painting
Clearly a paint sprayer cannot be beaten on a very large wall in an empty room when the ceiling is being painted the same as the wall.
Likewise in small rooms with carpets and furniture plus lots of windows the time take to mask everything is a lot greater than the time to paint with a paint brush (or roller).
I have never used a paint sprayer, what size area do I need to make it worthwhile?
Sounds reasonable to out-source it, but you will still need to do a final coat on the casing after you install (door should be fine if you are careful).
To "do it right", you need to fill the nail holes and corner joints and sand, and then run a bead of painters caulk around the casing to make the cracks disappear, then paint again.
I just did the caulk on the inside (casing-to-jamb) not the outside (casing-to-wall), and didn't paint very far onto the side of the casing where it hits the wall. This way, you get a nice sharp line at the wall without a lot of hassle.
First off, I'm no expert on compressor/air type sprayers. Most of the time, these type sprayers are used for very thin paints such as automotive, lacquers etc. They also have fairly small paint reservoirs attached to the gun itself. They tend to put out a lot of over spray and should be used in a controlled area like a spray booth with proper ventilation. I never see this type of sprayer on building jobs.
The airless sprayer, such as the one you noted, use a high pressure pump to push paint through the hose to the gun. They deliver a good pattern (depending on tip selected), are easily controlled and since they don't mix air with the product, have far less atomazation of paint in the air. the other huge advantage is that the pick-up hose can be put directly into your 1 or 5 gallon can of paint. Follow the directions on priming and cleaning, but it is easy. I personally have a Graco model 17 and love it. It is a professional grade sprayer and retails around $450-$500. Just two weeks ago, I and a helper painted and back-rolled a complete two story house and detached garage in one day.(very long day, however!) This saved 3 or 4 extra days of labor and the results were fantastic. We shot both semi-trans stain on the house and matching color solid stain on the garage. This sprayer handled both products easily. (I always use apx 10 to 15% flowtrol with thicker solid latex based products)
The only disadvantage of this type of sprayer is on very small jobs. It takes about a pint or more of paint to fill a 25 foot hose and closer to 1/2 gallon for a 50 ft hose when priming the unit. This amount product is usually wasted at the end of the job when you get ready to clean the pump.
From the type of jobs you plan to do, I would recommend the airless sprayer hands down.
Best Answer
There's no hard-and-fast rule. It's merely a break-even point where the extra preparation and cleanup time exceeds the time saved by the device. And of course the more skilled you are, the less your prep and cleanup time are.
For someone who has never used one, I'd guess that the break-even point is something like this: If you're painting entire rooms, including the ceilings, then use a sprayer to paint all the ceilings at once, with no need to worry about overspray at the edges. Then brush/roll the walls.
If you're just painting the walls, just brush/roll them. Rolling is really pretty fast.
If you're painting the exterior of a house, use a sprayer to do the field (The siding or brick or whatever makes up the bulk of the house) then brush paint the trim.