towards the street .

Now , moving on to the second item that is equipment .

I'm using a Simpson 3100 P si 2.3 gallons per minute pressure washer .

This one cost me about $350 .

And I got a year ago from Lowe's basically , I use it for decks siding and then concrete driveways and sidewalks .

That's my main use case at my property .

And then a few of the rental properties I have now , I would love to go to an electric just from the simplicity of use .

I use this infrequently .

Right .

So sometimes it's a little hard to get started or you didn't do the maintenance on it .

I get it , but electric really isn't at the point where you can get a good pressure like a 31 100 P si and a good flow rate like a 2.3 gallons per minute .

Sometimes you can get up to 300 P si , but then your flow rate is going to be down in the ones .

So you're not going to get that volume of water that's going to make the project easy or the pressure that's going to give you that force to really break up the dirt and debris off the surface .

So for me , I'm still sticking with a gas and the Simpsons are pretty good value at 350 .

It's not quite in the professional grade , but it's definitely not at the complete low end .

And then the final is the attachments .

We'll talk more about that while I actually start to do this job because that can be a key to a job taking three times longer with marginal results or you being efficient at the job with great results .

So this is your first attachment .

It's the standard wand .

This is what you're going to see .

Eight out of 10 people using .

And it's not the best approach specifically , I'm using the 40 degree tip .

But you can also try with the 15 , it'll just take forever to get through your whole driveway even though you have a lot of pressure and force to get all the dirt , debris and stains off your concrete .

So you're hunched over here , it is going to wear you out and you're gonna get some wave patterns in an inconsistently clean driveway .

So what's a better option ?

The better option is what's called a surface cleaner .

Now , this one , you don't have to be too fancy .

This one I got off Amazon for $100 .

It's 15 inches wide .

It has three wheels which really help keep a consistent distance to the surface and Isi glides across the driveway as you clean .

I usually do one initial pass and then a quick pass to kind of get the dirt and bree off .

Then I will keep that 40 degree tip in my pocket to do a one over making sure we're getting all the dirt and mud off of that freshly clean surface .

So what's actually going on with this surface cleaner is it has actually two different tips here that are slightly angled to the surface and it's on a bar that will rotate and then the water can pass through this rotation joint .

So since the nozzles are angled , they will actually spin themselves .

And it's really effective in cleaning , whether it's a deck or perfect for concrete driveways and sidewalks .

Taking this perspective , you can quickly see this is the 40 degree tip .

You're going to vary the speed that it's striking the surface and the distance that's striking the surface .

That's why you get kind of a wave pattern finish and also inconsistently clean concrete .

If you compare that to the surface cleaner , those tips are staying the constant distance away from the ground and the speed is going to be consistent as well , resulting in a cleaner surface .

In less time , we'll just use water .

There's no chemicals used , no pretreating or post treating .

Just the surface cleaner .

We'll do a section like this , get it cleaned off and then we'll use the 40 degree tip and then just blow off all that loose mud , dirt and debris to clean everything up and let it dry and then I'll go on to the next session and then keep progressing across my driveway .

Remember I have about 1800 square feet here overall time to do this .

I'll tell you at the end and then also like how much gas I went through just so you can plan accordingly .

Now , this is the dirtiest section of my driveway .

You can see a little bit left behind even after spraying that .

But it's an easy fix because I always keep that tip in my pocket so I can swap out to the wand and do spots like this where I really need to spend a little bit more time and get that mold and mildew off the concrete and get it completely clean .

So the one is still super handy and the 40 and 15 degree will probably come in handy sometime throughout your cleaning .

But the surface cleaner is going to be doing the heavy lifting of this job and it's well worth the money .

Now , if you rent a pressure washer like this in a surface cleaner , you're probably looking at 130 to $150 per day .

Remember my Simpson 3100 psi 2.3 gallon per minute was $350 from Lowe's .

And then I bought this stainless steel surface cleaner 15 inches across with two extensions which really help make the cleaning very comfortable .

So you're not hunching over and kind of fatiguing yourself .

That was right at $100 off Amazon .

And you can look down in the description , you'll see a link to our Amazon store .

You'll be able to go over jump into the category and you'll see this exact model that I used here and do recommend for D wires at home .

So depending on your situation , renting or buying , if you already have that pressure washer , buying a 50 inch surface cleaner like this probably makes a whole lot of sense .

And you'll see a few different types of surface cleaners .

It's a professional grade that's more like $350 .

And then there's ones like this in the middle .

But the key is having those three wheels , I think really does help out for just very smooth operation .

It goes across the surface very easily .

There are a number of models that do not have the wheels and I just think for literally 10 or 20 more dollars , you can get something like this made out of stainless steel and it should last years and years across your projects .

This will be the last section for my driveway .

And overall in time , it took me an hour and 40 minutes to complete the 1800 square feet of concrete and I burned about a gallon and a half of gasoline in the pressure washer .

Overall , the results were awesome .

I was super satisfied and it was extremely easy .

Usually these jobs kind of get taxing .

They're boring and you get burned out halfway through .

Not the case .

This progressed very fast .

And I was very pleased with the overall results .

Now , I was lucky I didn't have any oil stains on the driveway .

If you do have those , you might want to use a de greaser scrub that in and see if that can remove the oil stains from your concrete .

And now as you're packing up your project , let me show you a mistake I've made in the past and hopefully it'll save you from a pump failure like I have .

So what you want to do is make sure you use some pump saver before storing your pressure washer , especially S D wires .

Our pressure washer can sit for six months , nine months or even 12 months between uses .

So the pump seals and internals can corrode and cause an issue .

So all you need to do is just tighten the pump saver onto the hose end and then I'm just going to press the pump saver .

Now , it's going to come out the high pressure and you want to press until it comes out , but I'll kind of cover the sub because it can come out there pretty fast .

Ok , start starting to come out there .

So now we know our internals are covered with the pump saver and then that's going to extend out the life of our pump and extend out the life of our pressure washer .

Now , if your driveway is anything like mine after cleaning it , you might be noticing the gaps a little bit more .

If you're wondering how to seal those up , check out this video right here .

I'll walk you through the complete process with my favorite product that is bulletproof and will last for years and years .

So thanks for joining me on this video and we'll catch you on that next one .

Take care .