This is not to give a lot of how-to about airless, but just how I do a few things with it. I built new houses for 33 years, doing all the work myself, including painting. There are often threads here about how to spray latex using something besides airless. I won't get into those, but airless will spray any of it right out of the can without thinning.
Not thinning makes it Much easier to spray vertical surfaces without running, and house paint is designed to be used best without thinning.
Today was mid 50's and Sunny, so I set up to spray the last of some bathroom cabinet parts in a rental house we have.
No excuses for the way my pump setup looks. I bought it sometime in the mid '90's, and it's sprayed some number of hundreds of gallons. With today's better guns, and Low Pressure Fine Finish tips that can be used by those guns, you don't need a great pump. I've never done anything with this old pump but run water though it to clean it, change the filter every few years, and the filter in the gun when I think about it.
The plastic box it's in came from Home Depot, and is about perfect for this pump, and all the stuff that goes with it. The little trashcan is to for water to run through the gun when it's time to clean it. I can also drop the gun in it to leave until tomorrow, or the next day whenever, and how many ever more coats are needed. There is a sheet that gets draped over the whole box when I'm spraying a ceiling over it, but you can see that's been forgotten more than a few times.
The box also carries a bottle of pump oil, a bottle of Pump Armor, and a plastic jar with all the different tips. There are also a couple of extensions in there. Longer extensions are the only things that get used that are not in the box.
The one low side is high enough to keep everything in it, but low enough to allow the pickup tube to be swung out and placed into a gallon of paint, or five gallon bucket. The pumps with wheels are more for someone in the painting business who drags it around a lot. Mine gets used a few days a year, so this take up less room.
When I clean the rig out, all I do is put clear water in the little trashcan, put the pickup in it, and run enough through it until it's running clear water. The water does need to be changed a couple of times, and there is a lever that lets it pump only through the pump some too.
After I'm finished painting, I run what's in the rig back into the can by pushing it with water in the little trashcan. I reverse the tip so it doesn't fan all out, and turn the pressure down so it doesn't make a mess splashing back out. When I see a little water coming out back into the paint can, I stop that, and then continue to spray clear water through it with the tip reversed.
When the tip is reversed, it just shoots out a single stream. If I have room, like today, with a grassy area nearby, I'll run that cleaning water out on the grass, spreading it out as much as possible until it's running clear. After it dries, one pass with the mower makes it dissapear.
If I'm spraying in a city, with not enough room to do that, it does down a sink. A small towel gets held over the gun and drain so none comes out. I let hot water fun when I do that.
After clear water has run through some, I put the pickup in the bottle of Pump Armor, and run that until blue comes out the spray tip. When I start a new spraying job, I run it back in the bottle, pushing it with the paint. It can be reused several times. https://www.amazon.com/Graco-Inc-243...s%2C113&sr=8-3
That, and adding pump oil may be why this old pump is still kicking.
If you spray house paint to amount to anything, I suggest getting a cheap pump, and a good gun. A gauge where the hose screws to the pump will save you a lot of testing. I use a Titan gauge on this Graco pump that has a green zone on the dial. Put the pressure in that green zone with a LPFF tip, and you're good to go.
The hose that comes with the pump will probably be longer than you need most of the time. I suggest getting an additional 1/4x15 or 25 foot hose so cleanup will go much faster. They make 3/16 hoses now, but I've never tried one, so can offer no advice on that.
If you want to learn more about airless spraying, find the Idaho Painter on youtube.