Line Stripers

A line striper is an airless unit mounted on a wheeled trolley, with the gun held on an arm 5–15 cm above the surface and a sight guide for steering. It reproduces a band of constant width, usually 5–30 cm, over hundreds of metres. A wall sprayer is hand-held and covers surfaces at 100–400 m² per hour. The pump differs too: a striper works with abrasive road paints and glass beads, and carries a tank of roughly 20–100 litres.

Road marking uses thin-layer road paints: solvent-borne on asphalt, water-based acrylics on car parks and sports surfaces, epoxy on concrete floors indoors. Consumption falls roughly in the range of 0.5–0.9 kg per square metre of coating, which for a 12 cm line works out at about 0.06–0.11 kg per running metre. Outlining one 2.5 × 5.0 m parking bay with a 10–12 cm line takes on the order of 1–1.5 kg of paint. Retroreflective markings additionally need glass beads dropped onto the wet film.

Line width is set by the tip size and the gun height above the surface, typically landing between 5 and 30 cm. Centre and edge lines are normally 12 cm, parking bays 10–12 cm, indoor traffic aisles 5–10 cm. Straightness comes from three things: snapping the route with a chalk line, setting the sight guide, and holding an even pace of roughly 4–5 km/h. Changes in walking speed change film thickness, which is why self-propelled models give a more repeatable result than push-along ones.

Owning a machine pays off wherever markings are refreshed on a cycle: retail car parks and industrial floors usually come round every 1–3 years, and under heavy vehicle traffic every season. The volume is easy to count: outlining one 2.5 × 5.0 m bay takes about 15 m of line, so a 100-space car park means roughly 1,200–1,500 running metres per refresh. Your own equipment also removes any dependency on a subcontractor's schedule and lets you touch up single bays without calling out a crew. For a one-off layout of a dozen or so spaces, hiring the job out is usually cheaper.