A Roller Vs. a Sprayer for Interior Painting

Sprayers

• Homeowners and professional painters often use sprayers to paint large interior walls quickly. Sprayers can also paint small or rough surfaces, such as window frames, with even coats of paint. There are two types of sprayers: airless sprayers and sprayers that atomize the paint finish with air. Both types of sprayers will create an even paint finish because they spray out an atomized mist of paint. However, airless sprayers can be dangerous to use because they are high-pressure sprayers.

Rollers

• Rollers are convenient for amateur and professional painters to use because they come in a variety of sizes. Roller covers are made of materials that range from mohair to lambswool, and each cover creates a different texture on walls or other surfaces. Painters can paint flat surfaces fairly quickly with rollers, but rollers will not fit into corners or paint doors or windowsills evenly. Painters often have to use brushes, instead of rollers, to complete work on small, detailed surfaces.

Time

• Sprayers spread paint more quickly than rollers do because a painter simply has to aim the sprayer at any unpainted surfaces. A painter who uses a roller has to move the roller over the entire wall, a process that can be time-consuming. However, since sprayers will paint any uncovered surfaces, preparing surfaces to paint with a spray requires more time -- the painters have to cover floors, furniture and windows. In contrast, painters who use rollers can simply cover surfaces near the walls that need to be painted.

Expense

• Rollers use less paint than sprayers do since rollers do not waste paint on covered surfaces. Sprayers often coat painted surfaces thickly, so they use more paint. These extra cans of paint can be expensive. Paint sprayers are also expensive to rent or purchase. Painters can pay as much as $100 per day to rent a sprayer or more than $400 to buy one. Thus, purchasing a sprayer is only economical if a painter will use it repeatedly.

Cleaning

• Painters can quickly rinse out roller covers and roller trays or simply dispose of them. Sprayers, however, have to be taken apart after each use and painters must rinse each of the individual parts. Painters also have to rinse sprayers before changing paint colors. In addition, painters must spend extra time removing sheets of plastic or tape from any surfaces that the sprayer did not paint.