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Thread: Airless sprayer worth the investment?

  1. #1

    Question Airless sprayer worth the investment?

    I didn't find anything on this is the archives, so . . .
    I have plans for a lot of interior/exterior painting projects around the house in the months ahead. Costco has a Wagner "contractor grade" (yeah, right) sprayer now for a little over $200 - 1/2 hp, handles 5 gal. buckets, etc. I'm weighing the downsides - clean up, the spray fog, etc. - vs. painting speed and such. And is it really adequate to do the entire stucco exterior of a house?

    All opinions welcome.

    Mike
    If you can't make it perfect, make it adjustable.

  2. #2
    I cannot speak for the one you are looking at but I can share my experience with the one I have.

    I picked up the one below from Gleempaint and used it to stain over 500 ft of fence around my backyard and it worked great. I am not sure about using it inside although I believe that there are attachments (Rollers, Pad, etc. http://www.gleempaint.com/tr9-roller.html) but for exterior it worked great. The entire job was done in 1/2 a day. I would buy it again without a doubt.

    http://www.gleempaint.com/paint-crew-770-recon.html
    Last edited by Greg Narozniak; 04-20-2009 at 3:11 PM.

  3. #3
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    Years ago I purchased an airless spray gun for painting my house. I figure it saved me about half the time that painting with a brush and roller would have taken. Mine had just a quart paint can on the gun. My neighbor rented an air less sprayer when he painted his house and he got his house done in about half the time it took me to do mine since he never ran out of paint on the ladder like I did. If your time is at a premium it is probably a good investment. Some rental places still rent them.

    Be careful or you will also get paint on the roof, windows, plants, neighbors cars, etc. Avoid painting in the late afternoon as the paint won't dry before the sun goes down and the dew will cause it to run. You can also paint any bats that are hiding in the small nooks and crannies of your house. I had a blue and white bat in our area for quite a few weeks when I painted our house.
    Lee Schierer
    USNA '71
    Go Navy!

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  4. #4
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    I paid about a grand for my airless spray set-up in the late nineties. I painted the exterior of a 20x20x10' shop that I had when I lived in California with the airless sprayer. I put two coats of paint on the walls, it took me 20 minutes or less to paint one coat. The surface was very rough stucco that would have taken me forever to paint with a brush or roller. It is amazing at how fast 5 gallons of paint disappears. I loved the airless. Due to the constant West wind the painting had to be done first thing in the morning or the wind would carry the paint over to the neighbor's house, cars, etc, but not nearly as bad as a compressor spray rig.. I used it to paint the family room, it took longer to roll the room to smooth out the overlaps than it did to spray. The only problem I had indoors was the fact that I had to wear glasses and couldn't see half of the time due to excessive moisture in my breath from the face mask and the mist from the paint covering the lenses of my glasses. I tried all kinds of goggles and none worked. I haven't used it since I had cataracts removed and lens implants installed so I am assuming that the seeing problem is gone. It takes a while to clean the system properly and you must spend the time doing it or suffer the consequences. I have heard horror stories about rental units, if you go that route I recommend that you try the unit out prior to starting your project.
    I don't have any idea how well the cheap ones work but like most everything else you probably get what you pay for. My unit was actually a little below mid range quality at the time. If you live in cold country you need to protect the unit from freezing. You may be able to use RV antifreeze to keep it from getting ruined by the cold if you can't keep it warm. I did not use the unit enough to get good at it but the final product was fine with me. I probably put too much paint on everything and when painting indoors the unit probably was not set right causing all of the paint mist that covered my glasses.
    David B

  5. #5
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    I bought a mid-grade Wagner system in the early 90's that I've been happy using. I've probably painted 5 or 6 houses (exterior), one interior (several rooms, same color) and 2 sets of kitchen cabinets in place.

    The unit I bought has a paint bucket on top instead of a suction pickup that goes into a 5 gallon pail. Not quite as efficient but workable. The gun was all metal and heavier duty than the cheaper plastic guns. I would recommend this since the gun takes a lot of abuse, even if you're careful. Cleanup is time consuming and absolutely necessary - so much so that I don't use the airless if I'm only doing one or two rooms. I find it's quicker to use a roller and extention pole.
    The problem with education in the School of Hard Knocks is that by the time you're educated, you're too old to do anything.

  6. #6
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    I had a Wagner commercial sprayer 1 1/3 gpm which I used to spray interiors & a few exteriors of houses. Mostly new drywall on the interiors. I've probably sprayed over 10,000 gallons of paint. For small jobs it was a pain. The siphon hose, the pump & 100' hose hold a lot of paint. I drew paint from a 35 gal trash can & could empty it in about 30 minutes. Whats nice with a good gut you can use differant spray tips to get a variety of spray patterns. If you want to cover a lot of area use a large tip & a small for small area. If you get good you can almost cut a straight line with the gun. I could spray from 4" wide to 16" wide. Also I mainly sprayed latex paint. There is not a a lot of fog spraying latex but watch out spraying oil base. I sprayed one house where the walls, ceiling & trim were all the same oil base. The whole house inside was a big mist of paint in the air. Glad no one smoked or the house would of been a fire ball.You can also get an attachment for the gun to use as a roller. The gun feeds the roller.
    Last edited by Jay Jolliffe; 04-21-2009 at 4:53 PM.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mike Armstrong View Post
    I didn't find anything on this is the archives, so . . .
    I have plans for a lot of interior/exterior painting projects around the house in the months ahead. Costco has a Wagner "contractor grade" (yeah, right) sprayer now for a little over $200 - 1/2 hp, handles 5 gal. buckets, etc. I'm weighing the downsides - clean up, the spray fog, etc. - vs. painting speed and such. And is it really adequate to do the entire stucco exterior of a house?

    All opinions welcome.

    Mike
    Last summer I bought a Graco Magnum X5 for immediate painting of a front door and garage door, then for future staining of lots of fencing. This one from Home Depot.

    The machine works very well, BUT... It is quite complicated and needs much study of the manual (if you are going to do everything "right"). Cleanup of the spray gun and tubing is a job in itself, I think a big job, but of course the manufacturers consider this a minor chore. The tubing from paint can to sprayer and from sprayer to gun holds a lot of paint which can result in waste of some rather expensive material.

    I recommend that you practice on some large cardboard or such to get the hang of how much pressure to dial in and how to trigger the gun while keeping the pattern moving and parallel to the target surface.

  8. #8
    I'm surprised nobody has chimed in with stories of dysfunctional Wagner Power Painters - they do not have a very good reputation. I bought one to spray my unfinished basement and garage interior. Didn't work so I exchanged it: the second one didn't work either. I got lucky and scored a Titan airless at an auction - worked great and will last forever if it's cleaned after use.

    If you need to cover LOTS of sqft w/latex paint or similar material, there is no better way than a good airless sprayer. I didn't think overspray was really too bad, yeah, be careful if it's really windy, but as the name implies, the paint is being pumped out the nozzle at very high pressure rather than being shot out with air, so the paint doesn't atomize like it does with an air spraygun.

    It is pretty amazing how fast these things can empty a 5 gal pail of paint, so you'll want to getthe best deal on paint you can.

  9. #9
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    Kevin,
    I didn't find out until I did some Internet research that the airless rig I bought was made by Wagner but it had some other name on it. I would not have purchased it if I had known it was made by Wagner because of the horror stories I had heard for years but I can't complain the unit worked fine for me.
    David B

  10. #10
    I got the Graco 190
    It's worth it when you have a lot of surface to cover.

  11. #11
    Enjoyed reading this.

  12. #12
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    I've had a commercial Graco since the early nineties that still works great. You can rent commercial airless rigs. I rented one for years before I broke down and bought one. I used it for probably twenty years, and sprayed some hundreds of gallons of paint with it. But just in the past six months I bought a Graco top of the line gun that can also use their "fine finish" tips. Whereas I used to only spray thick paints with it, the new gun and fine finish tips can spray anything. I believe I could even spray automotive paint with it to a professional quality. About a year ago, I bought a Graco Air Assisted Airless rig, but with the new airless gun, I hadn't used it for a while, and can spray as good with the new gun, so I sold the AAA rig. I've painted cabinets with it to a factory finish.

    Hoses come in all sorts of sizes. A 1/4 x25 foot hose holds about 2/3 Quart of paint, so you lose that at cleanout. You can buy them down to something like 1/8 x 15, which I haven't measured how much it holds yet, but it's a LOT less than the 25 footer. Don't ask about 200 feet of 3/8 that we have used for spraying some big roofs.

    At home in the country, I just spray the paint in the rig out on a spot of grass near the shop, and it's gone after a couple of grass cuttings. In a city, put the end in a heavy contractors bag with all the air squeezed out of it, and shoot the waste paint in the bag. Squeeze most of the air out, or it will blow back paint out on you. Once you have just water in the pump and line, put waste paint hardener or sand or dirt in with the paint so you won't have liquid paint to throw in a city trashcan.

    The new gun and fine finish tips allow you to turn the pressure way down for spraying even thin stuff with the right sized tip. You couldn't do that with the old or cheaper guns.

    Since it's airless, you can leave paint in the pump and lines for a couple of days with no problem. Just take off the tip holder, and clean it and the tip thoroughly, put a little oil in the tip, and put it back on the gun until you are ready to paint some more tonight or tomorrow.
    Last edited by Tom M King; 11-12-2014 at 9:21 AM.

  13. #13
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    I have used airless sprayers for years and if you spray latex clean up is fast and easy. I always cleaned the outside of the hoses and then wiped them down with mineral spirits. easier to clean the next time.

  14. #14
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    Given my intermittent use of such a tool rental makes more sense than buying. I can rent a top of the line tool and come out financially about the same as buying a cheap one and don't need to store it for the year that might elapse between uses. If you use it a lot then you probably want to buy a good one.

  15. #15
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    I had a nice Accuspray model (about $800) that I used to paint 8 houses. It went bad after loaning it out, from improper cleaning and lubing. I had a backup little Wagner Paint Crew setup I picked up refurbished for $100, and that is what I ended up doing all my fascia and eaves with. It was slightly slower, but did the job just fine. I also used it (with a smaller tip) to spray all the white baseboard, crown, and interior doors for my house before installing.

    Worked great, till I loaned it out also......some people never learn.

    Looking for another one now, I think it is the perfect airless for occasional users.

    Rick P

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