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I am doing a lot of painting lately in occupied houses(warranty work for a builder) and am having a hell of a time cleaning up.No,not the floor but my equipment (just brushes & pans).
In the good old days a homeowner knew if you painted his house he was going to have a little splash of paint in the back corner of his yard. Next time he mowed,it would be gone.
The homeowners I am dealing with won’t even let you use the freakin’ faucet outside to wash your hands without bitching.
How do you guys load up a bunch of paint covered stuff into your truck for off-site cleaning without making a huge mess? Or cleaning between coats,etc. how do you contain the mess?
Replies
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For your hands... Baby wipes. Goop or Gojo, and paper towels if needed.
For your tools, Make hangers for them, so they dangle into a 5 gallon bucket that has paint thinner in it, if oil-based paint, and water instead, if it's latex.
Clean them up really well when you get home or back to the shop.
*Wow! Tough customers. I have never met a person who would not let me use their bathroom to take a leak. I wash my hands there. As far as the brushes and pans go I'm too lazy to make a hanger so I use plastic grocery store bags for the rollers and pans. The brushes I wrap in foil. I clean them at home exclusively.
*Painters are naturally the last guys on the job. After I've got all my fancy sinks, etc., in and all looking pretty, the last thing I want is for the painters to mess things up (cause somebody's got to clean it, and it ends up being me).I've gotten the painters I use trained to clean, and I mean really clean, at the end of the day. The homeowner fear is that all that nasty paint, thinner, etc. makes this big mess in their nice new, clean, fancy house and the painter walks away. When doing call backs, I make them wear those silly little shoe cover, put drop cloths down along the places they walk, and show the customer that we care about keeping their house clean as much as they do.Walk into the house with sink cleaning materials, from soft scrub to zud, and show them that the sink will be cleaner when you leave then when you came. They'll let you do anything as long as you make their life easier.SHG
*Hyde makes a spinning tool for cleaning brushes ....lower the brush inside a five gal. pail .....outside of course. Some old jugs and a funnel for waste thinner and five gal. pails w/ lids for soapy water. Keep some Gojo for my hands. I've had jobs where there was no running water (barns, cottages etc). Ditto SHG's comments.
*Drop the bathroom. Get two fives. Fill from the bathtub. Rinse in one. Spin out in the other. Dump the dirty water in the toilet. Matt
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I am doing a lot of painting lately in occupied houses(warranty work for a builder) and am having a hell of a time cleaning up.No,not the floor but my equipment (just brushes & pans).
In the good old days a homeowner knew if you painted his house he was going to have a little splash of paint in the back corner of his yard. Next time he mowed,it would be gone.
The homeowners I am dealing with won't even let you use the freakin' faucet outside to wash your hands without bitching.
How do you guys load up a bunch of paint covered stuff into your truck for off-site cleaning without making a huge mess? Or cleaning between coats,etc. how do you contain the mess?