Ron Stultz
Summary: Neat, great, when painting with it but cleanup probably eats all time savings using this.
Recently I had to completely repaint the bedroom my son had
lived in for years before heading off to college. With about 1000 pin size or larger holes in the drywall, I first
had to spackle, tape and then paint. Having never done much painting before, I thought the job would be much
easier if I bought a power roller where the paint is pumped out of the can
directly to a roller on a wand. So I
bought the Wagner QuickTouch Power Roller Pro.
Although my comments below come from using the Wagner
QuickTouch, I suspect they are applicable to any power painting system.
Before you buy a power roller paint system consider what I
have learned:
-
The power roller is not hard to set up to begin painting.
-
Although it took me a few minutes to get used to the flow of
paint to the roller, I liked how paint was always available at the roller
without having to roll the roller in some paint tray and after a few minutes, I
was moving right along covering a wall fairly quickly.
-
Once one gallon of paint was gone, I set about changing cans
and found the process a little messy as the tube which sticks into the first
can wanted to drip residual paint all over the place and especially on the
sides of the new opened can.
-
Once I got done with all walls and as I said above, the power
painter did what I expected it to do on flat walls, I set about using another tool,
which came with the painter, which is supposed to allow painting of
corners. But no matter how much I
tried, I could never get this tool to not drip paint everywhere. It was like the flow of paint to the corner
tool was just too strong and I had no way of slowing it down. So in the end, I had to paint all corners by
hand with a brush, which is not a terrible job but wished the power painted
would have worked.
-
Finally, cleanup. Cleanup of a power painter system is a real mess. You have to use an empty paint can and hot
soapy water and run the pump until the water comes out of the wand, clean and I
must have run gallons and gallons of water through the painter before I was
assured the pump was actually clear of paint and would actually pump the next
time I wanted to use the system. I ll
bet I spent at least an hour, maybe longer, just cleaning up the system after
each use and so in the end, between not being able to paint corners with it and
the clean up involved, I am not sure it really saved me any time or reduced the
mess over just using an old roller and paint tray.
I have not sold the Wagner or given it away and I will probably use it if I have the need again, but will probably curse myself when it comes to cleanup time.