Pressure Washer Nozzle Colors

1. The Five Colors

Each tip takes the machine's full output and spreads it across a different angle. Wider spread means less force per square inch at the surface, and more area covered per pass.

The pattern is consistent: as the angle widens, force concentrates less and coverage increases. That trade is the entire decision. You want the widest nozzle that still does the job, because it covers more ground per pass and leaves the least chance of damaging what you are cleaning.

2. Red: The One to Leave in the Box

The red tip concentrates the machine's entire output into a jet a few millimetres across. It does not spread at all, which means every bit of the pressure and flow arrives at one tiny point.

It will cut into wood, strip paint, etch concrete, lacerate skin and destroy almost anything it touches for more than a second. Because it covers essentially no area, it is also useless for actual cleaning, since you would be working a slab one pencil-width at a time.

• It is included because there are narrow professional uses: cutting a stubborn deposit off a machine part, clearing a blocked drain line, marking a line in dirt.
• On any household surface it removes material rather than dirt, and the damage is instant and permanent.
• It is the tip responsible for most pressure washer injuries, because it concentrates force in the same way a blade does.
• A red tip on a modest machine delivers more force at a point than a white tip on a far more powerful one.
• If you have never found a use for it, that is the correct outcome rather than a gap in your technique.

The practical advice from everyone who has used these machines seriously is the same: take the red tip out of the holder and put it somewhere separate, so it cannot be grabbed by accident when you are working quickly and reaching for green.

3. Yellow and Green: The Working Tips

These two do most of the genuine cleaning on hard surfaces, and choosing between them is usually the only real nozzle decision you make.

Yellow, 15 Degrees

Aggressive, with a narrow path. It belongs on hard, sound surfaces where you need to lift something stubborn: paint preparation, heavy build-up on concrete, stripping a coating deliberately. It is too aggressive for wood, siding, vehicles and anything with a coating you want to keep.

Treat yellow as a spot tool rather than a general one. Working a whole driveway with it is slow, produces obvious striping, and risks etching the surface. Use it on the patch that green will not shift, then go back to green.

Green, 25 Degrees

The general-purpose tip and the one most jobs should default to on hard surfaces. It has enough force to lift embedded dirt from concrete and enough spread to cover ground at a reasonable rate. It is the right choice for decks, for concrete when you are using a wand rather than a surface cleaner, and for the inside of wheel arches.

On wood decking, green is the correct tip and technique carries the rest: keep the wand moving constantly, hold a consistent distance, and work with the grain. Pausing is what raises the grain and leaves the furred surface that only sanding fixes.

4. White: The One You Should Use Most

The 40 degree white tip is the safest and most useful nozzle in the set for household work, and it is the one most people under-use because it feels too gentle to be doing anything.

It spreads the output across a wide fan, which means low force per square inch and a lot of area covered per pass. That is exactly right for the surfaces most of us actually clean: vinyl siding, painted wood, vehicles, patio furniture, and rinsing anything after a cleaner has done the chemical work.

The reason white feels weak is that people compare it against the red tip's ability to blast a mark off concrete. But the actual measure is whether a surface comes clean, and once a proper cleaner has dwelled on it, the white tip rinses off dirt that a narrow tip would have had to fight.

5. Black: The One Everyone Misunderstands

The black tip is not a cleaning nozzle. It is a low-pressure tip whose entire purpose is to let the machine draw detergent, and it is the single most misunderstood item in the box.

The detergent siphon on a pressure washer only engages at low pressure. Fitting a high-pressure tip raises the pressure at the nozzle, the siphon stops drawing, and no soap comes through. That is the most common reason people conclude their detergent system is broken when it is working exactly as designed.

• Fit the black tip before you expect any detergent to appear. Nothing else in the set will draw it.
• Apply detergent bottom to top on vertical surfaces, so it cannot run down dry areas and streak.
• Let it dwell for several minutes without drying, which is where the actual cleaning happens.
• Switch to a rinsing tip, usually white or green, and rinse from the top down.
• Flush clean water through the system afterwards so detergent does not sit in the machine.
• Losing the black tip is remarkably common, and it is the one you cannot substitute for.

6. Adjustable, Turbo and Specialist Tips

Beyond the five colours there are a few designs worth knowing about, one of which is genuinely useful and one of which is frequently misused.

Turbo nozzles deserve a specific warning. They spin a 0 degree jet in a circular pattern, which gives red-tip cleaning force across a green-tip path, and on sound concrete they work extremely well. On wood, siding, paint or anything soft they will do exactly what a red tip does, only across a wider area, so treat them as a concrete-only accessory.

Two fitting details are worth checking before buying anything. Most machines use a standard quick-connect, but some brands, notably certain premium ones, use a proprietary connection that limits you to their accessories forever. And check the minimum flow a surface cleaner or foam cannon needs, since a low-GPM machine may not run one properly.

7. A Quick Reference by Surface

The chart to keep in the garage. Match the surface, then use the pressure column as a sanity check on the machine setting.

The last row is the one that saves surfaces. When you do not know how something will respond, the answer is always the widest tip from the greatest distance, on a patch that does not show, before you touch anything visible. Thirty seconds there tells you more than any chart can about that material in its current condition.

Full pressure guidance by surface, including where the numbers come from and what excess pressure actually does to each material, is in our guide to what PSI you need. For the surfaces where no nozzle is the right answer, see what not to pressure wash.