Karcher K5 Comfort Premium Review

Introduction

Pressure washers aren’t exactly known for being elegant. They’re usually bulky, awkward to store and just a little bit annoying to drag out when it’s time to tackle the driveway, patio or car. 

That’s what makes the Karcher K5 Comfort Premium so appealing: it takes the heavy-duty cleaning power you’d expect from a mid-range pressure washer and wraps it in a design that’s noticeably easier to handle day to day. 

Part of Karcher’s new Comfort range, the K5 Comfort Premium promises a more user-friendly experience from top to bottom, with a lighter trigger setup, an integrated hose reel, a built-in detergent system, and a four-in-one lance designed to cut down on faff. 

After using it to clean everything from a grimy driveway to a dirty car, it’s clear this is a pressure washer built with convenience in mind – even if a couple of omissions stop it short of perfection.

Design and features

• Compact design 
• Four-in-one lance
• Integrated detergent system simplifies cleaning

Coming from my years-old, bulky, heavy pressure washer, the K5 Comfort Premium is something of a dream – and that’s kind of the point of the new ‘Comfort’ collection. 

It’s absolutely dinky compared to my old unit, standing at just over 66cm tall and 34cm wide, with a retractable handle that not only makes lugging it around much easier but also means an even more compact footprint for storage – ideal for me and my limited shed space. It’s still a little on the heavier side at 13.8kg, but the large wheels make transporting it from one area to another easy enough. 

But I’m getting ahead of myself somewhat here; let’s start with the unboxing experience. As with most pressure washers, the K5 Comfort Premium comes in several pieces, which might look daunting to the untrained eye, but it’s really simple to snap together without any tools. It took me around five minutes to follow the Ikea-style instructions, with no strops or breaks in sight. 

The Comfort redesign extends to the gun, which is surprisingly lightweight, easy to manoeuvre, and much more comfortable to use over long periods, with less pressure required to depress the trigger. I spent three hours pressure washing my driveway, and my hands still weren’t aching by the end. 

The gun attaches to the body of the pressure washer via a 10-meter-long high-pressure hose, which is stored in an integrated hose reel that’s surprisingly smooth to extend and retract. Karcher takes additional points here too, with the pressure hose coming out of the opposite side to the power cable and hose input to stop everything from getting tangled. A nice touch indeed. 

The highlight of the experience is the new four-in-one multijet lance, which twists into the gun with surprising ease. It’s a really handy bit of kit too, offering four distinct modes that you can switch between simply by rotating. 

The dirt blaster is my favourite for cleaning patios and other brickwork, essentially rotating the tiny jet at a rapid pace to shift even the most stubborn stains and grit, but there’s also the more traditional high-pressure flat jet and reduced-pressure flat jet for jobs like cleaning cars.

What’s most impressive is the integrated detergent jet; with a quick twist of the nozzle, you can spray detergent mixed with water without needing to attach a front-heavy foaming attachment. That’s because the K5 Comfort Premium comes with a new detergent system that integrates the bottle directly into the pressure washer’s body, negating the need for a tank, and includes a bottle of eco-friendly detergent in the box. 

You can remove the detergent adaptor from the body and use it on the end of the gun if you prefer, complete with dosing settings, but I really like the integrated approach. It makes tasks like cleaning cars much easier, as I can simply switch between water and detergent without faffing around switching lance attachments. 

As compact as the K5 Comfort Premium is, it still has plenty of space to store the lance and gun, along with any other optional accessories compatible with the K5. And optional accessories there are aplenty, including heads specialised in cleaning patios and cars. It’s just a shame none of these actually come in the box. 

Performance

• Powerful cleaning with fast results
• Lightweight gun improves long-session comfort
• No pressure adjustment

As you might expect, the Karcher K5 Comfort Premium is an absolute joy to use. Simply attach the lance to the gun with a push-twist, attach the garden hose to the body, plug it in and power it on.

One note though; release the built-up pressure in the system by pressing the gun’s trigger before starting, or the unit won’t power on. I thought mine was broken after changing power source multiple times before I realised that was the (refreshingly simple) fix.

That aside, all you need to do is select the type of jet you want to use and press the trigger to get going. The only real decision is which of the modes you want to use. I found that the dirt blaster mode was the most effective for cleaning patios and driveways, though I certainly wouldn’t recommend it for cars, bins or anything like that. I tried it on an old bin and it literally stripped a layer of plastic off – if anything, that’s testament to the level of power here.

That said, cleaning my driveway was an absolute doddle. The dirt blaster mode made incredibly quick work of my (embarrassingly dirty) driveway, bringing it back to its original vibrant colours with only a single pass in most places. I needed to hone in to make sure I got every bit of dirt, as moving it too quickly results in a circular outline, but I’d be lying if it wasn’t satisfying as heck. As noted earlier, it took three hours to do fully, but it felt like half an hour.

Much of the ease of use comes from just how lightweight and comfortable the gun is to use; as noted, it’s lightweight and, with very little pressure needed to depress the trigger, it’s something I could use one-handed much of the time. 

Cleaning the car was equally as successful, with the long 10-meter hose allowing me to fully circle my car (and then some) without accidentally pulling the pressure unit over. Starting with the (less aggressive) reduced-pressure flat jet, I rinsed off the car before switching to the detergent jet – again, something that required no more than a twist of the nozzle – to lift some of the more stubborn stains from the car. 

The eco-detergent supplied in the box isn’t designed specifically for cars – it’s a universal cleaner – so there wasn’t much foaming, but it was still easy to apply. I think I’ll keep the Karcher bottle and refill it with a proper foaming detergent for future car cleans. 

Still, once done with foaming, switching back to a regular jet to rinse was easy, and the whole process took no longer than 10 minutes – much faster than doing it by hand, with pretty similar results. It didn’t quite get some of the most stubborn stains (those damn birds!), but it was a damn sight cleaner than it was before. 

Even if it takes longer, Karcher claims that the K5 Comfort Premium’s water flow rate is only 40% of a garden hose’s, making it a fairly efficient way to clean medium-sized spaces if you’ve got a water meter. 

After using the Karcher to clean my driveway, garden patio and path, and my car, my only complaint is that there’s no way to adjust the pressure level, either on the gun or on the pressure washer’s body; it’s simply on or off. 

Yes, I can switch between the three spray modes if I need to wash something a little more fragile, but what if I want to, say, keep the rotation of the high-pressure dirt-blasting mode while toning it down a bit? There are plenty of pressure washers that offer this, so I’m a little surprised it’s not on offer here. 

Should you buy it?

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