A guy who does pressure washing as a business told me that with the so called non-professional grade stuff, the pumps wear out at about 100 hours and suggested renting one when I needed it. He is probably right but that is an awful lot of pressure washing for regular people. I'd be hard pressed to do that in a decade. I've found borrowing pressure washers from people who buy them and never use them to be more cost effective!
I had a little electric unit for about 10 years probably 1500 psi that was pretty nice for washing my boat and other odds and ends......basically a strong garden hose. They are better and stronger now no doubt.
So anyway, if you are going to get 100 hours out of a $300 big box unit, you have to weigh the cost vs how much you are going to use it when you consider the better ones. You won't have any problems with a gasoline unit if you put non-ethanol gas in it and use fuel stabilizer. I've had stuff sit for a year and a half and fire right up. Whenever I borrow a pressure washer, I run whatever gas out of it doing whatever it is I borrowed it to do and refill it with good gas and stabilizer for the nice person who loaned it to me.
