Karcher K5.540 Review

(Rated: 4.2 / 5) Review by Frank Lowery
Noise
Ease of Assembly
Maneuverability
Balance And Handling
Result Quality
Check Price
Related pages: Best Electric Pressure Washer, Best Pressure Washer, Best Residential Pressure Washer, Electric Pressure Washer Buying Guide, Electric Pressure Washer Reviews, Karcher, Karcher Pressure Washers, Pressure Washer Buying Guide, Pressure Washer Reviews, Residential Pressure Washer Buying Guide, Residential Pressure Washer Reviews,

There are quite a few cleanup jobs around the home and garden that can be a lot of work to do by hand, whether it is washing your car, cleaning off your deck or patio, or getting seasonal grit and dirt off of windows and window screens. Any one of these jobs can take a lot of time and effort to get done right if you are just using a low pressure garden hose or worse, a bucket and a sponge.

An electric residential pressure washer is a great tool for helping you finish these kinds of chores quickly and with minimal effort on your part. These handy machines can tackle the vast majority of cleaning jobs you have to do in your house and yard. With high powered sprays of water, an electric pressure washer can blast dirt and grime away from surfaces in seconds, leaving them looking great.

Review Summary

The Karcher K5.540 is designed to provide high performance and serious power in a small, lightweight package. It is convenient and very easy to use, and it has a number of excellent accessories designed for this purpose. It comes with multiple wands for tackling different kinds of jobs, an onboard detergent reservoir, and a Quick Connect System for all hose attachments, to name a few.

The pressure washer is quiet and environmentally friendly, as it produces zero emissions at the point of use. And unlike a noisy gas powered pressure washer that emits plenty of fumes, you can use the Karcher K5.540 indoors without having to worry about safety issues. The pressure washer has a 30 foot extension cord and a 25 foot long hose, so you have a lot of freedom of movement when you are using it to tackle big jobs like washing a large deck or spraying down storm windows.

This pressure washer has a lot of spraying power. Its PSI and flow rate are both impressive for a residential electric pressure washer, and you will find that there are very few jobs this little guy can’t handle easily. They really thought of everything when they designed this machine.

Specifications

The Karcher K5.540 is a residential two wheel electric pressure washer with dimensions of 15.5 x 16.5 x 23 inches that weighs 31 pounds. It has a 120 volt water-cooled induction motor. Its maximum pressure is 2000 PSI and its flow rate is 1.4 gallons per minute, and it has a power rating of 2800.

The Karcher K5.540 has a direct-drive axial pump. It produces cold water sprays only and has a pro-style gun with adjustable jets. Its hose is 1/4 and inch in diameter and 25 feet long, and it is made of PVC plastic. It has a 30 foot long extension cord and comes with a one year warranty.

Description

When you open the box of the Karcher K5.540, you are instantly struck by what a good looking pressure washer it is. It has a unique aesthetic and great design notes, as well as a lot of handy accessories that are going to be very useful when you start using it. You will also be surprised by how compact and lightweight it is: this little guy weighs just 31 pounds and has dimensions of just 15.5 x 16.5 x 23 inches. Its size will make it easy to find storage space for it just about anywhere in your garage or home. And the fact that it is so lightweight and has big wheels will make it easy to wheel around your yard while you use it.

Do not be fooled by its appearance, though. The Karcher K5.540 packs a lot of power under the hood, and it is evident by the fact that it produces a spray that tops out at 2000 pounds per square inch with a flow rate of 1.4 gallons per minute. That results in a pretty high power rating for a residential electric pressure washer. Power rating is the product of PSI and GPM, and it rates the overall cleaning ability of a pressure washer. With a power rating of 2800, you can count on the Karcher K5.540 to tackle just about anything you can find around your house or yard that needs cleaning.

The Karcher K5.540 has a lot of great accessories and extra features. It comes with different wands for taking care of different jobs, and onboard detergent reservoir, and a convenient reel for winding up the hose when you are done cleaning. These features were added after Karcher got feedback from its customers – which means this model is practically designed by the people who use it most.

Pros

By taking customer feedback into account when they were designing this model, Karcher made sure it has all of the great features you need on a residential electric pressure washer. As a result, the Karcher K5.540 has some of the best design notes you can find in its class. Because of this, it is going to be very easy and convenient to use this model around the home and yard. Let’s take a look at its best features.

1. High pressure and flow rate : The reason a high pressure and flow rate is important on an electric pressure washer is because it gives you options. You probably will not have to use the highest setting of 2000 PSI often, but having it means you will have a wide range of pressures to choose from so you can always choose the best one for every job. The buzzwords here are convenience and freedom of choice, and with the Karcher K5.540 you get a lot of both.
2. Tons of great accessories : There are accessories everywhere you look on this pressure washer. It comes equipped with a quick-connecting trigger gun and child safety lock, as well as two extra spray wands for different jobs. It has a pressurized hose reel for winding up the hose and storing it onboard. All hose connections have Quick Connections for faster startup times and a centralized Easy Track hose feed system for easier use. Every part of the Karcher K5.540 is designed with convenience in mind.
3. Compact and lightweight : Even though it is a powerful pressure washer with tons of accessories, the Karcher K5.540 is still fairly compact and lightweight. That means you will not have any trouble finding enough storage space for it in your garage or basement, as it easily fits on any shelf or in any corner. Because it only weighs 31 pounds and has large wheels, just about anyone will have an easy time maneuvering it around their yard or anywhere else they need to take it.
4. Onboard detergent reservoir : This is one of my favorite features. The Karcher K5.540 has an onboard, removable detergent tank. That means you can combine chemical solvents and soaps with the spray for washing out tough stains easily: just attach the tank, fill it with soap, and you are all set. As if that wasn’t enough, the pressure washer also has an adjustable detergent flow dial so you can control the amount of detergent used.
5. Excellent price : And with all of these great features, the Karcher K5.540 still has a pretty decent price, especially when you compare it to many similar electric pressure washers. That means you can get all of the convenience, performance and cleaning power this pressure washer provides without having to break the bank to get it. And in the long run, it is important to make sure you are getting what you need without spending a fortune on it.

The Karcher K5.540 2000 PSI, 1.5 GPM electric pressure washer is a high performance machine that offers plenty of cleaning power and lots of convenience. It produces no emissions, runs quietly, and is compact and easy to use. This is a great machine for residential use: it has lots of versatility for tackling a lot of different cleaning jobs quickly and efficiently.

Cons

As surprising as it may seem, in spite of the fact that it has so many great features, there are a few areas in which the Karcher K5.540 is not quite perfect. At the same time, some of these drawbacks are par for the course with a small electric pressure washer, but others could also be better. Let’s take a close look at them.

1. Upright design is top-heavy : This is the one design area in which the Karcher K5.540 tends to fall down on the job – literally. Because of its upright and fairly top-heavy design, the pressure washer is prone to tipping over a lot while you are using it, particularly if you tug on the hose too quickly. What the machine really needs is some sort of support stand to prevent this. You can try to lay it down while using it, but this is inconvenient.
2. Quick connects may have slow drips : This is a chronic problem on small residential pressure washers – the hose connectors have plastic O-rings instead of brass fittings, and as a result they tend to develop leaks. Fortunately on the Karcher K5.540 it’s just a slow leak that does not affect the pressure or flow rate noticeably, but it is still a pain. While you can always fashion your own connector with brass fittings, this isn’t something that should be the consumer’s job.
3. Plastic construction is not very durable : The body and a number of key parts on the Karcher K5.540 are made of plastic. While this is great for helping keep its weight down so it is not too bulky, it also leaves it vulnerable to damage – and this problem is made worse by the fact that it has a tendency to tip over. If it’s on rocky ground or hard concrete when it tips over, there is a danger of the plastic parts breaking from the force of the impact.
4. Only sprays cold water : While this is fairly common for residential electric pressure washers, it is still worth mentioning – there is no hot water option for this sprayer unless it’s hooked up to a hot water source. And who has the kind of huge hot water heater that would require? Fortunately, the onboard detergent reservoir means you will still be able to tackle tough stains without having to resort to needing a hot water spray.
5. High pressure hose is stiff : Due to the fact that it is made of PVC plastic, the high pressure hose is pretty stiff. As a result, winding it up on the onboard reel can sometimes be a bit of a hassle, and once it is wound up, it tends to adopt that configuration, which means that when you unwind it, it will tend to loop back on itself and get tangled up.

I still think that all of the great features described in the Pros section overshadow any of the problems presented by these Cons, and in some cases the Cons are just natural parts of owing a residential electric pressure washer. The machine is limited by its design intent, which is to handle small scale jobs around your house. That said, it would be vastly improved if it was not so top-heavy and had the proper brass fittings on the quick connectors.

Product Comparison

There are a lot of different residential electric pressure washers out there, and you want to be sure you are getting the very best one for use around your home and garden. One of the best ways to do this is by doing some comparison shopping. Surprisingly, there are a lot of different power ratings, accessories and prices out there, even if they tend to fall in a relatively small range.

	Karcher K5.540	AR Blue Clean AR116	Sun Joe SPX3000
Type	Residential	Residential	Residential
Class	2-wheel	Hand-carry	2-wheel
Dimensions	15.5 x 16.5 x 23	9.5 x 10.5 x 19	15.6 x 13.5 x 33.9
Power	Electric	Electric	Electric
Motor	120 V / 60 Hz (water-cooled induction)	120 V / 60 Hz / 11 Amp (induction)	120 V / 60 Hz
PSI	2000	1450	2030
GPM	1.4	1.35	1.76
Power Rating	2800	1957,5	3572,8
Pump	Direct-drive axial	3 axial-piston wobble-plate	Direct-drive axial
Cold/Hot	Cold	Cold	Cold
Spray Gun	Pro-style	Ergonomic	Ergonomic
Nozzle	Adjustable jet Turbo	Adjustable jet Foam dispenser	5 (0°, 15°, 25°, 40°, soap)
Hose	1/4-inch x 25-foot	1/4-inch x 20-foot	1/4-inch x 20-foot
Hose Material	PVC/plastic	PVC/plastic	PVC/plastic
Power Cord	30-foot	35-foot	35-foot
Weight	31 pounds	11.8 pounds	31 pounds
Warranty	1 year	1 year	1 year

As you can see, the Sun Joe SPX3000 has a PSI that is very similar to that of the Karcher K5.540, but because it has a higher flow rate (in GPM), its power rating is much higher. With a low PSI, the AR Blue Clean winds up with the lowest power rating as well. The Karcher K5.540 has the most accessories and is the only one with a water-cooled induction motor. In most other areas, the three machines are quite similar.

Conclusion

When you own your own home, you are all too familiar with how much work goes into maintaining it and keeping it looking great. So you will definitely be happy to find a tool that can make any part of that work easier. Finding the right tool can be challenging, though. These pros and cons can help you decide if the Karcher K5.540 is the right tool for you.

Conclusion Pros

1. High pressure and flow rate.
2. Tons of great accessories.
3. Compact and lightweight.
4. Onboard detergent reservoir.
5. Excellent price.

With its high pressure and flow rate, there are very few jobs that the Karcher K5.540 can’t take care of quickly and efficiently. And with user-recommended features and convenient accessories, this machine is a breeze to use. And it offers all of these Pros at a great price so you don’t have to break the bank to get it.

Conclusion Cons

1. Upright design is top-heavy.
2. Quick connects may have slow drips.
3. Plastic construction is not very durable.
4. Only sprays cold water.
5. High pressure hose is stiff.

At the same time, the Karcher K5.540 is not quite perfect. While any electric pressure washer for residential use is going to have its limitations, there are a couple of design notes that could be changed. You don’t want your pressure washer to be falling over a lot, and you want tight connections. But overall it is still a good machine.

Final Word

The Karcher K5.540 is a powerful, high performance electric pressure washer that can come in handy on a wide variety of jobs around your home. It is designed with user feedback so that it provides the best possible cleaning experience. It has a high power rating for a residential electric pressure washer so you can always be sure you are able to tackle whatever cleanup jobs come your way. And it has great accessories, multiple spray wands, a child safety lock on the trigger, and a convenient high pressure hose reel. In addition it has an onboard detachable detergent tank and an adjustable detergent dial so you can get plenty of washing power out of it as well.

The Karcher K5.540 is a quiet pressure washer that produces zero emissions. It is lightweight and compact for easy use and storage. While it is top heavy and prone to tipping over, this is the only major drawback you will probably encounter while using it.

Best Price

The Karcher K5.540 is moderately priced, and when you look at all of the great features it offers, I think you will agree that its price, while not the lowest available for electric pressure washers, is still a very fair one. This machine has a water-cooled induction motor and a powerful pump that allows it to produce sprays of up to 2000 PSI. It has lots of great accessories and design features that make it a versatile, convenient machine. And you get all of that without having to spend a whole lot of money to get it. Overall it is a solid tool at a good price.