Best commercial paint sprayers?

[Birdman]

I run a specialty coatings company in the Raleigh area and we are looking at expanding to epoxy and concrete coatings from just doing powdercoating and spray-on polyurethane industrial coatings.

We have a friend who is looking to get his 7000sqft driveway done with H&C and I figured it is about time to look into a sprayer, there is no way we're rolling 7000sqft!

So, I figure someone here might have some good insight. I need something that will spray the H&C, but also maybe spray an epoxy paint for garage and retail flooring applications. Maybe some other brands if we pick them up later on, since we are just starting out.

Anyone have any advice?

[boiler7904]

With the set up time of epoxies, you'd spend more time tearing down and cleaning the sprayer and lines than applying product.

Every epoxy system I've seen done in a commercial application (5000 sf and up to about 50,000 sf) was rolled or squeegeed by hand. Usually with 18" rollers or 22" squeegees but it was still done by hand. Two or three guys with 18" rollers will cover a lot of ground in an 8 hour day.

As far as prep goes, one of the local applicators uses a modified John Deere lawn tractor that has a giant squeegee where the deck used to be and a tank vacuum set up when he is washing down the floor. Seems to work pretty well. Can't get any pictures since they aren't doing any of our jobs right now.

[Birdman]

Gotcha, thanks for the advice! I'm still doing my research on epoxies, so that is a huge help. :bounce: