Painting a fence can be laborious work – your wrists and knees end up hurting, you have to battle against splinters, and it always seems to need a new coat of paint every year. Luckily, one garden fence painting hack that uses a simple £1 tool has gone viral for being “the fastest method” – as well as incredibly cheap.

DIY video creator Clare Hoops told followers on TiKTok that the “sponge method” is a speedy way of painting a garden fence – and requires no paint brushes. She said: I’ve tried so many different methods of painting fences over the years, this is by far the fastest.”

She explained that all you need is a big yellow sponge and rubber gloves to avoid mess. You can either use the sponge as a whole or cut it in half, which may be easier to grip if you have smaller hands.

Simply dip the sponge into your bucket of paint and spread it on the fence in an up-and-down motion. “It glides over and gets into all the really bumpy bits,” Hoops explained. “It’s not the neatest, but it’s definitely the quickest.”

Her video gathered more than 2.2million views and 73,000 likes – and the comments were filled with people praising the hack. One user explained that the sponge method would help her to paint her fence as someone with dexterity disabilities.

When asked if the paint drips through to the other side of the fence with this method, Hoops replied: “Not really, you can still control the spread if you are careful.”

Hoops also said that you don’t have to apply much pressure onto the sponge – and one should be enough for the entire job. She also explained that she was able to get the entire job done in just one coat rather than having to do multiple with a paintbrush.

In another video, Hoops told followers that if they have a garden fence that just seems to turn green every year without fail, they could try an algae treatment first.

She showed her spraying a treatment onto the wood, and explained that it took three to four days to fully work and could be “a really good alternative” to fully repainting.

Commenters on the video also suggested other cheap and cheerful tools that could be used instead of a paintbrush when painting a fence or wooden items like stair treads. One person pointed out that a microfibre tanning mitt could have a useful effect, while another recommended using a sock worn over rubber gloves.