how to spray a new build house

I thought I’d write a blog to help out those that are new to spraying and unsure where to start when it comes to spraying a new build house. Now what you have to remember, everyone does things differently with different methods, so don’t think this is how you HAVE to do it, but feel free to use this as a guide and change things to how suits you.

This is the most effective way for me to spray a new build house after 15 years spraying. I mostly use a Graco GXFF for new build houses due to the versatility. There’s loads of other information on the Decorators Forum UK

The builders I work for usually have me in to mist coat the property before second fixing. Firstly I tape off all the windows or anything else not to be sprayed, I use pink Tesa around the outsides after cleaning any plaster off with some UltraGrime wipes or similar, I then apply tape and drape onto the Tesa & general masking tape (This is because a lot of the tape on the tape and drape is quite aggressive. The pink Tesa not only stops bleed, but good for sensitive powder coated windows).

A lot of decorators mist coat everything in white, even when the plaster is going a colour, but I see that as a needless coat (but that’s another debate). Firstly I water down the wall colour by about 30-40% and spray the mist coat onto the walls, not bringing it quite up onto the ceiling (will explain later) with a 517 tip. I do this by passing firstly vertically without overlapping the passes (some people overlap each pass by 50%) then after coating all the walls I do a second coat horizontally. To give you an idea on speed, I can mist coat a large 4 bed house, 2 coats, around 2000m2 in 2/3 hours.

Then I clean through the machine ready for white on the ceiling. I water the paint down by 30%. My preferred ‘go to’ white is MacPherson Eclipse, this is because its cheap, bright white, doesn’t flash and has good opacity. I follow the same spraying method as the walls, but going slightly onto the top of the walls. This is why I don’t go right up to the top with the walls, or else the 4 coats of paint where they overlapped takes ages to dry.

Now for me, I always do any my coat on walls and ceilings by brush and roller, because a spray finish is so perfect it cannot be touched up and it shows up every tiny imperfections.

The next day the walls and ceilings dry back absolutely solid, almost like they don’t need another… (except for the lack of prep). Firstly I go around the ceiling and cutting in line and rub down/fill any imperfections, then touch them up (the spray finish doesn’t flood a lot of imperfections/corners like a brush would), Then I roller the final coat on ceilings. I then brush in the window reveals, flooding the joint from reveal to the pink Tesa, once dry remove the window masking. After this I don’t return until the building is second fixed.

Depending on if the doors are to be painted or are pre finished, I get the builder (or my chippy mate) to remove all the doors and either store them in the smallest room of the house (make sure you mark them) or set them up in a zig zag set up held together with timber at the tops in the biggest room/rooms. I then prep all the woodwork, knot, fill, rub down & caulk and hoover out the rooms. Then tape up windows and reveals above window sill. I then use a 210fflp tip to spay on an acrylic primer undercoat to all the woodwork. Again, to give you and example of speed, I can spray all of the woodwork in a 4 bed house in an hour per coat.

I then start the second prep, I fill anything I may of missed and also rub down and fill walls, then after sanding down woodwork I go round and touch up any part of the woodwork that didn’t get flooded with spraying like it would with a brush. Followed by hoovering out again. Then I spray the final 2 coats on the woodwork (I usually use Dulux Diamond or Armstead QD which are both nice to spray).

I leave the woodwork overnight to dry. The next day I run some pink Tesa over the tops of the skirting boards and edges of door frames then loosen any switches/sockets (if they are fitted) and pop a bit of pink Tesa on the top to protect from overspray. At this stage there is overspray on the walls from the woodwork and ceiling, so I go through the whole building cutting the tops and bottoms over the overspray (this is quick as you can just dosh in the bottoms as they are taped) and spot in any filler or rubbed down spots on walls. By the time you have gone through the building where you started is ready to go again. Then go through putting final full coats on the walls.

Once done there’s nothing more satisfying then removing the tape, revealing crisp bang on lines on a finished room. By this method, I would personally say it speeds up the process of decorating a new build house by at least 60% compared by brush and roller alone.

I hoped this has helped anyone that is either looking to, or already does spray new builds to see someone’s complete run down from start to finish.

Thanks for reading

How to Spray a New Build House – Written by a Decorator

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