Greenworks 1700 PSI 1.2 GPM Pressure Washer

Hasta ahora bastante bien buena compra

I have a nice, heavy duty Karcher gas power pressure washer that I use around my property. But I don’t like using it in the winter due to the hassle of making sure it does not freeze (and it is too unwieldy to bring inside more than once each year for storage), and it is too large and heavy to take to my alternate property, or for small quick tasks. So I went shopping for a more portable, electric powered pressure washer whose price would not break the bank. I selected this “Greenworks 1500 PSI 1.2 GPM Pressure Washer (Upright Hand-Carry)”; note that the actual manufacturer’s part number GPW1501. At just under $100 US, I was hoping that the quality was at least decent.

I was a little surprised to see that this product was made in Vietnam (rather than China or Taiwan), although the Greenworks company appears to be based on Canada, and it appears that service and support is ‘local’, or within North America at least.

The basic specifications are:
– Pump housing dimensions; 18″ tall, 11″ wide, 9″ deep (front to rear); these dimensions are approximate
– Pump housing weight; 19 pounds (according to user’s manual)
– Pump maximum pressure; 1500 PSI
– Pump flow; 1.2 GPM
– Pump power: 120VAC, 60Hz, 13A (this should be plugged into a dedicated 15A circuit, or at least one where there is nothing else on the circuit currently turned on); the power cord is about 35 feet long and has a GFCI plug, so you can use this safely even with non-GFCI outlets; note that the GFCI plug head is pretty huge, so it might not fit into outdoor outlets which have weather-doors, etc; I had to use a short outlet extender cord in order to plug into my house’s outdoor outlets
– Handgrip has the usual pressure washer squeeze trigger control, and all high pressure hose and associated fittings are the conventional type used by most other pressure washers; I can use the longer pressure hose, handgrip, and accessories (including the nozzle tips) that are part of my larger Karcher machine when I am using this smaller Greenworks sprayer
– High pressure hose is about 20 feet long (product can be ordered with longer hose lengths)
– Accessories; 25° (green/narrow) and 40° (white/wide) spray heads/nozzles/tips, and a detergent ‘tank’ (bottle) with associated detergent spray head, and a small wire nozzle cleaning tool

As with any home-use pressure washer, this one is easy to use, even easier than the larger gas powered ones since there is no need to mess with the engine, and THIS one automatically turns the electric pump on and off according to whether you are squeezing the handgrip trigger. Just screw the high pressure hose fittings onto the pump’s fitting and the handgrip fitting, and connect a garden hose to the water inlet connection (which includes a screen), and plug in the power cord. There is a single control on the pump, “OFF/ON” (plus the handgrip trigger of course), so you turn that on, and start spraying. When you release the trigger, the pump automatically stops. When you squeeze the trigger again, the pump automatically starts. When you are done, turn the power switch off and disconnect the garden hose.

As with all such pressure washers, you can quickly and easily replace the nozzle/tip according to the need of the moment, since it has the conventional quick connect fittings.

Note that the handgrip has its own proprietary quick disconnect fitting where the ‘spray wand’ connects to the handgrip; this is not the conventional fitting, so you probably won’t be able to use spray wands from other kinds of pressure washer with this machine’s handgrip (but you can use other machines’ handgrips with this machine). When you are using the detergent tank for spraying water and detergent, the detergent tank connects to the handgrip in place of the spray wand, using the same kind of proprietary quick disconnect fitting. The conventional quick disconnect fitting is found on the opposite end of the spray wand.

I have so far used this sprayer to clean some siding on my house, and to wash my car. It worked fine and exactly as expected. It seems to be of decent quality, and the pump ran surprisingly quiet. I found the automatic start/stop to be a nice convenience (actually, having this feature might save cost since with it, the more common water recirculation valve on the pump is presumably not needed, and there is no worry about overheating).

The handgrip trigger has a small piece of plastic that can be used to ‘lock’ the trigger in the OFF position for safety. However, it seems to be easily defeatable, thus is not of much real use. The manual does not describe the intent or use of this safety lock, other that to state that the user might need to move it from one position to the other.

I found the power cord length to be very good, but it is a long and THICK cord, and what to do with it when the pump is not in use is the big question. I would have expected the pump body to have an integral pair of hooks, etc; which the cord could be wrapped around for stowage (as on vacuum cleaners, etc), and WHY Greenworks did not provide this is a mystery.

I found the included 20 foot high pressure hose to be too short for my trial tasks, so I was happy that I was able to use the much longer hose from my Karcher washer. 20 feet of hose is really short once you actually try to use this sprayer, so I suggest opting for the model that comes with a longer hose. Also, the included hose comes tightly coiled, and I had a hard time trying to train it to relax so I could actually use it. Greenworks makes a similar, and somewhat more expensive, pressure washer which includes a reel for the hose (I did not choose that model since it looked like it made the overall unit too bulky).

The GFCI plug does not include a grounding pin, and this is because the product is “double insulated”. I think this is OK.

Gripes:
– The product overview diagram in the manual lists 14 pieces, but only three numbered arrows actually appear on the diagram, so pretty much useless. This kind of sloppy and ill-conceived content is found throughout the user’s manual.
– All illustrations are reproduced in a faint gray shade and very small, so hard to make out what is being shown.
– The instructions for use of the detergent tank are confusing, in that they state that ‘household detergents’ should not be used since they might damage the pressure pump. 1) any kind of detergent one might wish to use with a pressure sprayer would be considered as a ‘household detergent’, 2) the pump is upstream of the detergent nozzle, with the 20 foot hose between them, so it seems very unlikely that whichever detergent is used would ever be in contact with the pump’s innards. Stupid copy & paste mistake on the part of the manual’s author.
– “Do the instructions on the solution bottle to prepare detergent” is a not-uncommon bit of clumsy writing found in the manual.
– There are no actual instructions for use of the detergent tank, other that how its quick disconnect works and the aforementioned clumsy cautions.
– Just a few bits of plastic could have been added to facilitate storage of the power cord and hose, but Greenworks did not do this.
– The rear of the pump unit has some shapes to the plastic that suggest a hint of storage potential, but if the designers intended a use for them, the manual does not describe or illustrate those uses. One tiny illustration seems to suggest that the handgrip and spray want might be stowed on the rear of the pump body, but when I tried to stow them, it did not work out, since I did not understand what was supposed to hold them in the pictured positions (the illustration shows the unit from the wrong side regarding this question).

EDIT: After some fooling around over the course of several uses of this product, I have figured out a way to store everything:
– Disconnect the spray wand from the handgrip. They then fit behind the large green plastic structure (I’ll call it the LGPS) at the top rear of the sprayer body, and down into the two end pockets of the black plastic structure below that.
– The detergent tank docks to the center of the LGPS, sticking out the back of the sprayer body.
– The power cord can be looped such that its many coils hang over the rear of the sprayer body, hanging from the tops of the handgrip and spray wand as if they were hooks.
– The 20 foot pressure hose gets similarly looped/coiled, hanging from the same devices that the power cord is hanging from. Note that if you buy the model with a longer pressure hose, there is probably not enough space to coil it in the manner I describe here.
– The coiled power cord and pressure hose now surround the detergent tank.

So, I think this is a decent product that should satisfy most casual users, for a reasonable purchaser price.

I used this to clean my patio, it’s not the most powerful thing but you know that going in with the PSI. It did clean all the gunk. I bought an attachment to clean pavement that’s easier covers more ground. It’s easy to put together and tote around. Just what I wanted.

My farm uses Greenworks tools for landscaping already. We have quite a few battery powered tools so I saw this and thought the other items have held up, so I gave it a try. Can I tell you that this thing exceeded all my expectations, I bought a stretchy hose with it and that worked out like a secondary power cord. I highly recommend you get a very flexible light weight hose, because you’re going to be dragging this thing around finding more and more and more stuff to clean with it.

This pressure washer is outstanding. It comes with two different spray nozzles. It comes with a container that you put soap in. I have done all of my lawn furniture, my deck, and the entire surround going around my pool, inside my bathroom and inside the pool cabana, see the picture!

This is not a shadow; that is what the deck around my pool looked like before I used this and I am using no bleach; no harsh chemicals. This thing blasts every ground in old mildew, mold stains out like magic. It does not damage siding. I have done the back of my house with it. It does not damage the pool cover. I’ve even sprayed off the pool cover. It doesn’t damage the furniture. It’s not so strong that you can actually blow paint off something. It’s just strong enough to get rid of the mold, mildew, muck,mud,grease etc.
This thing works,it really works and because it’s plug-in you don’t have to worry about a battery dying. I could go and just wash until I’m done. Today I’m actually planning on doing the fences across my backyard.

I hope it holds up for many years because this is my new favorite tool and definitely the best purchase I’ve ever made on Amazon. I think I got it for $105! It’s very portable and small for me to carry around and I love that. I’m really enjoying it, and I’m sure I will be using it on a lot of other projects.