So the good folks at Wagner were kind enough to send me one of their new Wagner Power Paint Plus sprayers to review a few weeks ago. I’ve used a sprayer in the past, but didn’t have one of my own until Wagner sent this one along. The Power Painter Plus is one of their new line of handheld EZ Tilt Power Sprayers which will work even when tilted up or down in most cases. I’m normally a paint roller guy and I even used a roller to paint my own house, but after using this Wagner power sprayer for just a few minutes I have to admit that I’m quite impressed.
Wagner Power Painter Plus with EZ Tilt Features
Here are the official features from Wagner’s own website:
- Model: 025001
- Name: Power Painter Plus with EZ Tilt
- EZ Tilt Flexible suction tube – Spray at any angle
- Tungsten carbide Optimus Dual Tip Technology for even coverage, less over spray and more control
- 1 quart cup twist lock cup
- 6.6 GPH (gallons per hour)
- Spare atomizer valve
- Paint can lid with pour spout
- Adjustable spray guard for vertical or horizontal spraying
- Manual material selector
- Includes cleaning brushes
What You Get In The Box
Let’s first talk about what you can expect to find when you first open the box. Like most power paint sprayers this one comes with copious instructions, warnings and helpful cardboard inserts. You’ll find a few miscellaneous cleaning tools and parts and then you’ll remove the sprayer itself which is already assembled and practically ready to use right out of the box.
Here’s a full list of everything you get:
- Quick Start Guide
- Sprayer Manual
- Paint Can Attachment (for attaching an optional hose and for cleaner pouring)
- Cleaning Brushes
- Extra Atomizer Valve
- The Sprayer Gun
- 1 Quart Paint Cup/Storage Tank
And here’s a quick video of the total Wagner Power Paint Plus sprayer unboxing:
Using the Wagner Power Paint Plus Sprayer
Seriously, this is one easy paint sprayer to use. You can quite literally remove the sprayer from the box and be ready to use it in about two minutes. You just need to fill the reservoir with the latex, oil or stain covering you want to use and then plug it in. You can adjust the sprayer for paint or stain and you can turn the front guard for vertical or horizontal spraying. That’s it, you’re done! You simply need to pull the trigger and go.
If you’ve used a sprayer before you may be familiar with the concept of “thinning” paint to make sure it works well with the sprayer. I purposely didn’t thin my latex to test this Wagner EZ Tilt Sprayer and it seemed to work pretty well. I got an occasional blip of paint at the beginning but it was smooth and even the whole time I was using the sprayer until I ran out of paint. That being said, if you have never used a paint sprayer before you may want to go through the manual once or twice, though the Quick Start guide was pretty well-written and included everything you really need to be successful. Especially appreciated was the helpful graphic that explained the right and wrong way to use a paint sprayer.
The entire sprayer seems to be built well from the metal valves and parts to the solid plastic housing and pieces. Though it’s an affordable consumer-level sprayer it definitely doesn’t feel cheap or flimsy. This is one solid sprayer that does a pretty good job of spraying paint evenly and smoothly with very little effort.
To spray properly you want to hold the sprayer even and move your entire arm back and forth (or up and down if you’re painting vertically) in parallel with the surface you’re paining. You do not want to twist your wrist or arch your arm or hit any part of your surface at a different angle than the rest of your painting. That being said, the Wagner Power Paint Plus is designed to be held at different angles without sputtering (a common problem with some paint sprayers) and my limited testing showed that it did work pretty well at almost any reasonable incline level. This would make painting a house or porch a snap.
After filling the reservoir tank you just press and hold the trigger for about 10 seconds while it pulls the paint up and builds up a suction flow. Once started the liquid sprays out fast and quickly, so be ready to move. This sprayer puts out a lot of paint at once so if you follow the general rule of painting paths with a 50% overlap of the previous path of paint you probably won’t need more than one coat.
The sprayer is not much louder or quieter than any other electric paint sprayer I’ve used. When painting outside you probably don’t need earplugs, but if you’re using this thing in an empty room you may want to consider them. Some reviewers have complained about it being heavy, but I didn’t think it was any heavier than it should be. There is some slight vibration, but it was pretty easy to operate and move around, though people with small hands or weak arms might find that is fair bit of work holding and moving the sprayer around for a large paint job.
The reservoir doesn’t hold a lot of paint and the manual estimates it will only last 3 to 5 minutes. This is about what I found as well, and I had to be careful not to let the paint run out while spraying. When that happens (or when air gets in the line) the paint does start to splatter out in globs which required some quick brushing to smooth them out. If the reservoir was much larger then the sprayer would probably be too heavy to use with it. For larger jobs you’re ideally going to want to use a hose and attach it directly to a one gallon paint can.
As with any paint sprayer, it did tend to have a fair bit of over spray, but my my hands, clothing, glasses and even my shoes were completely 100% paint dot-free at the end of my trial, which is pretty impressive. The Wagner Power Paint Plus fires out a pretty wide cone of paint and I’m glad I tested it outdoors where I didn’t need to tape or cover anything with plastic. There’s no real way to adjust the coverage area other than your own arm, so be careful about where you aim it and be mindful of where your paint is going. I painted a door that was propped up outside and it was a breeze to use, though the grass around the door did have a thin layer of paint around it. If I were staining a deck or painting my house again I would definitely use this paint sprayer after I had tape off anything I didn’t want painted or stained.
Video Demonstration of the Wagner Power Paint Plus
Paint Sprayer Cleanup
This is where I’m supposed to tell you clean up was a breeze and I had the whole unit packed up and put away in five minutes. That’s not entirely true, though. Just like any “power” paint tool such as the Wagner TurboRoll Power Paint Roller, the set up process is super easy, but the clean up process still involves a lot of parts and care.
I have yet to use a paint sprayer that didn’t take a fair amount of time to clean up after using. The Wagner EZ Tilt sprayers are no different. Each and every piece has to be disassembled and taken apart for a thorough cleaning with those little brushes that are provided. Depending upon how you count there are about 10 different small valves, hoses, springs and tiny pieces that have to be pulled out and scrubbed thoroughly so that no paint dries and clogs up the system for your next paint job. You really, really want to be sure everything is clean so that it will work well the next time you use it.
I only painted a door (and then a few pieces of scrap wood) with the Wagner Power Painter Plus and I probably ended up using the sprayer for a combined total of about 10 to 15 minutes. Cleaning all the parts for the first time took me a good half hour, though a lot of that was due to me being unfamiliar with all the parts and how they were assembled. Once you get familiar with process I could see the whole cleaning process taking no more than a good 10 minutes or so. The sprayer comes assembled and ready to use right out of the box, so I didn’t spend much time familiarizing myself with the sprayer ahead of time.
Overall, the cleaning of the sprayer parts was all pretty logical and definitely not excessive. The key is remembering which parts break down and to be absolutely sure you scrub out every dot of latex (or stain or oil).
Other than cleaning there is relatively little maintenance required for the Power Painter. You will want to replace the spray atomizer after 7 – 10 gallons of paint have been sprayed through it and you may need to lubricate and eventually replace the piston and spring. You can get these parts from Wagner or from a home improvement store.
Pros of the Wagner Power Painter Plus
- Price – Good value, around the $100 mark. Usually a little cheaper online (See Wagner Power Sprayers At Amazon.com
)
- Ease of use – Easy to fill, just pull the trigger and go.
- Convenient - No air compressor or hoses needed, you just need to plug it into an extension cord.
- Good Coverage – Very smooth and clean coverage with a wide spray cone. Great for painting uneven surfaces (shingles, louvered doors, shutters)
- Easy Setup – No need to thin paint or use special additives (though you could if you wanted)
- Paint At An Angle – I tested painting on a tilt on a piece of scrap wood later and it really did do a pretty good job at at a good 60 degree angle up and down, as long as you’re not low on paint.
- Speed - Sprays out a lot of material very quickly, easily cuts painting time compared to a roller in half. Practically no need for a second coat.
Cons of the Wagner Power Painter Plus
- Uses Lots of Paint – It does cover an area really quickly, but it uses a lot of paint in the process.
- Small Paint Reservoir – Only being able to paint for about 4 minutes between reservoir cup changes could get a little tedious and messy. For any sort of larger job you definitely want to go with a hose attached directly to a paint can.
- No Low Paint Indicator – Along with the small cup not knowing exactly when you’re about to begin sputtering out paint is a bit annoying.
- Reservoir Cup Button Seemed Flaky – I struggled a couple times to get the reservoir cup off (you can see that in the video demonstration) because it requires you to push a button in pretty far and then twist the cup. I’m not sure if it was just me or the mechanism itself, but it seemed to keep sticking. To be sure: having a paint reservoir that doesn’t come off easily is better than having one that falls off on its own!
Wagner Power Paint Plus Sprayer Review
The Wagner Power Paint Plus is a good consumer-level paint sprayer that’s pretty affordable and does what it advertises. It’s easy to use, relatively easy to clean, and sprays paint quickly and evenly with just the push of a button.
I think a key component that’s missing in a lot of the reviews of this paint sprayer (as well as others) is one of expectations versus reality.
Paint sprayers are great tools for larger paint jobs where you want to evenly put on a lot of paint on a large or uneven surface in a short amount of time. The converse is also true: paint sprayers are lousy for small jobs where you only have a few things to paint or stain.
All paint sprayers require a high degree of taping and covering of surfaces (more so than when you use a roller or brush) and all paint sprayers require some basic level of manual skill (again, more than with a roller or brush) and all paint sprayers require a fair amount clean up.
Repeat this after me: “Paint sprayers are not magical tools which automatically paint the surfaces I want to cover without spraying anything on the places I don’t want cover.” All sprayers have over spray, all sprayers make noise and all sprayers require a fair amount of prep work beforehand and clean up afterwards. All paint sprayers, from the $50 throw-away ones to the $900 professional models are designed for larger jobs where a lot of coverage is needed in a short amount of time.
There are also several different levels of handheld sprayers offered by Wagner. I reviewed the “Plus” model which seems to be the mid-range model. There’s also a Power Painter Max and a Power Painter Pro model. They include a lot of extra accessories and niceties such as the remote paint can hose, a low cup level indicator, more electronic controls and a slightly larger paint cup.
If you keep these things in mind, and you’re willing to take some time to learn the subtleties of properly using an electric paint or stain sprayer then you’ll find that this Wagner Power Painter Plus is a handy tool that’s worth using again and again (as long as you clean it really well!).
