"Wagner QuickTouch Power Roller Pro - User Review"

By Ron Stultz

11 September 2005

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.