As part of a remodel, my general contractor contracted some painters to paint a room. Two cans of paint and one can of primer were left over from the project. Every single one of those cans had a small 4-inch trim roller cover floating in it.
Is it a common practice to put a roller cover in a can of paint for storage? If so, why? I cannot fathom the benefit of this practice.
I do that.
My reason is to keep the roller functional, so it does not dry up while soaked in the paint.
I used to wash the rollers, wasting a lot of water and they still were contaminated and dried up becoming useless.
As a contractor washing roller sleeves is a tricky task as the ruin-off stains and there are environmental laws etc.
The sleeves are not harmed by immersion in paint and no water or paint is wasted or lost to wash the cover.
After a day or a week it's convenient if you need to touch up the paint, after a year not so much.
We did not put out 18" rollers in the paint can.
but we did seal them in bags with a drop of thinners to keep them ready for the next day.
That way they would last a couple of days - given the cost and the meters square we were covering it was a considerable cost saving - even our boss was impressed :) He had already worked out a guestimate of how many roller needed for the job (a paper mill roof).
