Bought this, as I'm remodeling a house and had a large area for a single color.First, don't buy this for a single bedroom paint job, where you have standard 8 foot ceilings and smooth walls. It's not really worth it for that when you consider the money and time investment.I used this in a large "great" room, dining room, etc. Some walls had old paint over knockdown walls, some had new knockdown applied. This thing worked really well for my situation. The hardest part is getting it going. You need to work the paint into the roller and that will take a minute or two to get it saturated...but you have to keep rolling on the wall, even if you're not painting anything. Otherwise, you'll get bad drips. I did the vast majority of my work without a drop cloth (laminate and tile, no carpet). Once it's saturated you're good to go. Use 5 second bursts to recharge the roller with paint as it runs low. People who say this thing pumps paint too fast, obviously left the thing running the whole time and are obviously idiots.This helped a lot on the fresh knockdown walls, because it can lay the paint on pretty thick without having to roll it in the pan every other stroke. Knockdown tends to eat up paint pretty quick but I effectively covered all the surfaces in 2 coats (second coat being very quick and light, just to fill in the "holidays" as painters call them). On smooth walls, this thing flies.I used this with 5 gallon and 1 gallon cans with no issues.CLEAN UP TIPS:I got this down to science. - You basically need three 5 gallon buckets (homer pales from HD for $5, if you don't already have a couple) - Helps to be outside at a hose or spigot. - Strip paint from roller, back into paint can, as much as possible. - Fill one buck with water (IF you have access to warm water, great...I didn't) and Dawn dish soap. Stick the feed tube in there, as you would a paint can. - Pull off roller, strip parts, throw in second bucket (IF YOU'RE THROWING AWAY THE ROLLER, DON'T FORGET TO TAKE OUT THE INTERNAL PARTS) - Hang handle roller on empty 3rd bucket (or hang it on something like a fence, etc) - Run the machine. Let the soapy water flow through the machine for a solid 15 minutes (don't put them in the same bucket as suggested in other posts...you're just cycling dirty water back through for no reason) - Use second bucket to wash roller and parts while it runs. (These rollers aren't cheap....try to get a few uses out of them) - Empty bucket #1, rinse and fill with only clean water. - Run machine again and let the plain water run through for another 10 minutes. - Take the handle apart and make sure it gets cleaned well. I like to stick the end of the metal piece right on the end of hose to blast out the little holes of any dried paint. If the latex paint dries and clogs a couple of those holes, you're screwed next time. - Make sure you're only pumping clean, clear water...at that point the internals are as clean as they can get. - Pull the feed hose out of the water and let it run for a minute to pump out any water in the hose. Try to elevate the machine and use gravity to drain the hose. I like to hang it up in the garage to let it dry, with the handle in a bucket to drain. - Clearing the line of excess water is important, otherwise you'll go to use it again and you'll start with very wet paint and get a lot of runs and drips. - I like to re-start it with the roller off and the handle in a bucket. You'll see the paint flow through and push most of the water out first. Let it run in the bucket a little to make sure you're dry and then put roller on. - You WILL waste a little more paint with this set-up than with a traditional roller - be aware of that if you think you're going to be right on the edge of having enough paint.Other tips:Don't get the perforated rollers at HD - they SUCK compared to the Wagner brand rollers on Amazon and are twice the price (in-store, compared to Amazon). UPS showed up while I was rolling with an HD roller....I took it off and started over with a fresh Wagner mid-job.Just remember, you're going to need a solid 30 minutes to clean up. If you decide to let this sit and not clean it properly, you won't get another use out of it.Have some vasoline or grease or oil for the areas where the rollers connects and rotates. You'll notice they come oiled and if they go dry, this thing will squeak and be harder to roll.Yes, this thing gets heavy...surprisingly. I'm a grown man in good shape and it was heavier than expected when full of paint. A GOOD contractors pole will help alleviate some of that, even if you're not going high up. The 2-4' extendable one (solid metal interior...not a cheap broom handle type) work really well...you can control pressure with one hand and movement with the other - splits up the work.I let my teenagers paint the front of the house alone. They didn't want to try a powered roller. They liked pans and buckets. The three of them took 2 weeks at about 30 hours a week each. So call it 180 teenage man hours. I know that sounds crazy. It is a difficult house. It has very deep sofits, very deep wood grain imprint on the hardy plank siding. They also work like union snails. Work for 10 minutes then take a text message break or 2 of them watching the 3rd paint. I could not watch it was painful.I did make them try the sidekick but the 1/2 " standard knap roller cover was not the best for this siding.I was hoping to be done in less than a month so I took over myself.I found a 3/4" nap cover.The second wall was half as long but 2.5 stories instead of the single story first wall. So more area and more difficult due to ladders and scaffold.After all prep I was able to do a great job of priming that whole wall in less than 3 hours. It looked great. I was able to top coat it in about 2 hours. With the deep imprinted siding it was a challenge. I was able to roll it in small sections using a 25 foot extension pole. I had to lay it on pretty thick. Then while it was very wet I back brushed every inch. I did use flood products e-b emulsify additive to the primer. If you have any chalkyness you have to use that product the adhesion is amazing. The finish coat I used Flowtrol to get it to lay down so nice and give me a longer open time to back brush.I have used many painting devices over the years. I was a pro cabinet finishing guy for years. I don't like the finish you get with exterior spray equipment.This gave me as nice a finish as I have seen on a house over 40 years old.We used kilz2 for primer and Behr premium plus.What a great combination of the sidekick a really good brush and those paints. We spent the time to prep it right but most new houses do not look this good.Try the sidekick you cannot go wrong.My only issues were I wish the hose was extendable. I had to put the bucket up on scaffold to reach above the second floor.The on/off button is an air switch like on a hot tub. After being cleaned a times it started to stick in either the on or off position. I had to press it than walk the handle to get it to register.If I figure a solution I will add it here. Please reply if you have a fix.WORKED GREAT!!! I am so happy that I tried it out. Anyone that says that clean-up is a pain, shouldn't be painting. There is always clean up and it is normally harder than it is with the self-cleaning Sidekick. I was able to do a room with pretty much one coat in only a few minutes!Also, for those who are mad about the clean-up; IT WILL NEVER BE PERFECTLY CLEAN AFTER USING IT!! The machine and tubes do not need to be spotless to work again! I also would recommend spending a few dollars on a new roller after doing a single colour, it's worth it and will reduce the clean-up time.Watch the YouTube video from the company before using it, by the way, it will help A LOTit worksI have no experience painting and this tool allowed my retarded ass to do an extremely professional looking paint job. I would recommend getting one of the $70 mini paint guns to fill in the corners.This tool is a serious gamechanger. You can paint an entire room in less than an hour. The tool is extremely easy to clean with only water. I would never be able to do a decent paint job without this thing.Already primed an entire very large basement(10 gals of primer worth), and painted one fair size room. I find that the connection where the hose enters the handle of the roller can bend/twist, and will be a fail spot in the future. Wagner should address this. Also, during packaging they roll the hose up so tight that it still has not fully unwound. I find that it recoils back and twists itself together again. will take time for hose 'memory' to relax.The paint comes out splotchy at first, but a few passes spreads it nice over the wall. Be sure not to get the roller too full of paint, but with the on/off button on the handle that just took a little practice. I used a small extension so that I could reach from floor to ceiling without bending much. kinda heavy for the arms however, found myself using two hands on the handle. Sure beats filling a paint tray over and over again, and bending to fill the roller in the tray.Button rarely works. When it does turn on. It won't turn off and starts overflowing. Basically the button works randomly. I literally only used it once today and the button worked like crazy from the getgo. It has a mind of its own and turned in a few times itself. I have to keep running back to the machine to turn the actual power off. It constantly overflowed not being able to shut off, and made a mess. Such a pain in the ass. Not worth the headache of how much of a mess it made, paint it wasted and the clean up after. Nothing will beat a paint tray and manual roller. Sorry, but I'll be returning this.