I use a good bit of soap because I fan using large squeegees for the the plate-size, resulting in a taco-shell smear when I short turn if I don’t. I can use a smaller squeegee and just water with good results, but then I may as well straight-pull. I use about a shotglass full of soap for 2 gallons of water.
Your NM location and screen-name makes me wonder. Do you know a female window cleaner with the initials A.I. from Albuquerque?
Wow, what’s a lot of soap. Try halfing that. The taco thing is a turn mark is a technique issue not a soap issue. The issue with using a lot of soap is that if you miss wiping up one of those marks, it will show up really bad.
My favorite mix is now 3 gallons of water, 3/4oz of gg4 plus I run a line of ecover along my mop. That’s all and I get great slip and scrubbing. For restaurants, I’ve got a squirt bottle with a boat load of soap in it to help cut through fingerprints and whatnot.
Nope, sorry. The AI stands for “Aztec Innovation.”
Yea. I’m trying to cover too much ground with one fan. The taco marks are diminishing as I make more subtle turns.
Thanks man… I’ll have to try some GG4. Maybe combine that with dawn for slip. Ecover seems good for the hands with the aloe. My hands are cracked and the cracks are filled with window-ink.
Yeah, most people have turn marks. I still get them, but as long as your squeegee is still wet, go back and get them on another pass.
Thanks man… I’ll have to try some GG4. Maybe combine that with dawn for slip. Ecover seems good for the hands with the aloe. My hands are cracked and the cracks are filled with window-ink.
I used Dawn for years and had the cracked and dirty looking hands. I tried ecover and man it makes a HUGE difference. I don’t have cracks in my hands to pick at anymore. Find your nearest organic natural earth type store and they’ll probably have it on the shelves. Whole foods and sprouts are common stores.
But try and shift the balance from soap to glass gleam. When soap dries, it will show up on the windows. GG4 is advertised to dry clear.
And at the end of the day, it’s all down to experimenting and finding your own sweet sauce.
I recently started using gg3 after 17 years of using an orange base soap, I noticed that alone it was no where enough glide without using a squeeze of soap nor did it have the power to remove greasy prints alone. The upside is it reduces detailing considerably, honestly there are times i don’t detail at all, but the only residue may be a 1-3mm line of water on the glass where it meets the frame. I don’t generally leave any triangles or turn marks to detail.
Even with a small squeeze of soap the residue dries clear. I also use a 30" to fan on big panes and a 22" on pretty much all other commercial glass and 18" on all resi.
My mix is 8 liters of pure water 15ml gg3 and 5-10ml citron(orange base soap).
I would be inclined to believe that your not mixing enough in. Any dish soap when mixed right has way more slip then any professional window cleaning soap. Not trying to insult your intelligence just trying to help.
Unger soap leaves a white residue when left to dry on commercial frames. GG dries and looks fine. Dish soap lokes trashy when left to dry on the frames. this is one of the reasons I love GG and use it a lot on commercial glass. It stays wet the longest so you can wet multiple panes and it looks fine when left to dry on the frames. It saves me time. APC 120 does a decent job and has a little more slip than GG. It stays wet for a while to. Its a great soap. Has a slightly little more suds than GG but not like dish soap, which I like.
It says use 4 cap fulls per 1 gallon. That wasn’t slippery enough for me at all.
Dawn works great.
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Not gonna tear him up like you used to do to me? 1/2 cup Unger easy glide 1/2 cup dawn 2x to give gallons of water. Perfect for the desert here.
Hope I never did…
So I can use just straight dawn? I also heard Luke say on his video that it leaves a film. Is this just a film where you detail or it drips or is it like a film all across the window? I can’t seem to get Unger to glid really well or maybe Im not wetting the window enough or something. On inside work yesterday I just rung the applicator out to where it wouldn’t drip and it just seemed like I was putting only water on window. Thanks for your help.
Dawn works fine. It gives great slip and has good cleaning power.
Check out this video.
Hope this helps to understand the purpose of “soap.”
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While its a good video, its really in the style of a monthly clean as is the standard in the UK.
I personally feel that on jobs that are 6 monthly to yearly that the straight soap is gong to make the edges of the window quite funky the next time you visit as part of the soaps job is to attract dirt.
With all the conversations about this last week I did try and see and it was just as I thought by the 3rd window my soap was that thick the top of the window has dried before I had even wet up the bottom of the window. So the option for me was to carry 2 bottles or drag around a bucket of water… hence I switched straight back to the mix in a bottle.
I do storefront accounts here in the US on weekly or monthly basis some quarterlys. This process work very well for me.
I’m not sure why your having this issue, how much soap are you adding to sleeve/fliq pad Steve? I normally can get 6-8 large panes (4’ x 6/8’) of glass before I need to add a squirt of water to the sleeve/Fliq pad.
