Since I know very little, actually, nothing, about power washing, are either of these even a viable option for what someone in this field would consider?
It’s my understanding that the higher the GPM the better. What I have read is that you should have at least 4 GPM.
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Hey Bro , don’t buy any of theses. Theses are for home owners , buy something with at least 4 GPM. Hope this helps , take care .
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no. and no.
4gpm is bare minimum.
4035HG Belt Drive 4GPM 3500 PSI Gas Pressure Washer Pull Start from PowerWash.com
Its worth spending the extra cash & getting a decent machine - you’d be amazed what a few extra horsepower can do for your work day,… you get better results and clean MUCH faster with a decent machine. 
When you buy your first unit, 2 things are very important. Like a lot of they guys have already said, gpm is key. The output of your unit allows you to work faster. In soft washing, you are applying a soap and rinsing it off. The more water your unit can put out, the faster you can rinse soap.
the second very important thing is a belt driven unit as opposed to a direct drive. You NEED a belt driven unit, as a machine with a direct drive is not meant to be ran as often/hard as a belt driven.
first unit I bought was a 2.8 gpm belt driven unit. I believe it was a Mi-T-M for like $400, used of course.
depending on what your budget is, go for a unit with a Honda engine and a good brand pump. Comet, General are a few good pump brands off the top of my head.
i believe bob at pressure tek has a 4gpm belt driven unit that a lot of guys here on the forum use for like $1100-1400
And KEC Supplies has an awesome deal on a 5.5GPM belt drive for around $1,270. If I had the dough I’d be ordering one right now 
you could also get a machine with a gear drive. they have a gearbox that reduces the rpm of the motor down to the pump’s ideal rpm. accomplishes the same thing as a belt-drive, just in a different way. i like that setup better myself, because it’s lighter than a belt drive and it seems like it would be a little easier to service. but either one will serve you well.
the whole point of these kinds of machines is to save wear and tear on the pump. a pump only needs to run at around 1400 rpm. most motors run at something like 2600 rpms. running the pump at those high rpms will wear it out faster. so having some mechanism (belts/pulleys or a gear box) to reduce the motor rpms to a speed that the pump likes is good.
Hey Alex do you have a link for this ??
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I have added residential powerwashing to my window cleaning the past 5 years and the 4gpm models are what I use. It serves me well as a dual powerwasher/window cleaning service. If I only did power washing as my only source of income then 4gpm is childs play and Id be using a 8gpm with holding tank mounted on a trailer or truck.
4gpm suits me well when softwashing, it shoots out enough soap to cover the home and enough to rinse properly. I only average one power wash job a week and its usually a soft wash on the house and sometimes they upgrade to get the driveway and sidewalks cleaned too. Because its only small square footage of concrete its not so bad but if you have a long drive way say over 1000 sq foot the 4gpm is pain stakingly slow but I only do 3 or 4 of those size jobs a year so im not itching for a bigger machine.
Has anyone used the Dewalt 4 GPM pressure washers? They sell them at home depot and its Dewalts commercial grade machine? They run about $1,000. We are considering buying one this week. Im curious peoples thoughts on that 5.5 GPM machine posted in the comments above
i use the 4gpm dewalt from homedepot. its a honda engine and general pump. works great.
one thing to remember is that you want to use 100% gasoline and not that ethonal stuff which ruins smaller engines.
it really depends on how far you want to go with this. do you just want to have the option of doing a little pressure washing here and there as an add-on? or do you plan to make it a cornerstone of your business going forward?
if the former, then yeah it will be fine. if the later, then no. at least get a 4gpm belt or gear drive.
as for that 5.5gpm machine, it seems like a steal of a deal to me, though a little underpowered. it’s got the smaller honda engine that normally drives 4gpm machines so you sacrifice some psi. i’m not sure how much of a drawback it is, but i wonder if it might slow you down on flatwork, specifically concrete. [MENTION=803]Thad[/MENTION]
and for good measure: @Tim4[/U], @[U][URL=“http://windowcleaner.com/vBulletin/member.php?u=5152”]wws[/U], [MENTION=8289]bret_mayo[/MENTION], @[U][URL=“http://windowcleaner.com/vBulletin/member.php?u=74”]EcoClean
One BIG Noooooooooooo. !
RUN FOREST RUN, as far away and as fast as you can from anything that resembles one of those and while your at it … JOIN PWRA
Thats a decent machine. Go for it. If you’re gonna be sticking to resi doing house washes and their walkways, than its a pretty bad ass machine for the price.
We’re talking about different machines here, right?
^^ I think they are talking about the same 4gpm dewalt machine but mrwindow is referring to commercial jobs and wws is referring to resi jobs.
they are both correct.
I was talking about the 5.5 from KEC, I’m pretty sure that mrwindow was talking about the ones that the op pictured in his original post
