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Fleet Wash Pricing Guide

I made a general pricing blog last week. I now want to go into what I have the heaviest experience in, and that is fleet washing.

Fleet washing has many dynamics on pricing, but I will try to keep this as simple as possible to understand how I price.

The most important things to consider in fleet washing are frequency of cleaning and level of expectation.

Fleets should be cleaned either weekly, bi weekly or monthly.  If someone wants you to clean every 2 months, or QUARTERLY.  They are not your customers, they are your competitors' customer.  Customers who are this cheap are C type customers.  Their truck will be the dirtiest, and they want the lowest price.  

So my favorites are obviously weekly customers.  I give them the best price.  Why?  Because these trucks stay the CLEANEST and will keep you with a CONSISTENT work schedule.  Customers who want weekly cleaning are most of the time an A type customer.  Any time you have garbage trucks that are done bi-weekly they fall under B or C type customers.  Garbage trucks get insanely dirty fast, and any logical waste company will want them done weekly for the health and safety aspect of their employees.  Employees getting sick because of an unclean environment and not coming to work, is a classic example why C customers struggle with operations, and furthermore remain cheap to overcompensate for issues they create in their work environment.

Now the level of expectation is pretty simple, if you have a customer who has 10 year old garbage trucks with a lot of cosmetic damage, you can’t expect to ever make these trucks “look good”, you can only make them “clean”.  These are often B and C customers and you need to set the expectation up front you won’t be able to make them look great, when they need a paint job as indicated by all the chipped paint on the hood.  Also, let them know about aluminum brightening, if they are expecting it every time, then that boundary needs to be established in the beginning!

So here is a small pricing guide on what I have cleaned and what has worked for me in the Houston market (Note: I have found some markets get more per truck, and some markets get MUCH LESS per truck)

Weekly Fleet (6-10 Trucks)

Garbage Trucks 45$

Vac Trucks 85$

Day Cabs 45$

Sleeper Cabs 50$

53’ Box Trailer 35$

14’ Box Trucks 30$

Weekly Fleet (10-25 Trucks)

Garbage Trucks 40$

Vac Trucks 75$

Day Cabs 40$

Sleeper Cabs 45$

53’ Box Trailer 30$

14’ Box Trucks 25$

Weekly Fleet (25-50 Trucks)

Garbage Trucks 35$

Vac Trucks 65$

Day Cabs 35$

Sleeper Cabs 45$

53’ Box Trailer 25$

14’ Box Trucks 20$

I have never washed for a fleet of more than 50 trucks, so I can’t say much about pricing other than I know it would need to be more aggressive because companies that big can simply buy their own power washer and hire a full time crew to save on cost. You don’t want to service companies with less than 6 trucks.      

Do they want Biweekly?  Add 5$ on what I have posted here. Is it monthly? Add 10-15$ per truck because they will be EXTREMELY dirty every time you wash them.

Now pricing aluminum brightening is another ball game altogether.  What I have found is that on a standard Day Cab, I can charge 20$ and it isn’t a big deal because I am usually just cleaning the fuel tanks.  However, on a Vac Truck there is an insanely LARGE amount of aluminum and you will want to be closer to 50$ per truck on aluminum brightening.  And on a horse trailer that is dull aluminum you will want to charge well over 150$ for them because of the large amount of aluminum brightener needing to be used.

Also sometimes they will ask you to pop the hood and clean the engine bay.  This is an easy task and can range from 10 to 25$ per truck depending on the level of detail they want.  Generally its just a degreaser and rinse job.  

Now there is a drawback to this, many of these fleets will require you to reclaim your water, if you do the pricing will go up.  If they require you drive the trucks on a berm your insurance rates WILL GO UP and you have to account for this.  Depending on  your market area there will be different regulations and you need to be aware of them before you decide to get into fleet washing.  But one thing I can assure you is that if there is a concrete parking lot and the storm drains are not MS4 drains, nationwide it is ILLEGAL to allow water to enter the storm drain per EPA guidelines.  And in most instances, allowing the water to enter a public roadway is illegal.  In Texas you can be fined for “littering” and it is measured by the weight of the waste.  If it exceeds 5 pounds, it is enhanced from a C misdemeanor to a B misdemeanor which graduates from only a fine, to jail time and a fine.  If it exceeds 1000 pounds it becomes a felony.

This is not me trying to scare you, this is just the reality of this business and something you need to be aware of.

Ok let’s get back to why you are reading this, pricing.

One thing I have found not to do, is 100% clean the trucks on your first cleaning.  Get the trucks 80% clean and set the expectation with the customer.  Why do you do this?  It is easy for you to 80% clean the truck and see what they will point out to fix and what THEY want done.  Remember this is fleet washing, NOT DETAILING.  If you DETAIL the truck on the first wash, they will expect it DETAILED every cleaning and this pricing model WILL NOT WORK AT ALL.

If you have a good system with 1 brusher and 1 washer with a hot water 5.5 GPM pressure washer you can clean 5 to 7 garbage trucks per hour.  And although there are brushless cleaning methods for trucks like 2 stepping or our 1 step chemical R Soap I the first time  you clean a fleet, you will absolutely want to brush them or else you will waste a ton of chemical trying to “go brushless”.  I am not going to go into how to properly clean fleets in this blog, but want you to understand you need to factor in cost, labor and TIME.

Time is your worst enemy in fleet washing, so the faster you can clean trucks, the more money you will make.

Another thing you will find is that everyone wants their trucks cleaned on the weekend.  One thing we have done is a discount per truck if we can clean on a weekday.  But sometimes we ended up having to just wash at night, which we don’t offer a discount on.  We found garbage trucks can sometimes be washed on Wednesday.  So if you have to shuffle them to Wednesday so you can place another fleet on Sunday or Saturday, DO IT.  Fleets that run 24 hours are good and bad.  They are bad because you never know how much money you’ll make, but good because you can do them on weekdays if need be.

IMPORTANT NOTE  Fleet washing and industrial equipment washing are NOT THE SAME THING.  The way you price a crane or dozer is NOT the same as fleet washing.  In fact, the only time I will ever tell you to charge by the hour, is when doing a crane or heavy duty industrial piece of equipment because it is almost IMPOSSIBLE to set a price on these, because the level of detail can vary so much.

Conclusion

Make sure when you price washing these trucks you discover how long they take to wash and how much each truck COSTS you to clean.  If you can figure those 2 numbers out, pricing these are easy.  My pricing may or may not work for your market.  I know in Midland Texas people can charge 150$ per truck, where I am at 50$ per truck in Houston.  They have an unusual market and it is exactly why I say my pricing is just a benchmark, NOT intended to be duplicated because your market may be entirely different from mine.  

I have found some people will get into the industry and charge 20$ per garbage truck, that is about the same as a 100$ driveway (business Model 1).  40$ per garbage truck is like 175$ per driveway (Business Model 2).  65$ per garbage truck is like 300$ per driveway (Business Model 3).  

What business Model do you want to be?  

That is about the best way I can translate this to you, the reader.

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Pressure Washing Pricing Guide

Pricing jobs is an extremely delicate subject because there isn’t a “right answer” to anything pricing related.

The Basics

What you need to understand is that there is what you value a service at, and what someone else perceives the value at.  Learn the definition and meaning of “Value Proposition” and memorize it well, it will be what defines your service, and company.   There is a book called “Discipline of Market Leaders” that can be purchased at https://www.vitalsource.com/products/the-discipline-of-market-leaders-choose-your-michael-treacy-fred-wiersema-v9780465003976?duration=perpetual 

Although the information is dated, the concept isn’t.  There is an axis on how you define your value proposition.  What has been found is that a business CANNOT afford to be the cheapest, fastest and best quality.  Even Amazon and Walmart struggle to excel in all 3 of these.  

What I am getting at is what kind of business do you want to be?  Do you want to be a McDonalds or do you want to be a Cheesecake Factory?  They both do the same thing, make you full.  But the customer experience is entirely different, and so is the pricing.  Do you believe McDonalds will put Cheesecake Factory out of business?  I don’t believe so.  I will take a date to the Cheesecake Factory way before I ever take them to McDonalds, unless I just want to terminate the relationship (it is ok to laugh).

The concept is the same with a cleaning business.  Do you want to send someone who doesn’t groom themselves, or someone who is presentable?  Do you want to send someone in a beat up van with 3 different colors?  Or a truck that is wrapped and represents your company well?  Image has a cost, and the Cheesecake Factory knows this.  You are going for the clients who eat at Cheesecake Factory, not McDonalds.  The pricing I go over below will paint a better picture for you.

There are 3 different pricing models in residential cleaning I have seen. The two I have personally done are model 2 and model 3.  Model 1 is a model I never want to be in, and you will understand why when  you understand the math.

Model 1) Do you want to run 3 trucks doing 100$ jobs 5 to 7 times a day with profit margins of 25$ per job?  That would be 2100$ a day with a profit of 525$.  

Model 2) Do you want to run 2 trucks a day that do 2 jobs a day at 500$ per job with profit margins of 250$ per job?  That would be 2000$ a day with profit margins of 1000$ per day

Model 3) Or 1 truck a day doing 1 job a day that is a $1000 job with profit margins of 600$ per job?

These numbers may vary depending on your region.  But for the Houston market this is pretty accurate.  And the profit posted per job does NOT INCLUDE WHAT YOU PAY YOURSELF and will VARY depending on how you run your business.  This is the cost to do the job, and I tacked on some operational costs outside which I call a “constant”.

Your “constant” expenses are insurance, truck notes, rental space, phone service and paid ads (there are others, but this is the majority of them as an example).

Basic Pricing Guide for Model 1, 2 and 3

I am going to go over Model 1

99$ per driveway

80$ for single story house wash (splash and dash)

120$ for two story house wash (splash and dash)

300$ for a luxury home (generally stucco and 4000+ square foot)

0.03 cents per square foot on commercial concrete (commercial more than 10k square foot)

150$ for a gas station cleaning

200$ for a 1 story roof wash

0.75$ per linear foot of wood fence cleaning

15$ for small back porch

50$ for pool area

150$ to clean a small commercial building like a KFC or gas station (something 2000 square foot or less)

300$ to clean a medium sized building like a larger sized restaurant or Discount Tire

1000$ to clean a larger building like Walmart

200$ to clean sidewalks for a Ross/Marshalls or similar sized shopping center

17$ per garbage truck ( I discovered there are regions where Fleet Wash will do a garbage truck for 9$ which is insane to me )

20$ per day cab 18 wheeler (not including aluminum brightener)

11$ per box truck (like UPS or FedEx)

This is pricing I have seen often from companies who are new, especially owner operators.  So this is how I feel about this pricing.  If I am charging 99$ for a driveway, after everything is said and done I am basically making 30$ profit for an hour of my time, which is similar to having a job.  The purpose of me starting my cleaning business was to NOT HAVE A JOB.  What I also found is when I sent an employee that I paid 10$ an hour to, it would take them twice as long as me.   Why?  Because I am paying hourly instead of incentive based.  It would take 2 hours for them to get there, clean, and leave for their next job.  Out of my 30$ profit I was closer to 5$ profit off the job when I had my guys clean.  And when they were hourly, they never UPSOLD.

Another issue I have with this model is that if you get called back to do a touch up, you now lose money to clean this property.  Basically you CAN’T AFFORD quality service and will HAVE to ignore the customer on a call back, in order to be profitable with this model.

Another issue with this pricing model, is that customers who are cheap are generally at the least reasonable customers and expect a bargain for the least amount of expense.  These are the Walmart shoppers.

This pricing model is very ineffective in my opinion, yet so many people do this.  This is the pricing model that exists for people who want to continue working 8 to 10 hours a day, every day.  And it makes it difficult to hire employees and become profitable

I am going to go over Model 2

This was a pricing model I have found to be the easiest to run, and works well with my business.

175$ per driveway

200$ for a single story house wash (splash and dash)

260$ for a two story house wash (splash and dash)

0.07 cents per square foot (commercial more than 10k square foot)

300$ for a gas station cleaning

500$ for a 1 story roof wash

1.10$ per linear foot of wood fence cleaning

40$ for small back porch

100$ for pool area

350$ to clean a small commercial building like a KFC or gas station (something 2000 square foot or less)

700$ to clean a medium sized building like a larger sized restaurant or Discount Tire

3500$ to clean a larger building like Walmart

600$ to clean sidewalks for a Ross/Marshalls or similar sized shopping center

40$ per garbage truck

40$ per day cab 18 wheeler (not including aluminum brightener)

20$ per box truck (like UPS or FedEx)

900$ for a luxury home (generally stucco and 4000+ square foot)

This pricing model makes it affordable to have employees clean and able to afford “callbacks”.  But what I found is that call backs can still hurt your bottom line, and you want to prevent them as much as possible.  With this pricing model I had 10$ an hour employees and would get an occasional call back and it was very frustrating.  But then again I was only paying $10 an hour and got what I paid for.

Once upon a time I had a person who was paying $17 per garbage truck with Fleet Wash but gave Fleet Wash a “C Rating” for quality of work.  I came in at $35 per garbage truck and a year later, I was called back and they were fed up with the lack of quality work done and awarded us the fleet of garbage trucks (being twice the price).  We retained the account at this price.

I feel that for companies that want to grow, this pricing model works great and can get your foot in the door with a lot of customers, and the pricing is JUST high enough to get rid of bargain shoppers.  These customers shop at Target.

Now I am going to go over Model 3

300$ per driveway

400$ for a single story house wash (splash and dash)

600$ for a two story house wash (splash and dash)

0.12 cents per square foot (commercial more than 10k square foot)

475$ for a gas station cleaning

900$ for a 1 story roof wash

2$ per linear foot of wood fence cleaning

100$ for small back porch

250$ for pool area

600$ to clean a small commercial building like a KFC or gas station (something 2000 square foot or less)

1200$ to clean a medium sized building like a larger sized restaurant or Discount Tire

8000$ to clean a larger building like Walmart

1200$ to clean sidewalks for a Ross/Marshalls or similar sized shopping center

65$ per garbage truck

80$ per day cab 18 wheeler (at this price, you will be aluminum brightening by default)

40$ per box truck (like UPS or FedEx)

1800+$ for a luxury home (generally stucco and 4000+ square foot)

This pricing model is very unique and these numbers aren’t fake, because I have absolutely gotten these prices (and higher) in a saturated market (Houston).  However I did not get this price on garbage trucks myself, but I know of a company who did get them at 65$ a truck when I was at 40$ a truck because their quality of cleaning was BETTER, and Waste Connections valued QUALITY of work over my LOWER PRICE on a decent volume of trucks.  I lost the account to another company when I was the lowest price.

This is what is amazing about this pricing model, your profit margins are high enough to give EXCELLENT customer service, and give added value to your customers who aren’t price shopping, but want quality work and reassurance that if something goes wrong, you will be able to handle it.  

It gets even better!  When  you are Model 3 you can afford to pay your cleaning techs VERY WELL and you create LESS problems for yourself when your techs are paid well.  

An important thing I learned from Andrew Thompson with Viper Tech https://www.vtmobilepressurewash.com/

is that the customers who are willing to pay 600$ to wash their house and want the best service, socialize and network with other people, who are willing to pay 600$ to wash their house and want the best service.

These customers shop at Neiman Marcus and Arlan’s (Arlan’s is a grocery store that is about 50% more expensive than everywhere else, but their customer service is FLAWLESS).

Type A, B and C Customers

You have three types of customers at a restaurant.  Type A is the one who volunteers to pay for the entire bill.  Type B is the one who demands it be split.  Type C is the type that doesn’t want to pay the bill at all and hopes a Type A is at the table to cover their bill.  You want to service Type A customers.  Type A customer’s fit Model 3.  Type B customers fit Model 2.  Type C customers fit Model 1.

Here is something interesting I have found.  The majority of the customers I have gotten from Facebook were type C customers.  The majority of customers I have gotten from Linkedin are Type A customers.  Google is a mix of C, B and A customers (but mostly C and B).

When  you have a relationship based business, you will mainly just have type A customers.  

Oh and news flash, majority of family and friends who ask for cleaning service WILL BE TYPE C CUSTOMERS if you are lower middle or middle class getting into this industry!  You will have some that are type A and B, but I have found friends always wanted me to clean for less than market value.  Why is that?  Because my background is lower middle class, and I myself was a type C customer.  So most people I associated with were also Type C customers prior to me owning a business.  I am actually making a conscious effort to become an A Type customer, and I am learning it is a mindset shift that needs to take place.  I have found myself wasting more time to find a good DEAL costs me more than if I spent that time marketing and acquiring more customers.

My father is still a type C customer LOL!  He is a classic example of a customer I never want to have.  He expects perfection and expects the best price.  If there is a slight miscalculation on the service he will be irate and want to bash the company.  This is exactly the customer you don’t want if you want to be a model 2 or 3 company.  He will spend hours researching how to save 200$.  In the market today with his skills he is valued at 150 to 200$ an hour and doesn’t realize wasting time to find a good deal is extremely expensive considering his unique talents.  And when he reads this, he will deny what he is reading!  

Other Pricing Tips

So aside from what I have already posted there is more to pricing than just having a “rate”.

You have some variables that you need to look into.

Sense of Urgency (needing to be done by a strict deadline)

Odd hour requirements (like only being able to clean between the hours of 6 and 10 PM for a commercial building)

Meticulous cleaning description made by customer (are you going to remove all of the spider webs from my house as well?)

Are you going to use our water or are you going to bring your own?

How much do you charge per hour

Sense of Urgency

So here is a classic example I like to give.  At 9 AM a realtor calls you and says I have a 1 story house that I need cleaned by 1 PM. I have a photographer coming in at 3 and I need the house cleaned immediately!

For some reason many times they feel entitled to my services being immediate, because I found they don’t value us as an industry.  My pricing model was mostly model 2 when I was a full time cleaner.  So my price that was normally 200$ for this house would escalate to 450$.  And EVERY time the realtor would tell me “that price is too high”.  I say “excellent, this is the price for me to drop what I am doing and to clean it right now”.  50% of the time they will call back and you will execute the sale.  You have to treat your business like supply and demand and when they have a sense of urgency and want you to change your standard systems, they have to pay a premium for “emergency services”.

Odd Hour Requirements

I had a parking garage that we were only allowed to clean during business hours and had to shut down by 5 PM.  Our normal price per square foot is 9 cents.  This job we charged 14 cents a square foot because of this parameter and we sold the job (which is substantial for a 200,000 square foot garage in Houston, most only want to pay 6 cents a square foot).

Meticulous

I said on a Model 2 business a single story house wash is $200.  This is for a “splash and dash” cleaning which involves downstreaming the house with bleach, rinsing and being done.  But you NEED to ask the customer if they expect all the wasp nests and spider webs to be removed.  If the answer is YES then the price automatically goes from 200$ to 450$.  Because this job will go from being 1 hour to 2-3 hours.  This doesn’t mean they are a bad customer, on the contrary this is actually going to be a GOOD customer who will be the MOST likely person to want you to clean their house EVERY YEAR because they can’t STAND a dirty home.  What you DON’T want is a customer who expects you to do all of this work for 200$.  That is a customer for your competitors, not for you.

Bring Your Own Water

When the customer expects me to bring my water, they automatically have dropped to a C customer.  They want to save 10$ on their water bill so that you can haul 300 gallons of water and it costs  you substantially more, because they don’t care about your business.  When you attach a 200$ water haul fee, you will convince them it is best to use their water.  That is the only reason they want you to bring water, because they are cheap.  It is OK to train your customers.  This isn’t the restaurant industry, the customer isn’t ALWAYS right in this instance.

How much to charge by the hour

This is simple, you just simply don’t want to charge by the hour.  Ever.  This never ends well for both parties and will open more problems than solutions.

Conclusion

I can cover this subject for an eternity but will end it here.

Simply put there is no PERFECT price, but I have developed a formula for my pricing to make it profitable for my business.  

Remember, this pricing isn’t set in stone.  This pricing reflects my experience with an over saturated market in Houston (which is comparable to Florida).  I know in some regions people can get 2 and 3 times what we get per job.  But one of the luxuries of Houston is we have an insanely large market, so the volume isn’t hard to get if you develop a good marketing plan.

If there is anything I want you to remember from this article, is this, If you have a realtor who is meticulous and needs the work done IMMEDIATELY you graduated from a 200$ splash and dash to a 450$ meticulous job.  And then you now have the 250$ emergency fee which puts this 1 story house at a 700$ job.  If they have no water and you have to bring your own you add a $200 water haul fee and this is now a 900$ job!  This is WHY when someone asks “what do I charge for this?”  I don’t have an answer until you read this entire blog and understand how pricing works in this industry.

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Direct Drive vs. Belt Drive vs. Gear Drive

There is a huge misconception about what a gear driven power washer is.  Because it is “almost” directly coupled to the engine and not assembled as a belt drive, people assume it cannot pull water from a tank.  This is incorrect.

I ran my first gear driven machine in 2017 because I had a fleet washing contract that required I get a machine immediately rather than later.  What did Fred and I do?  Build a quick gear driven system that took us only a few days to get up and running, rather than a belt drive that would have taken a week for us to construct.

I was hesitant about this process because my first machine was belt driven and I had no issues with the system that we built that had been in use for 2 years.  But the amount of time it took to fabricate it to Fred’s standards was unreasonable for this situation and I needed something immediately.

We ran our gear driven system to wash garbage trucks and the 2 5.5 gallon machines we built were “somewhat” a success.  Originally we used a Predator and a Duramax engine to save on cost and for fast delivery.  The Duramax shook so much that after 2 jobs the fuel tank rattled off and most of the bolts on the engine were loose (this is after 12 hours of use).  The predator lasted about 1 month and then the muffler broke off while running and shot a blue flame, causing my cleaning technicians to shut down.  We switched our engines to Kohler and these issues stopped occurring.

The gear driven system had nothing to do with the engines failing, they were just extremely tempting because of the cost of the engines (at the time 289$ free shipping).

I spent in the ball park of 6 hours of my time to take off the gear assemblies, replacing the engines with new ones and spending the time to haggle with harbor freight to get a refund on the predator engine.  The 6 hours I wasted cost me more than just buying 2 Kohler engines from lost opportunity.  

Back to gear drives!  I ran a Comet RWS5535 (https://washmart.com/collections/pumps/products/comet-rws-5535-s-solid-shaft-pressure-washer-pump)  with a Comet gear box from 2017 to… It still runs today.  This bottom machine has ran for 5 years, and is used weekly.  The hour usage on it is approximately 1200-1500 hours (it has generated in the ballpark of 150,000$ over this time frame for my cleaning accounts).

When I then built another trailer with 2 more gear drives (this time with Kohler CH730s) We have run the same 2 engines and the same 2 Comet RWS6040 pumps since 2018.  We have had to change the unloader valve twice and the two machines have been running for nearly 2000 hours.  This machine has been rented, abused and beat down and still going!.  This convinced me that gear driven units weren’t as bad as I had been advised.

Now what is the difference between a gear drive and a direct drive?  A direct drive is directly coupled to the engine and generally runs anywhere from 3000 RPM to 3600 RPM (3400 RPM is the industry standard).  What does this mean?  It means that the RPM on the pump is so high, that it will struggle to create a vacuum (venturi effect) and can sometimes have difficulty pulling water.  What we have found with direct drive pumps is that many CAN pull from a tank without positive pressure, but the lifespan on the pumps is greatly reduced.  CAT makes a DX model pump that actually was designed to pull water from a tank, and does this well for a direct drive.

A gear drive is an intermediate piece between the pump and the engine reducing the RPM ratio.  If you have a 3600 RPM engine (in the USA this is standard) and run a gearbox rated at 1750 RPM, you will have nearly a 2 to 1 ratio (meaning the pump is rotating at 1750ish RPM) and the pump can pull water from a tank with ease, without positive pressure.  This is the same principle as when you use a 6 inch pulley on the pump and a 3 inch pulley on the engine.  You will get approximately a 1750ish RPM with a belt drive when you use this pulley ratio.

One thing we have found with direct drives is they are actually very reliable pumps as long as they are not left running without being used.  If you don’t release the trigger gun and allow the water to travel, a direct drive that has a closed loop will recirculate the water causing the water to get hotter every time it recirculates.  Eventually the temperature gets over 150 degrees and begins to melt your water seals and check valves (the non metallic parts).

Gear driven machines are an interesting wrench in our industry.  Where a belt driven machine is what I consider a more reliable system (when built properly) it has one major drawback, power transfer.  What we have found is that with a gear driven IGX800 we can get 4200 PSI at 8.5 GPM when pairing with the AR XWAM8G35 (https://washmart.com/collections/pumps/products/xwam8g35n-pump) .  When we ran the same pump and engine as a belt drive the maximum we could get was 3700 PSI at 8 GPM.  And why is this substantial?  It is substantial because they both use the same amount of energy but one does produce more work.  What we have recommended is if you are a sole operator and mechanically adept at fixing your own equipment, gear drive is the way to go.  If you are running a larger company with multiple trucks and using multiple operators I recommend going with a belt driven system.

Direct drives are still great tools as backup power washers and we always recommend to our customers that they have 1 inexpensive direct drive cart on standby in case their primary rig goes down.  We have been running the same Comet ZWD4040 (https://washmart.com/collections/pumps/products/zwd4040)  on a direct drive Kohler since 2017 and the amount of hours on it is unknown (but heavy).  

Some people have had entirely different results with the products above I have mentioned and it is fair that some of this information can become “subjective”.  But with the volume of work we put out this has been our experience.  Between Fred and I, there is extensive experience between building and using the equipment.

When we ran the same pump and engine as a belt drive the maximum we could get was 3700 PSI at 8 GPM. And why is this substantial? It is substantial because they both use the same amount of energy but one does produce more work. What we have recommended is if you are a sole operator and mechanically adept at fixing your own equipment, gear drive is the way to go. If you are running a larger company with multiple trucks and using multiple operators I recommend going with a belt driven system. Direct drives are still great tools as backup power washers and we always recommend to our customers that they have 1 inexpensive direct drive cart on standby in case their primary rig goes down. We have been running the same Comet ZWD4040 on a direct drive Kohler since 2017 and the amount of hours on it is unknown (but heavy). Some people have had entirely different results with the products above I have mentioned and it is fair that some of this information can become “subjective”. But with the volume of work we put out this has been our experience. Between Fred and I, there is extensive experience between building and using the equipment.