Should I buy a paint sprayer to paint my house (and stuff)?

May 6, 2021 11:25 AM

a good paint sprayer that will handle exterior paint straight from the bucket is $400. I'm not really objecting to the price of this, but here's the hook - I LIKE painting.

We own a house that is about 800 square feet, a bungalow from 1959. The top half of the house is yellow stucco, and the bottom half of the house is wood siding covered by vinyl siding which I intend to remove back down to the wood siding (I know this will involve some repairs and stuff, no biggie - I've already also looked into a lot of the considerations for painting stucco and think I have a handle on paint types and possible problems, etc, though if you have advice feel free to add it!)

Do you think I should invest in a paint sprayer? People have told me that painting a stucco house is a nightmare, but people also say "UGH" about interior painting all the time, and I love painting. But I accept that just because I love painting walls inside my warm house while watching tv etc, that I might not love struggling with the cracks and crannies of painting a stucco house on a ladder while getting a sunburn. People have recommended an airless paint sprayer for painting stucco.

We also have a little single car garage we use as a workshop with the same exterior treatments, and I will also want to paint that. Also all of our eaves are the same yellow as our house, and I might want to paint them (and I think a sprayer would be helpful.) Also we have a lot of fences which are currently hunter green and I could see wanting to paint them eventually. Also the basement of my house has a gross popcorn ceiling that could use some painting eventually and I think you'd HAVE to spray that.

So I guess my question is - do you think investing in an expensive paint sprayer is worth it - maybe based solely on the project of painting my house and workshop? Have you used one? Did you enjoy using it, or do you think I'll be just as happy brush-and-roller painting my exteriors as I am my interiors?

I also love tools if that's a consideration! I am looking at the Graco Magnum X5 Airless Paint Sprayer.

posted by euphoria066 to Home & Garden (10 answers total)

My local equipment rental place will rent me a sprayer that retails for $1,100 for $90/day (Titan 805). Once you have the prep work done, spraying an 800 square foot bungalow *and* the garage shouldn't take all that long, a day's rental should be more than enough, and then you don't have to figure out where to store it (yeah, I live in a 768 square foot cottage).

When we had our house painted (I'm a "hates painting" person), the prevailing attitude was that brush application was probably better, but I was never exactly clear on why. When I built my workshop, I used pre-painted siding and got the eaves and detail bits with a sprayer and... I'm a huge fan of sprayers.
posted by straw at 11:41 AM on May 6, 2021 [4 favorites]

The two most important benefits of spray painting exterior stucco are that it dries fast, and you get pretty even coverage with two coats. Extra points if coat one is a tinted primer. The other advantage is that spraying doesn't take it out of you physically like brush and roller painting, and you're much more likely to get the whole job done in one go.

Straw is right on with the advice to rent the airless sprayer. You'll get professional level equipment for a daily rental price. You can rent a pressure washer while you're there, too.
posted by halfbuckaroo at 11:46 AM on May 6, 2021

I thought sprayers use a lot more paint.
posted by atchafalaya at 11:54 AM on May 6, 2021

I just repainted the interior of my 1200sqft house with a handheld Wagner. I wish I had spent the money on the Grayco...but ABSOLUTELY rent that sprayer. The finish will look professional and it *might* take you a day if you get all of your prep done beforehand.
posted by sara is disenchanted at 11:57 AM on May 6, 2021

I used that exact Graco sprayer to paint the exterior of my 1400sqft house. You occasionally have to play around with the logic of how it siphons. Other than that, it went great. Never clogged on thick exterior paint or anything.

I previously used a hand-held Wagner sprayer to do the interiors of that house and I think I basically completely failed. It mostly just made a mess of overspray droplets. (I still use the finer sprayer head in woodworking. It's great for painting furniture.) But I went and bought that Graco for the bigger job outside. If I repaint indoors, I'll use it there, too.
posted by Snijglau at 1:12 PM on May 6, 2021

Home Depot or such should be able to let you rent a sprayer, and their pro shop can give you recommendations on the sprayer and paint for free (all to sell you the paint, of course)
posted by kschang at 1:50 PM on May 6, 2021

Yes, use a sprayer. I have stucco too and last fall painted using a 3/4” nap roller and still had to make multiple passes and apply enough pressure that it was very tiring, very quickly. It would have been much more difficult on a ladder.
posted by mezzanayne at 2:43 PM on May 6, 2021 [1 favorite]

Rented a sprayer to paint my 1100 square foot house - highly recommend - higher end sprayer then I would have bought and it's not something one uses often. We also rented scaffolding since our house is built into the side of a hill - made it SO much easier.
posted by leslies at 3:54 PM on May 6, 2021

Use airless sprayers at work. You can thin most paints up to 10%; easier flow, less pressure needed to atomize the media.

There will be a lot of overspray, this intrigues for cutting me but my boss laughs at it. So keep in mind where you want the paint to land.

The atomization will throw up clouds of paint, you may not see it but it's there, wear a particle filter at the very least, perhaps warn neighbors? atomized paint is like colored dust.
posted by Max Power at 5:00 PM on May 6, 2021

If you're only familiar with indoor brush/roller-painting, then spray-painting outside is a completely different painting-concept. You'll spend some time taping off windows and doors, and covering plants, and fiddling with the machines, and then hoping for the wind to die down. If it all comes together, great!
posted by ovvl at 7:28 PM on May 6, 2021