Make Sure Your Sprayer Is Ready Before The Job

As a service center we regularly receive panicked visits from customers who show up on a job and their sprayer doesn’t work or sometimes is loaded with dry paint.

The customer then must suffer a rush fee to get their pump going because there are 40 sprayers in line ahead of them.

I often advise that they must treat their sprayer like a race car. After the race there is a procedure to inspect and repair anything needing attention and well before the next race it is started up and taken for a few laps to make sure everything is fine and ready.

It is similar with spray equipment. The preparation for our next job starts with the clean-out and inspection after your last job. If you know your service center takes about a week or so to fix your equipment, then you should test it with water or solvent two weeks before your job just to make sure nothing happened during storage.

This involves establishing a good prime, making sure the piston stops on both strokes and making sure the hose isn’t clogged and the gun doesn’t’ leak.

This is a good time to test the tips you plan on using to make sure they don’t leak by the seal and have a good fan. If you’re not the person who cleaned out the filters when you put the sprayer away, then they should be inspected as well.

It’s also a good idea to consider how many gallons are on your current packings. If you haven’t repacked your sprayer in the last 5 jobs and you’re going into a 1000 gallon project, it might be a good idea to install a fresh set of packings or bring a spare fluid section with you to avoid downtime or damage from having to run a leaking pump just to finish a job.

Remember a set of packings may be $100.00 but a damaged piston rod is $300 plus the new set of packings and Labor.

These little procedures will reduce the stress of uncertainty and the probability of delays caused by equipment problems. There are countless things that can go wrong on a job site, don’t let a sprayer not spraying be one of them.

For further information give me a call at 1-800-400-5084