Repair Guide

Pressure Washer Lances and Nozzles - what's the difference between turbo and vario jets ?

Pressure washer nozzles: fan jet - pencil - turbo

The Basics : 

 A Pressure Washer is a piston type pump mounted into a nice ergonomic chassis with control gear for switching the motor on/off. The pump creates a flow of water and for domestic pressure washers this is often around 6 litres per minute (lmp). Without the nozzle fitted to the trigger gun your machine is just an expensive hose pipe ! Fitting a lance and nozzle to the gun will restrict the flow of water and create a back pressure. Now your machine is a pressure washer....

Simple nozzle: 

 The most basic of all nozzles would be a small round hole created with a drill. This would create a fine pin or pencil jet of water. Manufacturers spend time making sure the hole created is an exact size so they can know what the back pressure would be at any given flow rate of water. Research is also made into ensuring that the water jet has a very smooth pattern without any water mist coming from the jet. Water mist is a loss of performance

Pencil jet: 

The pencil jet is very focussed as all the power of the water is impacted on a very small cleaning area. This gives a vicious ripping action. The downside is the pencil jet only cleans a very small area at any time. A pencil jet used to clean a yard area would only create a messy spaghetti pattern on the floor.

Fan jet: 

Industrial fan jet nozzle

A pencil jet can be squashed into a v-shape fan by placing a blade at either side of the jet. Variable nozzles use this system to create a multi-function nozzle that allows for both fan and pencil cleaning. Industrial pressure washers often use a fixed high pressure fan jet. The industrial fan jet creates the fan pattern by using an eliptical nozzle oriface and has much lower misting (energy losses) than forming the jet with blades.

Turbo jet: 

Industrial Turbo nozzle in brass material

Turboblaster, Dirtkiller, Dirtblaster, Muckshifter, Powerspeed and many more names have been use to secribe what is in escense a pencil jet oscillating. The most common method used is loose pencil nozzle held in a cone shape housing. This pencil nozzle has turbine fins on the rear end. As water enters the cone shaped housing from the lance, it hits the fins of the turbine and make the nozzle oscillate. The nozzle is pushed into the nozzle seat, sealing the water outlet and forcing water to exit via the centre of the hollow nozzle. Because the nozzle is moving, the jet of water moves. Some manufacturers have used a less popular method that creates a linear jet motion (creates a line of moving water instead of a cone).