I bought a terraced house last year and I've been trying to explore solutions where I can connect a hose to the outside tap at the rear of the property but I can't think of any clean solution.
I am currently exploring the water butt method. I have a Karcher K2 and I am looking to use a normal hose connected to the water butt. The water butt will be raised off the ground with bricks but not too high and will be filled water as required from the rear tap (I will have to drag the hose through the house on occasions).
Will this work without any pressure issues? I have been doing some reading but there is conflicting information everywhere.
I doubt it mate. I always had the K4 and it was very hit and miss at low pressure. High pressure from a tap I couldn't fault it but it's just not built for low pressure from my experience.
Submersible pumps can give you enough pressure. Or add a large bore tap and run a short, large bore hose to the inlet of the PW - however this method only really works if the pump of your PW runs slowly enough. I suspect the K2 will need a submersiblepump to boost the pressure. Lots of them on Amazon.
My K4 eco has the water butt suction hose and i tried it a couple of times. It works well enough once it gets going, but I had intermittent problems with the initial pickup and had to connect the hose to get water through the machine, then switch to the suction hose.
Maybe raising the butt, as you suggest, will work for you.
As i say, once it was going it worked very well and i was able to use hot water in the butt too, which helped the cleaning massively.
I’m running my k4 from a water butt with no issues at the moment although there is a difference from running off the tap, I’m currently looking for options of a pump also to get a little extra pressure.
How long will your hose be from the butt to the PW?
If it's only a short distance, say upto 5m and you bin the plastic water butt tap and put a proper full bore valve on there, I'd think you'd be fine.
If it doesn't work then a pump only needs to provide a little assistance to deliver enough water to the PW
A K2 has less flow therefore needs less water than a K4
Edit: That pump is possibly overkill, you might be OK with something like this . Although for this sort of purpose, the float switch on the first pump I linked to is worth having.
JR, if your machine doesn't run as well off a water butt as off a tap, I fear you are starving the pump of water and it will be taking harm from this....
I have an old K2 and its fine. I have a 25m hose running form the 3rd water butt in the link to the pressure washer on the drive and this has a 15m extension on as well.
It does take a little while for the water to hit the pressure washer, but I usually turn the tap of the water butt on as I'm spraying the pre wash on the car so once its applied i can connect the hose to the pressure washer and give it a blast to get it sorted. There isnt a massive difference to the pressure but the tap is stronger, could be that the water is also softer being rain water.
I'd also look at Steelghosts set up on the DIY pressure washer / Set-Up thread - he's using some large bore 25mm ID pipework from the water butt, but he does have a slower motored Kranzle.
I guess I can leave the pump running while it is connected to the pressure washer? Baring in mind that it will be pumping whilst the pressure washer won't always be squooshing.
Cheers mate, i'll try it without a pump and take it from there - is it possible to damage the pressure washer by not supplying it with enough water? If so, how would I know if this is the case? Would it just stop... squooshing :lol:?
The sound will change.
The PW will suck to a certain extent (as in the pipe dropped in the butt in the karcher vid). If you notice if the hose gets kinked the sound changes and the suck will try to collapse/flatten the hose, if this happens from the butt then it is probably an indication that the restriction through the tap is too much hence the recommendations of a proper full bore valve.
Quality garden hose will help too that resists flattening and kinking
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