Vonhaus 1600W Pressure Washer Review

Design and Features

• A basic, no-frills design
• Annoying clip-in hooks
• Short-ish cable and hose lengths

Vonhaus’ 1600W Pressure Washer arrives in a plain box with a minimum of fanfare. Like other pressure washers, there’s a degree of self-assembly required: here you need to screw the machine handle into place, and clip in the lance holder and power cord hook. You’ll become an expert in this, as they’re far too easy to knock back out again.

The wheels felt slightly wobbly on my sample, and one part of the case wasn’t perfectly aligned with its opposite half, but otherwise this felt decently made. There’s an advantage to choosing a smaller pressure washer, as it’s easier to cart around. That said, the Vonhaus 1600W Pressure Washer has a comparatively short five-metre hose, and a five-metre cable, so it might not reach quite everywhere you want it to.

While some pressure washers come with multiple nozzles, the single one provided here is adjustable from a narrow, high-pressure jet, through to a wider, lower-pressure spray. You can’t adjust the output power of the machine itself although. Like most washers, it automatically shuts down when you release the trigger.

Performance

• Small and practical
• Surprisingly effective
• Terrible screech

It’s easy enough to hook this pressure washer up to power and water, prime it with the latter, then get to work. Its small size and comparatively light weight make it easy to pick up and move around – the wheels help here, too. Given that its five-metre hose is a couple of metres shorter than you might get on a mid-range machine, you may need to move it around a little more. For example, the hose wouldn’t extend the full length of my car, so I had to shuffle the Vonhaus 1600W Pressure Washer along a bit to get to the front end.

This pressure washer’s 130 bar is about the maximum we’d recommend for cleaning a car, but its adjustable nozzle lets you set a reasonably wide pattern that reduces the pressure further. Combined with a judicious application of foam from the gun attachment, I had soon cleared dusty rain residue off my paintwork and windows. I should mention that this washer doesn’t have an inbuilt detergent bottle – it’s the foam gun or nothing.

I wasn’t expecting great things when it came to patio cleaning, which generally benefits from higher pressures, but here the Vonhaus 1600W Pressure Washer did surprisingly well. I tested it against five other devices, two with dedicated patio-cleaning tools, using each to clean a single slab of paving. As you can see from tile 4 below, this pressure washer managed among the best results.

I measured the Vonhaus 1600W Pressure Washer’s power use at 1,550W – close to its rated 1,600W. In use, this is a moderately loud device, although there isn’t a huge amount of vibration from the straightforward lance. However, my sample made an awful screeching sound as the motor shut down whenever I released its trigger. It’s possible this isn’t characteristic of the type, but it was consistent throughout my testing. It was really quite unpleasant.

It’s simple to pack this pressure washer up when you’ve finished. There’s no hook or drum for the hose, so you just store it in a loop. The lance and cable stow on their hooks, once you’ve refitted them for the umpteenth time. It’s not particularly tidy, but it is compact, and the lack of attachments does mean you need less space in the shed.

Should you buy it?