Wagner Power Sprayer: Friend or Foe?

One of my birthday presents this year was a Wagner Power Sprayer. It got christened this weekend as I repainted the fence at our house - going from faded redwood to a color actually approved by the HOA (but that's the topic for another blog someday). I haven't used any sort of sprayer before so I was sort of winging it and guessing on how much more/less paint it would use than painting with brush or roller. Nevertheless I had visions of a quick/smooth/effortless painting job.

The sprayer has two modes of operation: a tube attachment that theoretically lets you draw the paint right out of the can, or a smaller container that attaches to the sprayer directly and holds about 1/3 gallon. My first inclination was to save some cleanup time and use the tube attachment, so I tried that for the first half of the job. The biggest problems I found were: 1. The sprayer is now on two "leashes" - the extension cord and the 4 foot tube running to your paint can; this can be pretty awkward depending on the area you're painting. If you're not careful you can actually tip your paint can over with the tube. 2. The plastic clip that is supposed to hold the suction tube (actually separate intake and return tubes) in place in the can is really lame and doesn't work at all. Several times the sprayer ran "dry" because the clip came loose and the intake tube was no longer submerged in paint. A couple houses ago I did a lot of interior painting with Wagner's Paint Stick, which had a plastic cover that completely covered the top of a 1-gallon paint can, except for where the tube ran into the can. This seems like a much better solution. 3. With the tube attached there's not an easy way to set the sprayer down while keeping it upright (e.g. to scramble to grab a can of paint that just tipped over :o).

Problems aside, the first half of the fence got painted in about 5 1/2 hours, including some painting by hand in exposed areas where I was worried about overspray. This was a definite time saver over fence painting with roller/brush, but I was still somewhat frustrated with using the sprayer. Cleanup was pretty fast and easier than I was expecting. Any time that I saved in not having to clean the attached paint container was lost in trying to clean the tube.

Day 2 I ditched the tube attachment and went with the attached container. This made a huge difference in productivity and usability of the sprayer. I found that the container needed changing every 10-12 feet of fencing, which was ok. Problems I noted on day 2 were: 1. The sprayer handle has an extended "foot" that matches the bottom of the attached container, so you can set the combination down without it tipping over. That doesn't help much when you've got the container removed to refill it :(. 2. The instructions seemed to imply that the snap-on handle on the top of the sprayer shouldn't be removed once it was installed...I had it come off several times during the painting session, including a couple times with a full container attached.

The last half of the fence was painted in 4 hours; again this included time painting certain fence sections by hand to avoid overspray. Cleanup again was very straightforward, including cleaning the paint container.

In summary I'd say that I'm very happy with the sprayer and how it helped me finish this job much faster than if I painted with brush/roller. I could see it helping on some interior painting jobs as well, though the current house's vaulted ceilings will probably save me from doing some of them myself.