Water Tanks

[Shawn F.]

I am using a 150 gallon truck bed (round) styled water tank from a friend of mine. I bought a 1800 PSI Karcher pressure washer and wanted to try and gravity feed out of this. The water tank is filled, I have a short 10 foot hose on it and water will come out decent with the lid off the tank but will not pull through the pressure washer. I hooked up my Honda 3200 psi pressure washer and it pulled water through but not at full pressure and I`m afraid that it may burn up my pump if doing this. It had enough pressure to take your hand off still but not as much as if it were hooked up to a house water line.

I got this Karcher first off because Northern Tool is getting rid of them for $99 and $10 for a 2 year warranty, plus they make little noise and some high end neighborhoods I work in do not want generators and loud pressure washers going.

How many people here gravity feed of their tanks and what kind of pressure washer do you use? Will I absolutely need to use a gas powered instead of this small 1800 PSI Karcher? Also will it burn the pump up on the gas powered one?

I tried searching some threads on this but nothing specific to my questions were found.

Thanks for any info here!

[dallen]

Gravity is not producing enough pressure for your pressure washer to run properly. Some pressure washer require curtain amount of pressure to function properly(check your manual).



You are going to need a external pump. something like this http://www.harborfreightusa.com/usa/...trical%20Pumps

[LeadingEdgeDetail]

I used 4 different Karcher pressure washers, all in the $100 range, and they all worked with a gravity-feed system. Just make sure there is no air in the lines!



I am now using a $600 Princess Auto electric pressure washer, which also works great with gravity-fed water.



The only thing you need to check is the GPM that the pressure washer requires, and make sure the fittings and such on your tank can supply that rate.



Not sure why yours isn`t working... All of mine worked fine!

[Shawn F.]

I dont know what the problem is..... I have a regular faucet on the end like that is on a house that may be restricting it. Do you have any pictures of your setup or can you explain to me what you have?

[BigJimZ28]

1.) is the hose bung in the bottom of the tank?



2.) is the valve full port?



3.) is the supply line oversized?



4.) is the pressure washer below the tank?



5.) maybe a picture of your setup will help us help you

[Shawn F.]

What I will do is get a few pictures of my setup. I think it`s wrong... It`s got maybe a 3 1/2 or 4 inch inlet (I could be wrong here but it`s fairly big) and inside the tank it`s a 90* elbow for some reason and then on the outside it downsizes to fit a regular screw on faucet that you see on outside of homes for the hoses. I have a short 10 foot hose directly to the pressure washer that is down BELOW a few feet. The lid on top of the tank is open to help push the water down and all water is out of the hose line before hooking up. I will get pictures tomarrow and post them up here to see what you guys think may be the problem and find some kind of solution.

[BigJimZ28]

the elbow is to help empty the tank

it will siphon the water from below the hose bung





it sound like the problem is the "faucet"



get a full port ball valve and keep as much of the PW inlet as large as you can