Cleaning water based paint off paint brushes

[amalthia]

Hello everyone,

I'm seeing mixed messages online about how to clean your paint brushes. Some people say use buckets and other articles say if it's water based paint and on city water line you can rinse in sinks. I'm also finding a lot of youtube videos of painters washing their paint brushes in sinks. Even home depot instructions show someone rinsing the brush in a sink under running water.

I sadly didn't look at this topic until after I'd already washed my 2 inch paint brush in kitchen sink. Otherwise, I would have just tossed the brush in the trash and moved on with my life already.

I think my plumbing should be okay because the paint I used was water based, I used warm water and dish liquid soap, and I don't think I had that much paint on the brush. I also only ended up rinsing this brush one time.

It seems weird that rinsing brushes in sinks would clog drains. If that was the case how are artists cleaning their brushes? I have a hard time imagining them be rinsing all of their brushes off with buckets of water and waiting for the water to evaporate before they throw away the paint pieces that fell to the bottom.

Also, how are professional painters handling their brushes? Based off youtube videos they are rinsing the water based paint off into sinks. Not sure if that's a good idea or not, but I think they'd lose a lot of money if they had to throw away their brushes every day instead of cleaning them for use.

Home renovations are hard. With every step I'm discovering more things I don't know, worse I don't even know I need to know something before it's too late. I'm just glad I had used paper towels to clean the worst off my tools when I fixed the grout holes in my shower. Basically, you do not want to rinse grout down sinks either, or caulk. I did end up rinsing some of this stuff down the sink because it was on my hands but I tried my best.

Comments

[lilacsigil]

Washing the brushes in sinks will *eventually* clog drains, not straight away! A few times (or very small amounts like artists are using) is not really an issue with normal pipes. You can clean your brush under the tap outside if it's water based, or here it's recommended to do what you say - rinse off, wait for water to evaporate or soak with kitty litter or newspaper, wrap up and throw out remaining paint.

[amalthia]

I think you're right. Going forward if I have to paint something I'll have a plan in place so as little paint as possible ends up in my sink. :)

[garryowen]

Oh, man, I never thought of that, but it makes sense. I have no answers for you.

[amalthia]

Yeah, wish there was a more clear cut answer too! But in the meantime I think I'll stick with throwing away rollers and paint brushes, rather than risk the paint clogging up drains.

[grey853]

Artist's acrylic is such a small amount, it shouldn't matter. Acrylic from wall painting might overwhelm your system and the brush should be tossed or washed outside or in a bucket where the water can be disposed elsewhere.

Also, never ever wash off any oil-based product in your sink. Even small amounts can be a problem since solvents need to be used to dissolve deposits that might collect.

Yeah, home reno is hard on every level.

[amalthia]

Yeah, I wasn't expecting installing new bathroom vanities to dovetail into "home reno" type work! Again, that's on me. I should have done better and more thorough measurements. I forgot the door frame to drawers and that snowballed into so much more work as a result.

We also went with a contractor found through Home Depot. In hindsight, we should have have looked at the Better Business Bureau website first and found someone rated to help us with the installation of our cabinets. I think a better contractor would have saw we missed that measurement and double checked that we wanted to go ahead with installing the vanity, or take it back and get another one that fit better. I would have taken it back and gone with another similar vanity without drawers.