Just had a close call with a cheap paint sprayer in my basement

I was finishing a built-in bookcase project down there last night, and my new sprayer started making a weird hissing sound. I ignored it for about 30 seconds, and then the whole thing just started spraying paint everywhere except on the wood! It was a huge mess on the concrete floor and my tools. I had to unplug it fast and spend over an hour cleaning up. The sprayer was only $40, and I guess you get what you pay for. Has anyone found a good, affordable sprayer that won't fail mid-project?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_max22d ago

Man that sounds like a total nightmare, sorry you had to deal with that cleanup. When it started hissing, was it more of a constant air leak sound or like a sputtering, gurgling kind of noise? I've had cheap ones where the seal goes bad and it just whines, but a gurgle usually means something's clogged in the fluid line right before it blows.

ryanm6022d agoTop Commenter

So it was more of a sputter then a hiss? Mine did that exact thing last year. I shut the water off at the valve behind the toilet right away. The fill valve had a piece of junk stuck in it, like a tiny bit of grit. I took the whole top part off, rinsed it out in the sink, and put it back together. It worked fine after that and saved me buying a new one.

ben_lewis22d ago

Nah, I gotta disagree with that last part. A gurgle doesn't always mean a clog right before a blowout. In my experience, that sputtering sound is almost always the flapper not sealing right. Water keeps trickling down into the bowl and the fill valve is just trying to keep up, making that awful noise. It's the first thing I check before I even touch the supply line.