Look how small this thing is. Don't be fooled by the size though. This pressure washer has plenty of power.

My father's old power washer bit the dust. And he asked me if I could find him a replacement for under $100. I checked around at all the stores nearby.  I checked Walmart, I checked Mernards, Lowe's and Home Depot. And the power washer I liked best under $100 out of all those available from all those stores was the RYOBI 1600 PSI 1.2 gallon per minute electric pressure washer.

We needed to replace a power washer, that was rated at 1550 psi. We ended up buying the RYOBI. And I like this power washer. I like that it's very compact. That's the thing I like most about it. It doesn't take up a lot of space. It's very easy to move around. And it has good cleaning power, mostly because of the special turbo nozzle (which I like a lot).

The turbo nozzle makes all the difference. We needed this to clean my dad's back porch. He had been living in his house for 10 years. And he hadn't power washed at all during that time. And I took some pictures and some video showing what this little RYOBI could do for all that dirt build up. It worked wonderfully. My 10 year old son did most of the work, and it worked out just fine for him.

I picked this model over all others available at the other stores nearby because it had great reviews, it was small, and it had the longest warranty. This has a three year warranty while some models of pressure washers that were available for $100 or less nearby only had one or two year warranties. This one's really nice. And I like that the threads where you attach the hoses are made of metal because the power washer that we got rid of it had plastic threads, and they had stripped out but these were all metal so I feel better about that.

This model comes with three nozzles. It comes with a gentle nozzle for using soap. And it also has a soap siphon tube so that you can inject soap into the spray. And then it has a stronger nozzle called a 15 degree high pressure nozzle. And you can use that for cleaning concrete or siding or fences. But the one I like the most is the turbo nozzle. The turbo nozzle gets the dirt off extremely well. I think it sort of spins around or something. Like it spins the stream around . It has a very narrow stream that spins around to cover a wide area. It's really effective.

Is a 1600 psi pressure washer enough?

I saw that there were models over $100 that were higher than 1600 psi so I was wondering if 1600 psi would be enough pressure. From what I saw today 1600 is perfect. It's plenty enough pressure for the types of jobs most people will have around the house. It works great on concrete and I even tried it on the green stuff that grows on the vinyl siding and it took that right off too.

See it in action

I recorded some video of this powerwasher in action. If you're not sure if 1,600 PSI is good enough, this video should help you decide. 

We started off using the 15 degree high pressure nozzle which we thought was the Turbo nozzle. The 15 degree nozzle did a great job. But then when we switched to the Turbo nozzle we were blown away (and so was the dirt!). We knew then for sure that we picked the right machine for the job!

It's a good all around pressure washer that's compact, inexpensive, and easy to use

Anyway, if you're looking for an electric power washer, the RYOBI is going to be all that you need for cleaning around the house. Whether it's concrete or or fences or siding, this is a good one to get. It's only about $100 and it's available at Home Depot. I like this a lot and my father bought this but he let me borrow it and I'm going to use it to clean up my siding this week. And by the way, if you've never used the power washer, they are a lot of fun. It's a lot of fun to clean up dirt using the power washer. It's fun to watch it all disappear. It's kind of like painting - but in reverse.

Here's a picture of the main unit with the wand. I took this picture right after washing the concrete porch. It's nice how the hose and the cord can be wrapped up with the attached Velcro strap. Not shown in this picture is the little tube that you can use to inject detergent into the spray mix. Attached to the wand is the turbo nozzle which is the most powerful nozzle included.
The RYOBI came with this handy nozzle selection guide.
This is the included soap injection hose. Notice that it includes an attached filter.
Here's where you attach the soap injection hose.
I like how the top of the unit in the back has a place to store nozzles. The smaller two nozzles that come with it can be stored here, but the turbo nozzle is too big to be stored here. It can easily be stored attached to the wand.
Here's the turbo nozzle. This nozzle is for concrete and vinyl siding, but I think it would take the paint off of painted wood surfaces.