This time of year is ideal to carry out painting and decorating in your home as the daylight hours are longer and the weather warmer which helps to increase your working time and decrease the drying time. It is important though to clean your brushes once you have finished painting, to prolong the life span of your paint brushes. Check out our top tips on how to clean your paintbrushes.

Chemical Makeup

It is important to determine the base material of your paint in order to effectively remove any residue from the brush. If a water-based paint is being removed, then you can clean the bristles using warm water. If on the other hand an oil-based paint has been applied, your brush would need to be soaked in a suitable cleaner such as turpentine, in order for the paint to be removed.

Clean the Brush

Try and work the majority of the paint off the brush by cleaning the bristles in the relevant cleaning solution, but be sure to soak your brush following this step to ensure any stubborn sections of paint are dislodged. Once you have soaked your brushes you can then repeat the first step to check that there is no paint remaining. Your paint brush can then be left to air dry before being packed away.

Reuse

If a chemical cleaner has been used to remove oil-based paint from your brushes, then don’t pour the remnants of the solution down the drain, rather reuse the solution by pouring it back into the bottle until you need it for cleaning your brushes again!

We hope this guide has proved a useful insight into how to prolong the life of your paintbrushes. For more useful DIY tips, why not check out our earlier blogs 8 Tips on Painting Like a Professional and 8 Tips for Painting a Garden Fence.