Skip Washing Your Roller: Load It With Paint and Bag It

The Problem

Washing a roller cover between sessions takes a surprising amount of time and a tremendous amount of water — and scraping the nap over and over with a 5-in-1 tool damages it, so the "clean" cover sheds fuzzballs into your next coat. That painty rinse water isn't anything you want going into a septic system either.

The Technique

Don't clean the cover between sessions — keep it wet instead:

1. When you stop for the day, load the nap with as much paint as it will hold. The wetter it goes into the bag, the longer it lasts.
2. Knock the cover off the cage — a rap against your painting stick pops it loose — and drop it straight into a one-gallon zip-top bag. Seal it.
3. Next session, slide the cover back onto the cage and start rolling. It's already loaded.

Keep one cover going per color for the whole job, then throw it out and start fresh on the next one. Covers aren't expensive; your time and your finish are worth more than the sleeve.

A heavily loaded, well-sealed cover keeps for a month or more. One that went in too dry, or in a bag with a hole, can go bad in a week or two — a dry spot in the nap ruins it.