Keep Above
Buy or hire the pressure washer
A pressure washer gets used a few times a year at most houses, which is exactly the shape this calculator counts: buying one — price, upkeep, eventual sale — against hiring one each time, over the same years and uses. Each way lands on a cost per year and per use, the break-even uses a year is stated as a fact, and no winner is declared.
Not counted while this is $0
After 5 years
Delivery, membership, deposits — not counted while $0
Put in what buying one would cost, and what one hire would cost. Nothing here is read from your accounts, and nothing is saved.
| Owning | Hiring | |
|---|---|---|
| Paid up front | — | — |
| Value lost | — | — |
| Hire fees | — | — |
| Other costs | — | — |
| Total over 5 years | — | — |
| Cost a year | — | — |
| Cost a use | — | — |
This is one of the tools built into Keep Above
Keep Above is a budgeting app where you enter your bills and income and it works out the balance you need to keep — so you can see what's safe to spend. No bank connection, no ads on your data.
About this calculator
What counts as upkeep for a pressure washer?
Whatever a year of owning one would take — the occasional seal or lance, a service if it's petrol-driven, and storage space if that has a cost. One yearly figure; $0 means it isn't counted.
What would one hire include here?
The day rate plus anything the depot adds per hire — detergent, fittings, a delivery charge if it's delivered. A refundable bond isn't a cost and stays out; anything yearly rather than per-hire belongs in the extras box.
What is the crossing point?
The uses a year at which the two totals would match, over the years you set — a position in the arithmetic, nothing more. When one side's structure makes a match impossible (owning nets to nothing, or hiring's fixed extras alone pass owning's total), the page says so instead of printing a number.