Do you want to know how to start a pressure-washing business? Do you think you can earn a profit from providing washing services?
What do you think about this business? Do you think this is quite an easy job?
All of the above questions are very simple and have a single-word answer, yes. But in fact, this business is not as easy as one thinks. It’s not just buying a perfect pressure washer from the market and starting to give washing services. There are more than one technicalities that you must understand before commencing this profitable and stable business.
Before going into the business, follow this full of efforts and a step-by-step guide for a full understanding of this journey, ahead of you.
Starting A Power Washing Business In 2023
Power washers or pressure washers have become quite a popular tool for cleaning among people these days. The reason is that these machines take away a lot of workload from an average user’s plate.
They make a lot of mopping, scrubbing, and dusting irrelevant because these are the three tiresome and troublesome jobs that plague every household. Moreover, cleaning with this tool protects washing items from extra wear and tear caused by normal washing routines.
Cleaning routines are generally boring and burdened because of the laborious process. However, pressure washers have changed that for quite a number of people and will probably change for many more.
People’s Requirement
However, not everyone can purchase a pressure washer for home use. On the other hand, some people don’t want to invest money in such an item which is used once or twice a year. Hence opening the door to a pressure washing business.
That is why it is also a very good opportunity for anybody who wants to start a small business with high aims. It is a perfect business choice with a huge market demand that will eventually benefit the workflow and productivity, and of course, earns you a good profit.
However, when you decide to start a pressure washing business, you need to keep a few very important points in mind. All these points will eventually influence the level of success in your business.
You need to provide the people with what they need at the right time, in the right way, and in the right quantity at the right price. To start and make it a successful pressure washing business in 2023, we will share all the major steps prior to opening the doors of your business.
Follow The Steps Towards a Successful Pressure Washing Business
We are sharing here a series of steps that you can follow to provide the best pressure-washing services to your clients. All from scratch.
Get a Know-How of Pressure Washing Techniques
Cleaning surfaces and washing cars and vehicles with pressure washers is an art. You will never want to waste the water and increase your water bills nor want to break your customer’s car’s windscreen while washing.
Therefore, learn this art yourself or gain some basic knowledge about its safe and economical use. That means if you are going to hire some professionals for this task, you have some essential information at your fingertips.
For this purpose, you can watch related videos on youtube or learn through our article how to use pressure washers. You may also get a pressure washer on rent for learning at your home. You can wash your car, lawn equipment, and furniture for better understanding.
Make A Business Plan
A business plan is the first step towards a prosperous venture, any entrepreneur or businessman should take. Simply write down your ideas and thoughts about the pressure washing business. Examine your own strengths, weaknesses, skills, and availability of time and make a complete layout.
- How and what do you want to give services and solutions to your clients
- What will you receive in return?
- What are you capable of doing regarding this business and how many people do you need for assistance?
- How much investment you can put into this business?
- What type and quality of equipment are required before starting a pressure washing business?
- What type of expenditures do you have to bear?
- Know the chances of damages and losses?
You have to make a complete road map about the pressure washing business. This process will demand real and tangible answers to some serious questions. Eventually, allowing you to completely understand the business and increases your level of expertise.
Find A Perfect Location For your Washing Setup
The location selection for your pressure washing business setup plays a vital role in its success. Choose a location that has easy access, has enough water supply, and has no other difficult legal obligation.
Follow All the Legalities, Registration, Permits, Licenses, and Insurance
When a business is incorporated, there are certain requirements and restrictions from the law. You must adhere to them all because you don’t want to go behind bars in any unforeseen accident or worst-case scenario.
Registration With an Attractive Business Name
Register your business with the local authority. The name of the business must be catchy and easy to pronounce. Definitely, the name must present the essence of your power washing business.
License And Permits
Get a license for the business from your state licensing authorities. Some states require a special contractor permit for pressure washing in certain areas so contact the local departments for details.
In some cases, you will also be required to get an environmental permit for excessive use of water. That water, on the other hand, may cause drains to overflow so a permit is a must.
Insurances For Smooth Flow Of Business:
There may be some damage while washing in closed spaces or washing fragile items. In those unpleasant moments, insurance is the best support for your business. For pressure cleaning business there are mostly 3 types of insurances
Liability Insurance:
This covers any damage during your pressure washing operations
Equipment Insurance:
Helps in case of any damage to your equipment.
Workers Compensations:
This insurance covers the medical bills coming after any injury to your employees, while at work.
Sales Tax Registration with IRS
For proper taxation purposes, register your business with IRS for any inconvenience in the future. Filing proper tax returns will help you to gain the trust of the authorities.
Know Your Customer And Observe Your Competitors
There is no doubt customers are the backbone of your business. This is very important to know the cleaning habits of your potential customer base. It is important to have knowledge about what tends your customers to come to you.
On the other hand, it is also important to know your competitors. Check on them what are they offering, what equipment they are using, and come up with the best solution from your side. That will surely make a difference.
Develop A Powerful Message
Attracting customers is another art that is important for a startup business. Make a powerful and catchy message and tag lines for your pressure-washing business. Sometimes people just read the statements and nothing stops them to be your customer. That’s a powerful tagline playing a major role in making your client base.
Marketing and Promotion
Like every fresh business, this business of pressure washing and cleaning also requires marketing and promotion. Allocate a handsome budget for this purpose while managing your finances.
In our point of view, the selection of equipment and marketing is considered the backbone of this business. So we have extended this guide to make sure you know everything about the machine which you are going to use for your washing business. Along with this, you can take guidance about customer acquisition and retention from our marketing guide based on the market for pressure washing and cleaning business.
Choose Your Equipment VERY Carefully
It may happen while washing a customer’s car that your washer stops making a pressure stream or the water hose begins to leak. It will definitely be an embarrassment for your business. Do you think that client will ever come to you again? Yes, you know better.
As we have discussed earlier, the selection of equipment is of the utmost importance for any business to run smoothly. It is necessary to keep the best quality pressure washer for your pressure washing business because customers will always be happy to see the best quality equipment used for their property.
Read this equipment guide carefully to find the best products and maintain the right type of resources for your business to flourish.
Versatility
When you are running a business, you will obviously get all types of clients. Many of them will have unusual if not unique requirements from you. That is why the machine that you are going to choose for the washing business can be used for a variety of cleaning tasks.
If you are using a pressure washer that is not compatible with different types of surfaces and causes a lot of wear and tear. It means you may not be able to make all your customers happy with your services. The pressure is obviously a prime factor in deciding that.
The pressure washers for commercial use are generally power-loaded with heavy engines and run-on gas. The reason why such a high-pressure machine can be the ideal choice for a power washing business is flexibility. It comes with a number of nozzles – all of which offer a different type of spray and are suitable for different types of surfaces.
Among various gas pressure washers, you can consider variants like Champion 4200 PSI 4.0 GPM Gas Pressure Washer which is a leader in the market.
You can also go for an electric pressure washer for commercial use that can help you clean surfaces without damaging them. They have low pressure as compared to their gas counterparts but that pressure is adequate for most users’ needs.
The higher-pressure limits are usually for extraordinary jobs only.
Speed
The speed at which your machine completes a job is the ultimate deciding factor for the amount of workload you can support. When starting a washing services business, you should keep the water flow rate of your products in mind.
The rate at which your pressure washer can throw water at the surface is just as important as the pressure that it can exert. It decides if you can wash a truck in one hour or a bike – that is the level of variation that exists in pressure washers for commercial use.
There are low-speed commercial pressure washers for companies that don’t have much workload. They can use those because they are more affordable, and there are cost-effective options like Generac G0088710 3600 PSI 2.6 GPM available in gas pressure washers too.
However, if you are aiming for greater speed and higher pressure that can help you deal with more workload, variants like Pressure Pro E4040HA can help. This gas-powered washer has a huge amount of power and speed – 4000 PSI and 4 GPM.
It can help you deal with a lot of workloads in a shorter time and increase the overall productivity of your pressure washing services.
When you are starting a pressure washing services business, client satisfaction should also be a top priority. The clients will also feel happier with the short time that your service takes, and you can scale your pressure washer business continuously.
Technology
The technology used in your pressure washer changes a lot of things about your service and the impression it has on your customer base. While electric pressure washers are more suitable for domestic use due to their lightweight designs and simplicity, they are not a great choice for commercial use.
The reason is that they don’t have enough high-end technology to cover the market’s demands and needs and last long enough to offer great value to power washing businesses. Gas pressure washers come with high-end technology and offer a lot of value for the business.
When you are using a gas power washer, you need to keep a few things in mind to keep a check on the technology that the machine uses and how it is going to affect your customer’s experience. The first one is the engine – the core of the machine.
The brand, quality, certifications, and performance of the gas engine that is installed in the machine usually say a lot about the quality of work it can give you. Variants released by the brand SIMPSON usually come with engines branded by Honda – a renowned automotive brand.
Honda engines are engineered perfectly due to the number of resources that the company has and the investment it makes in its products. Examples of pressure washers that use Honda engines include SIMPSON PS3228 3300 PSI 2.5 GPM which uses Honda GX200 and SIMPSON MSH3125 3200 PSI 2.5 GPM which uses Honda GC190.
Both of these engines are highly robust and perfect for commercial use due to their high power and durability. Similarly, there are some other considerations with respect to the technology in your machine that you should have in mind.
Usability and Functionality
Pressure washers have varying levels of usability due to a few key metrics of quality that apply to almost all of them. The most important ones from among those are listed and discussed below.
Tires and Locomotion
The key principle on the basis of which pressure washers work is that you can move them around the automotive or any other area that you are cleaning and spray on all of the surfaces. The tires have a major role to play in that.
The size, quality, and durability of the tires decide just how robust your machine is. The variants by SIMPSON that we have mentioned above are some of the best gas pressure washers available for commercial use in the market in all respects discussed in this article.
High-Pressure Hose and Hose Reel
The water hose must be of good quality for you to have a good experience professionally. Any type of inconveniences like pipe bursting and leakage is not good for a power washing business. The clients will certainly not like it that you are not experienced enough with these products.
All in all, such things give off a bad impression and are not good for business. That is why we suggest you choose one of the pressure washers we have specifically tested, reviewed, and listed as the best pressure washers for commercial use including the ones mentioned above.
We have reviewed products from all ranges of quality and affordability that have different functionality for different users. All of our articles come with a buyers’ guide to help you decide according to your needs and preferences.
Cost-effectiveness
Finally, you need to check if the amount you are paying is worth all the features that you are going to have. Although we can do that for you and suggest the most affordable and cost-effective variants like Generac G0088710 3600 PSI 2.6 GPM available in gas pressure washers and Kranzle USA K1122TST EPW 1400 PSI 2 GPM available in electric pressure washers.
If you can find a more durable variant at a lower price, that is obviously the best for your business and the net income. In gas pressure washers, there is a lot of durabilities depending on the quality that you can review based on the factors discussed above.
Electric pressure washers are usually less durable but also require less investment because they don’t need gas refills. That is the best option for you if you are low on investment. On the other hand, gas pressure washers that have warranties of up to 5 years are also quite a good investment.
Marketing Guide
Your marketing decides how many customers you get within how much time. The equation is very simple in the world of power-washing businesses. More work means more profit and more scaling.
For that purpose, it is necessary for the right people to know the right things about your pressure washing service. Here is how you can achieve that:
- Spot the section of the market that you need to target for pressure washer service business – people who are more likely to need your services
- Identify the problems that you can solve for those people
- Register online through social media pages and perhaps a website if you are ready to put in some effort in getting more customers
- Use all the data you have about your market and its needs, motives, and problems to create the right type of content to post online
- Create a resounding brand identity by leveraging a logo, brand name, and online advertisement based on what you have to offer
- Use digital public relations if necessary – referral marketing by having an important and popular person like a social media celebrity talk to their audience about your service.
Conclusion
Starting a pressure washer business is easy and straightforward as long as you have efficiency and quality in real-time. Achieving that is also not hard with the right level of investment in equipment and marketing.
Following our guide will help you set up a pressure washing business very quickly and get the word out into the market to start getting customers from your vicinity.
