Home Improvement Painting Exterior Painting

Painting a House With a Sprayer vs Brush and Roller

A man painting house eaves

John Lund / Sam Diephuis / Getty Images

Should you spray or roller and hand-brush your home's next exterior paint? It's not a common question since paint sprayers are far more available than ever before. Commercial-grade high-velocity paint sprayers can be rented for $400 to $600 per week. Lower velocity consumer-grade sprayers can be purchased for about half of that amount.

If hand-painting a house seems incredibly time-consuming and laborious compared to paint spraying, this isn't necessarily so. The brush-and-roller technique is favored by many painters for its simplicity, cleanliness, and economy. At the same time, once a house has been extensively prepped for paint spraying, the process goes quickly. Which is best for your project?

Paint Sprayer
  • Slow start

  • Faster

  • Thin coverage

  • Extended reach

  • Much prep work

  • Much wasted paint

  • More difficult for details

Brush and Roller
  • Quick start

  • Slower

  • Thick coverage

  • Hard to reach some areas

  • Less prep work

  • Almost no wasted paint

  • Good for details

Painting a House With a Paint Sprayer

Using a paint sprayer for your home's exterior means that you can cover more areas faster, but only after the prep work is done.

Prep work for paint spraying a house exterior means masking obstructions like utilities (wires, pipes, gas meters), architectural details that will be painted a different color, plants, driveways, sidewalks, and anything else that will not be painted.

Once you have everything masked and taped-up, spraying is faster than brushing. One person can paint spray a small home in one day. More coats take another couple of days.

Tip

Sprayers can extend your reach by another couple of feet when you have high or out-of-the-way areas like eaves or gables.

Paint spraying a house each day is an all-encompassing project. You don't move between paint spraying and other projects around the house. You're committed to the full cycle of painting: prepping, painting, and cleaning up. Always budget time at the end of the day to flush out the paint sprayer and all lines.

Difficult architectural work and textures are easy to cover with a paint sprayer. A light touch is required to avoid pooling the paint in deeply incised ornamentation.

Weather can interfere. As with any painting project, be aware of upcoming rain since it can ruin your coverage work. More critical is wind. Light breezes make paint spraying more difficult. In high winds, paint spraying is nearly impossible.

Painting a House With a Brush and Roller

Using a paintbrush and roller to paint your house lets you get started faster each day. You don't have so many tools and materials that need to be brought out and set up. You can stage tools and materials on a porch or even inside of the front door on top of a dropcloth.

Often, you can break up the painting into several smaller projects throughout the day. On weekends or on weekdays when you're home, you can intersperse hand-painting the exterior with other activities. Tightly wrap up the brush or roller in plastic and reuse it for each mini-session.

Tip

When painting a house with a brush, you barely need to suit up. Old clothes and a hat are always recommended, but nothing like the full suit, hood, and goggles needed for paint spraying.

Less covering and masking is required. Spraying requires a wide buffer of plastic sheeting or dropcloth. Brushing and rolling only need a long, narrow painter's dropcloth directly below the paint area. Careful painters may dispense with the dropcloth.

Tip

Brushing and rolling let you pay more attention to the details. If there is a problem with the siding that needs fixing, you'll often see it better than with paint spraying.

Brushing and rolling conserve paint. The paint goes on thicker when brushing, yet it uses less paint. Unlike paint sprayer, no paint is lost to the air. Some water evaporation may occur, but water-based latex paint can be thinned out with more water.

Brushing and rolling are more physically demanding than spraying. You'll need to be able to reach all areas of the house exterior, even the highest spots. On an extension ladder, this can be tricky since ladder safety requires that you never reach so far that your body leaves the centerline with the ladder.

Spray painting home
 Feverpitched / Getty Images

How Much Paint to Use

Spraying Paint

One gallon of paint will cover about 150 to 200 square feet of wall. It's best to estimate high when spraying on paint.

Spraying uses more paint because the sprayer atomizes the paint into tiny droplets. Most of the droplets end up on the surface, but many others drift away. This is inherent with paint spraying, and little can be done to control it. 

Also, any paint left in the hose must be blown out. Some of the paint can be saved, but much of it goes to waste.

Brushing and Rolling Paint

One gallon of exterior acrylic-latex on a clean, painted or primed surface–a minimum of porosity–is estimated by manufacturers to cover about 400 square feet. Dripping and laying on the paint too thick are factors that will lower this estimate.

In general, you will use up to three times more paint by spraying than by brushing–plus, you risk getting a thinner coat.

How to Conserve Paint When Spraying

Avoid Wind

Even a mild, 5 mph wind is enough to blow away sprayed paint. Very windy days can increase your paint consumption by as much as 25-percent. So, for every four gallons sprayed in windy conditions, you may lose close to one gallon to the wind.

Recycle Paint

When finished at the end of the day, do not clear the paint into the air or onto the ground. Instead, pump the paint remaining in the hose back into the container instead of disposing of it. Paint remaining in even 25 feet of the hose can add up. Plus, conserving the paint is more eco-friendly.

Stand Close to Surface

The farther away from the surface you are, the more paint drifts away as a cloud. Standing closer to the surface reduces this paint cloud. 

But be careful. Spraying closer means a greater chance of drips. Also, you get more blow-back from the sprayer, which means suiting up with a paint sock over your head, coveralls, respirator, and tight goggles.