I clean an old folks home every year and it must have the worst glass in the world.
Each window is split into 12 panes and takes the full SL2 to reach the top windows.
There are 10 walls like the one in the photo.
Tried Fan and pencil jets and double and tripple washes to no avail.
The water forms millions of small droplets that do not run down the glass but that remain fixed.
I’m sure I heard somewhere that there is something that can help with this.
Brand new resin to start the job and its still crappy.
Hard to tell from the pics, but that doesn’t look like hydrophobic. It sort of looks like hardwater or maybe tree sap or a sealer of some sort. If you ladder up how hard is it to clean?
Its not hard water or anything else,
Cleans perfectly with a squeegee,
As you wet the glass it forms thousands of little droplets that don’t seem to move when you rinse them.
no way to get a cherry picker to 3/4 of the building so the pole is the only option.
Yeah I have the same question. They sell the WFP as a cure all but they don’t tell you about these types of situations. Maybe you need a better brush… Oh that’s $150.00
Had the building been recently pressure washed? It looks like the residue left over if the windows didn’t get rinsed good. We’ve had that problem on large commercial where we are cleaning the building, we can’t get the windows rinsed fast enough. WFP never removed it for us, we had to squeegee every time
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Building has never been washed and I clean the windows every year.
Using a Gardiners Super Lite dual trim that works on everything else.
Windows look just dirty till you put the water on them then all hell breaks loose.
I will try and do a video tomorrow.
Maybe try a wagtail zapstream or jetstream for your final rinse? The combined action of the rinse bar following closely behind the microfiber mop as you fan the window might give an effective rinse.
I think it might be the speed at which you rinse. That and you’re not cleaning properly. Scrub even more and rinse a lot more than you think you should.
If you’re not cleaning properly and then not rinsing enough than no “miracle brush” is going to help.
How did the final product turn out in the end? Did you find a solution?
Okay yeah I’m getting that but does it really save time then? I’m new to the WFP and I’m struggling with it but is it any more efficient if you have to scrubb twice as much plus setup/tear down. Just asking from a WFP rookie… I need advise… Professional advise…
… It does save time…usually. With really hydrophobic glass it’s a toss up because of the extra time needed to rinse well. I’ve been using a wfp since about 2002. Most of the time I used it only for over 2 stories and doing mostly residential, it didn’t get much use. Then in the last several years I started using it for 2nd story too…but never ground level. Now I use it for almost all exteriors and it has increased my production by over 30%. I am now working on my techniques for really hydrophobic glass, where it’s almost all just beads and I think I’m getting to a speed and cleanness that I am happy with. Set up and tear down is to me minimal, less than 10 minutes total.
If the glass has been maintained then this is how I usually rinse hydrophobic glass even with pencil jets for a general window.
I scrub the top frame and 2-3 inches of top glass very very well. I’m not going to return there again.
I then get the rest of the frames.
Start cleaning the glass of the bottom half.
Then move to the top half but not touching the top seal. While you’re cleaning the top half you’re actually rinsing the bottom half.
For rinsing I then go across the top and down each side seal to the bottom. I then rinse the bottom 6 inches from side to side down to the bottom seal.
That’s it for even very hydrophobic glass if it’s a maintenance clean every 6- months.
I had the exact same issues when I started using my WFP. hydrophobic glass sucks. You never know from job to job and window to window if your going to have to deal with it. I stopped using my WFP because of it. I thought just like you, “Is it even worth it if you have to spend that much time on each window along with extra set up time, what’s the point”.
This year, after seeing a couple of solutions to this problem I decided to give it another try. I believe the answer is a combination of 2 solutions. 1 soap injection and a rinse bar. Wit the soap injection some guys are saying they use an injector that draws a very small amount of soap into the line and they still have 00 tds. The benefit to the added soap is, one, it breaks the surface tension of the water which helps it to sheet better, even on hydrophobic glass. Second the soap helps to break up the dirt and grease on the glass quicker.
With the rinse bar you have a bar across the top of the brush head that has a hole about a very half an inch. With they sprays so close together they are much more able to connect leaving no gaps in your spray, which crates a sheeting effect just above your brush.
The combination of the soap creating a sheeting effect and the rinse bar helping the water to sheet above the brush makes it hard for even the most hydrophobic piece of glass to not rinse well. I plan on experimenting with it this year. I’m thinking of having 2 lines to the brush head. One that goes to pencil jets in the brush head itself and one that goes to the rinse bar. That way, for hydrophilic glass I can wash with the pencil jets, then switch to the rinse bar for a final rinse. With non hydrophobic glass I can probably just rinse with the pencil jets. I have not had a chance to experiment with it but I think it’s the solution.
Not every window is going to be like these.
Where it does save time 100% sure on this is on maintenance cleans and cut-ups.
If that’s all I used it for them that would be fine by me. It will work on first cleans it just depends on how bad they are. You would be surprised at what it can clean sometimes. It’s a learning process . I’m still learning
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