Who writes this

Jean-Benoit Buisson

Every page on this site is written and signed by one person. This page says who, how the judgments are reached, and — just as importantly — what he is not.

How I got here

I live in the Charente, in a house with more outside than inside: a courtyard that goes green on the north side every winter, a gravel drive that swallows leaves, and the kind of render that shows every splash. Cleaning it is not a hobby. It is a recurring job I would like to do quickly, once, and not have to redo in six weeks.

What sent me down this particular rabbit hole was the gap between what these machines are sold on and what they actually do. The number on the box is a pressure the machine reaches only when the trigger is shut. The thing that decides how fast a terrace comes clean is the flow — liters per hour — and it is printed small, or not at all. I found the same gap everywhere I looked: wattage instead of boiler pressure, suction instead of airflow, a nozzle that costs twelve euros and changes the result more than a hundred dollars of machine.

So I started keeping notes: which specification is the honest one in each category, where the manual contradicts the marketing, which consumable fits which fitting, and which mistake each category invites. This site is those notes, organized, in five languages — because the same question gets asked in French, German, Spanish and Italian, and gets answered far worse in four of them.

What this site covers

Everything listed here is taken from the catalog of this site, and each entry links to its own page. When the catalog changes, this list changes with it. It is a list of what is covered — not a list of what I own.

What I care about

Three convictions, present on every page here. The number that gets quoted is usually the wrong one — a pressure washer sold on a peak bar figure it never reaches while cleaning, a steam cleaner sold on watts rather than boiler pressure, a vacuum sold on a suction figure measured with nothing attached to it. The consumable decides more than the machine — the nozzle, the filter, the pad, the fitting standard. And the damage is quiet: a turbo nozzle held still for two seconds leaves a line in a paving slab that stays there for years.

What I am not

I am not a professional cleaner, a service technician, or a trained detailer, and I have never worked for a manufacturer or a dealer. I hold no trade qualification in any of this. If you are looking for someone whose authority comes from a job title, this is not that site — what each judgment rests on is stated on the page it appears on, and you can read how a judgment gets made here in full.

How I work

Every figure names its source: a manufacturer specification, a manual, a standard, or the weight of long-term owner reports.
No price, product reference or specification is ever invented. Where a figure is missing, the field is left empty and the gap is stated on the page.
Product references are verified against Amazon before publication, per market. Where a model is not sold in that store, you are sent to a local search rather than to a page that does not exist.
Where the cheap option wins, the page says the cheap option wins — and where the honest answer is a bucket, a brush and twenty minutes rather than a machine, it says that instead.

Why this site exists

Because cleaning machines are sold on the wrong numbers. A pressure washer is advertised on a peak bar figure measured with the trigger shut — a pressure it never delivers while cleaning — rather than on its working pressure and its liters per hour, which together decide how fast a terrace comes clean. Steam cleaners are sold on wattage rather than boiler pressure. And the consumables — the nozzle, the filter, the pad — are treated as afterthoughts when they are usually the actual fix.

There is also a part of this that is not about buying anything. A jet that strips paint will strip skin, and the resulting injury looks like very little for the first hour. Steam burns hands that reach past a nozzle. And most of the damage these machines do is not to people at all — it is to the render, the decking and the window seals of the people who bought them to look after exactly those things. That is the subject a page full of exciting machines is guaranteed to skip. It is not skipped here.

Correcting me

If something here is wrong, tell me and I will fix it and date the correction on the page. Write to [email protected].

Jean-Benoit Buisson · Paris, France