10/06/2026
DID YOU KNOW? The history of the pressure washer goes back nearly 100 years, and it has a pretty interesting beginning!
The story starts in Pennsylvania in 1926 with an inventor named Frank W. Ofeldt II.
While working with a portable wh***ey still, Ofeldt noticed that the hot, pressurized spray coming from the equipment could move grease on his garage floor. That observation led him to start developing a machine specifically designed for cleaning.
He eventually teamed up with Frederick E. Schuchman Sr. of Homestead Valve Company, and their early cleaning equipment became known as the “Hypressure Jenny.” By 1927, the Jenny steam cleaner had arrived, helping launch an entirely new cleaning equipment industry.
And Ofeldt wasn’t the only innovator working on the idea. Around the same period, Walter Kerrick in California developed his own steam-cleaning technology, and other manufacturers soon helped advance the equipment even further.
Those early machines were a long way from the pressure washers we know today. Over the decades, improvements in pumps, heating systems, engines, controls and cleaning chemicals helped turn the concept into the powerful hot and cold water pressure-washing equipment used in countless industries today.
Almost 100 years of innovation later, pressure washers are still doing what sparked the idea in the first place: using the power of water, heat and pressure to tackle some seriously tough cleaning jobs.
And right here in Sioux Falls, Revier Pressure Washers continues to help customers find, maintain and service professional pressure washing equipment.
📍 Revier Pressure Washers
1800 E. Rice Street
Sioux Falls, SD 57103
📞 605-332-7872
From an accidental discovery in a Pennsylvania garage to the powerful machines we have today, that’s a lot of history behind the pressure washer!
📸 Pictured: An early Hypressure V***r Spray Generator, part of the technology that helped pave the way for the modern pressure washer.
