Window Cleaning on San Juan Island

This is hand work with a squeegee, and it is a different service from pressure and soft washing. That page is decks, patios, walkways, and the low-pressure washing of siding and roofs. Nothing on this page involves a pressure wand: driving water at glass forces it past the sash seals and into the frame, and on an older window it will push water into the wall. Glass gets washed, squeegeed, and detailed by hand, inside and out.

The reason island glass needs its own approach is salt. Within a mile or so of the water, onshore wind carries a fine sea-salt aerosol that settles on every surface, glass included. It builds an even, slightly greasy film that you mostly cannot see straight on and that shows up as a milky haze the moment low sun rakes across the pane, which on a west-facing window here is every clear evening. Salt is hygroscopic, so it pulls moisture out of humid air and stays slightly damp, which is why a garden hose and a dry cloth just move it around and leave streaks. It comes off with a proper surfactant wash and a squeegee, and it goes right back on after the next few days of southwest wind, which is why water-facing glass wants doing twice a year and inland glass usually once.

The second local problem is mineral spotting, and this one has a deadline. Groundwater in the San Juans is genuinely hard — a USGS study of wells on San Juan, Orcas, Lopez, and Shaw classified 29 of 56 sampled wells as very hard — so every sprinkler cycle, hose rinse, or dripping outdoor faucet that reaches a window leaves calcium and magnesium behind as the water evaporates. Fresh deposits wash off. Left season after season in the sun, they harden, bond, and eventually etch into the glass surface itself, and at that point no amount of cleaning brings it back; the honest answer becomes glass restoration or replacement, which puts you on the window glass page instead of this one. So if you can see spotting only on the panes facing your lawn or your irrigation zone, get it treated this year rather than in three. Early deposits come off with a mild acidic treatment and a polish; older ones come off partly or not at all, and I will tell you which yours are before I start rather than take money for a result I cannot deliver.

There is one more grit rule that matters more here than most places, and it is why I do not let anybody hand me a dry cloth. Never wipe dry glass on a coastal or gravel-road house. Salt spray traps windblown dust, fir needle debris, and on many of these driveways a fine grit, and dragging that across dry glass leaves micro-scratches that dull the pane permanently. Everything gets flooded and floated off first, then washed, then squeegeed.

The order of work is not arbitrary. Screens come out first and get labeled, because window screens on an old house are not interchangeable and putting them back in the wrong openings is a real and annoying way to lose an afternoon. Then screens get washed flat and separately, with a brush and soap, and set to dry — fiberglass mesh here holds a green algae film on shaded north elevations and salt everywhere else, and a screen washed in place just drips dirty water down the glass you already did. Tracks and sills get vacuumed and then wet-cleaned, which on a slider is where the actual grit lives and where the drainage weeps get blocked. Then the glass, exterior and interior. Then frames and sash faces wiped. Screens go back dry, last, because a wet screen against clean glass spots it.

While I am at every window I notice things, and I would rather tell you. Blocked weep holes at the bottom of a vinyl or aluminum frame, which are drainage and must stay open. Sealant that has been run along the wrong edge and is trapping water in the sash. A pane that will not come clear because the haze is inside a failed sealed unit, which is a glass problem and not a cleaning problem. Torn screens, which are a repair on the door, window, and trim page. A sash that is painted shut or a crank that spins uselessly. Sills with soft paint or soft wood at the corners, which is where island rot starts. None of that is billed as a discovery; it is a note and a few photos at the end.

Now the honest part about height and access, because this is where window cleaning quotes get vague. I am one person working off ladders and poles from stable ground. Ground-floor glass, walkout levels, and second-story windows with a level approach and something to foot a ladder on: yes. Water-side elevations where the ground falls away, glass above a deck with no footing beneath it, gable ends, and anything that wants rope access or a lift: no, and I will say so on the first visit rather than after I have taken a deposit. There are people who do that work with the right equipment. Roof-level skylight glass is in the same category and I leave it alone. What I will do is tell you exactly which windows on your house I can reach and which I cannot, so you know what you are buying.

Where this earns its keep is turnover and timing. A vacation rental between guests, a house being photographed for a listing, or a second home opening up in spring after a winter of driven salt spray are the three times clean glass is worth real money — on a water-facing house, the view is the product, and hazy glass quietly downgrades it in every photograph. It folds naturally into a rental turnover or a spring open-up visit, and it belongs in the same trip as gutters and screens rather than as its own crossing. On season: April through October is when this is worth doing. Washing exterior glass in a December southerly is money you will watch blow back onto the pane, and I will tell you to wait.