Pressure washer hoses are largely standardized and come in almost any imaginable length, including 100 feet and up. However, care must be taken to take into account the hose diameter as well as other parameters in order to ensure proper fit and operation.
Cleaning your porch, garden, garage, or any other area of your home with a pressure washer is a surefire way to save hours and hours of excruciating scrubbing and washing by hand or other methods. But when your existing hose just doesn’t reach into the right spaces, the question arises – can you use a 100-foot long hose on a pressure washer?
Pressure washers are uniquely versatile cleaning tools that pack quite a punch, so it’s good news that they can be fitted with any length of hose you might need, up to and beyond 100 feet. However, it’s not quite so simple – if you want to know what to look out for when choosing the right hose, and how to install and use it properly, read on below.
Related Reading: Is It Possible to Use a Pressure Washer Without a Hose?
How to Use a 100 Ft Hose on a Pressure Washer
If the hose that came with your pressure washer is showing signs of giving up the ghost, or it is simply not long enough to reach everywhere you need it to, it’s time to look for a replacement. Thankfully, the process of swapping your old hose for a 100 ft-long replacement shouldn’t be too hard if you follow these steps.
- First, order the appropriate length, diameter, and material of hose from the home improvement retailer of your choice. Also make sure that the connections are appropriate for your pressure washer make and model.
- Disconnect your old hose from both the gun at the one end and the pump at the other end. Depending on your pressure washer, this might involve twisting, snapping, or threading the connectors out by hand.
- Connect the new hose to the pump first – make sure the connections hold tight and make a secure seal
- Connect the other end of the hose to the gun
- If necessary, spool the hose up on a separate hose reel to keep loose ends out of the way
If any of these steps seem overwhelming or confusing to you – don’t worry, we got your back! In the next chapters of this guide, we will look at just how to make sure you have the perfect hose for your particular pressure washer, as well as how to assemble it properly.
Making Sure Your Pressure Washer Hose Fits
Fit is an incredibly important consideration when shopping for a new hose for your pressure washer, as not all hoses, nor all washers, are made equal and many different connections exist.
Often, the kind of connector that your pressure washer will ship with out of the box will be a so-called QC, or Quick Connect fitting. These are incredibly simple to use. Just take the male part – that is, the part of the connector that has a metal prong sticking out – and take it off of the female part (usually sealed by an o-ring) with your hands. It should pop off without any issue. Simply attach the male part of the new hose to both ends and you’re done!
But what if your pressure washer comes with different connections? No need to worry.
One widespread alternative fitting is the so-called M22 thread. This is a screw-in mount design, slightly trickier to use than the QC fitting, and just like the former, it also comes in male and female forms, which you need to match in the right way in order for it to seal properly.
There are other designs as well, such as the ⅜ inch NPT thread. However, the basic principle here remains the same – identify the male and female parts, buy the appropriate connectors, and screw them together.
Taking Care of Your 100 Ft Pressure Washer Hose
Every good hose demands a certain level of upkeep from its owner. You wouldn’t want your costly investment into your favorite cleaning tool to go down the drain, would you?
That is why we consider it crucial to follow the below guidelines for making sure your new pressure washer hose lasts.
- Avoid kinking, curling, and tangling as much as you can by using reels, swivels, and other handy tools
- Make sure to keep your hose rolled up nicely when not in use as well!
- Wherever possible, avoid positioning your pressure washer such that the hose will be dragged along harsh surfaces or experience extreme temperatures during use
- Do take note of the maximum PSI rating quoted for your hose and do not push the limit too hard to avoid breakage
How to Choose the Best Hose For Your Pressure Washer
Browsing the internet for a new hose for your pressure washer, there might still remain some unanswered questions. You might know what fittings to look for, and you could have certainly already picked the appropriate length you need, but you will easily come across dozens, if not hundreds of different kinds of hoses with different characteristics and sold at wildly different prices.
Don’t worry, we’re here to help. Let’s summarize the most important factors to know when choosing between the best pressure washer hoses on the market!
Material
The material of your hose certainly affects its usability to a large extent. Most likely, the hose that came shipped with your pressure washer was made of PVC (polyvinyl chloride). This is a type of plastic that is renowned for its strength and durability but is unfortunately not very flexible – making it a bit of a pain to use, particularly if your hose is rather long.
Alternatively, rubber hoses – whether made of natural rubber or synthetic alternatives – offer far greater flexibility than PVC ones, while still being quite strong. However, to make rubber hoses last, they generally have to be quite thick too, and this makes them, in a word, heavy. Very heavy, if they are on the longer side of things.
So, if you are eyeing a rubber hose, make sure you have storage solutions properly figured out, as well as double-checking whether there won’t be any scraping or scuffing issues on the kinds of floors and surfaces you’ll be using it on.
Polyurethane hoses seem to offer the best of both worlds – the flexibility of rubber with the lightness of plastic. In practice, they live up to this reputation well, but be aware that this comes at a steep price.
Diameter
The diameter of your hose is another important consideration that directly affects its usability in daily cleaning. Generally speaking, pressure washer hoses are sold in three distinct sizes.
- The most common hose diameter is 1/4 inch. This size offers plenty of strength and headroom for high pressure, up to 3,200 PSI in some cases, while remaining affordable.
- A 5/16 inch form factor is slightly less common, as it offers little of an advantage in extra PSI in exchange for its noticeable price bump.
- Pressure washer users who need some extra oomph for their cleaning jobs go with 3/8 inch hoses. This is the largest size commonly sold today, and is usually rated up to 5,000 PSI or even higher.
With hoses of a large diameter, you should have zero worries about accidental breakage from high pressure, though of course, it will also set you back some dollars compared to the smaller alternatives.
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