When washing your dishes you learned that hot water makes cleaning easier, especially when cleaning greases, oils, or petrochemicals.
Cold water can only be as efficient when proper cleaning chemicals are also employed and even then only in certain situautions. A hot washer can often make cleaning up to 50% faster by efficiently loosening dirt, gum, grease and oil. The hot washer is by far the most popular among proffessional contract cleaners. Contract cleaners make extensive use of hot water and effective chemicals to save on their highest overhead cost, LABOR. For every dollar spent for fuel to heat water and chemicals to break the bond between the grime and substrate up to 9 dollars in labor savings can be achieved. This 9:1 internal leverage is what makes a hot washer a virtual no brainer for the serious cleaning professional.
A hot pressure washer consists of two power systems: the pump and motor system which creates the high-pressure water flow, and the burner and coil system that heats this stream of pressurized water. The pump and motor can be can be gas powered or electric. The burner and coil system requires electricity to run the burner motor and kerosene, diesel oil or propane gas to heat the pressurized water in the heavy-duty heating coil.
If the hot pressure washer is electric powered, you use the same electricity to power both the pump and motor system as well as the burner and coil system. However, you still burn diesel, kerosene or liquid propane gas (LPG) as fuel to heat the water.
If the unit uses a gas engine to power the pump, you still need electricity to power the burner and coil system.
Most gas engine units will use a self-contained power source such as a 12V battery or 115V generator to create the electrical power source to run the heating coil and burner system, because of this crirical system a hot pressure washer is significantly heavier, more complex and more difficult to maintain than a cold water unit. But even with all that, the hot pressure washer is the fastest growing segment in the pressure washing industry. This is proof positive as to their effectiveness.
