On a split level home this big picture window sits right below the deck. Recently the owners had the deck stained. They must have used a sprayer cause the stain came right through the gaps between boards and all over the window. What a mess. The big spots I can scrape off with elbow grease, but the thousand little spots–its like they are part of the window. They don’t want to lift off. To get that glass clean how would you handle it? Keep after it with scraping? Or is there a solvent out there that might loosen this stuff up so I don’t end up scratching the glass? I told the owner I would have to come back on this one. Thank you for any suggestions.
Titan oil flo
Have you tried tsp?
Never mind. Oilflow would be better.
Been there. Bronze/steel wool (0000). Didn’t have titan oil flow then, but do now (will try it first next time).
Try Goof Off or perhaps denatured alcohol or even maybe some acetone but be real careful when you do I’m thinking that the denatured alcohol or goof off may be the best way, try in the corner of the glass first
I know the situation. One of my custom home builders likes to do his own work on the homes. This was to stain a concrete pebble drive. He got the stain all over the front windows. Not to big. 8’ x 10’ plates. Basically a glass wall front. What is great is they were tempered and speckled from the stucco. This was before I was really into WCing. Back then it was all cloth wipe and scrape. Thank goodness you found a forum like WCR. All I had was alcohol, acetone, goof off, and lacquer thinner. It came off but took for ever because of the stucco and I find tempered glass is great to scrape but thats me.The solvents should work and you may have scrubbers and bronze/steel wool which will help. You can always try a little area. Go least abrasive first like cloth or pad then move to wool. Do a test. If you have to order oil flo but he wants it done right away. try goof off and denatured alcohol, move to lacquer thinner. Acetone last. Apply agitate , rub to work the solvent and scrape small area. I rub and scrape. It keeps the solution wet because it will evaporate and give it dwell time to work. You can add water to keep moist and give blade lubrication.
If the window frames are colored (not white vinyl), be very careful about not getting goof off on the on the window frame. It can mar the finish on the colored frame. Had that happen on one high end construction cleaning job. There was a gummy spatter all over the glass and frames on a set of floor to ceiling windows. It scraped fairly easily off the glass, but nothing I had would remove it from the frames. The contractor gave me the goof off to try to remove it from the colored vinyl frames. This version of goof off smelled very strong, so I tried a little bit in the bottom corner of a floor to ceiling frame and found it affected the colored surface. I gave it back and said I was not touching the frames and told him to contact the sub responsible for the mess to find out the proper solvent. He had one of his guys use the goof off on the frames anyway. They ended up having to repaint the frames to cover up the mess.
Yeah test on a frame piece. If these were the cheap typical white/tan/cream/sand vinyl types like I have on 99% of my new const homes then you could use a painters patch. My frames have everything on them. Sometimes even PVC purple primer. The painters patch is a black sponge with sandpaper, basically. It will sand off so use the fine grade not the black one. There are marks on the frames that just need to be sanded or rubbed off. Magic/brick erasers don’t cut it. There are different goof off/goo gone removers. The graffiti type remover is solvent (goof off) and the citrus based Goo Gone). I use citrus based. Majority of the time folks wont notice the slight change in the frame if yo feather it and apply coating or light oil/wax like WD40, Shelia Shine, Stainless Steel spray, Orange Glo. Armor All like, or detailer wax/polish. If it needs to be damaged slightly to remove it. These will help blend that portion to be less noticeable. Painting vinyl is a pain. Won’t last. This is something the HO can apply if he really needs to. A pic would help us understand and see it more clearly.
You never know goo gone and a magic eraser might work.
Hey Jack how do you remove PVC purple prime from vinyl frames?
Tape off the framing around the windows with blue painters tape it removes very easily and will protect the aluminum frame and put plastic drop cloth underneath if you need to along the walls and the floor
[MENTION=6741]wcs[/MENTION]
A few times. They unload windows in the garage are of the house and sit there until framers install. Subs don’t care what they do so last week did new home I/OSW. In the upper bedroom was a 2 double on 1 frame. Bottom edge where sill is was a large purple stain about 2"x2". See this a few times because plumbers do pipe work and sometimes dont care where they prep the pipe. Any one using pvc primer knows what it does to vinyl. Builder wont replace frame. Dont blame him, finished paint and now to remove whole frame?? Not happening. I took the black pad and worked down till no more stain. Feathered edges. Smoothed with wet sanding. You would really have to look to see it. This was rather big and not like the small spots I see on other frames from time to time. To hide it a little more he was going to add a molding piece but we adjusted the sill a bit higher and repositioned the sill casing. So where you had the 1.5"-2" gap from sill to window lip to open window it lost .5". After that and what they did to the tub he is listening to me about the treatment of the frames and glass. All the subs will either shape up or lose future bids. I showed him the mud splatter (in a pic in album) and what I need to do to remove it and the damage it causes by just sitting there. All they need is a simple sprayer and wet the glass and rinse the stuff off, not to leave it sit and dry. A $20 sprayer and water is much cheaper than replacing a window. He got the point. I brought cement mixed it up and threw a hand full on the glass. Showed him how easy it was to rinse off. If lower brick was wet place a simple piece of plastic under window and sill to hold in place and drape down. Don’t understand folks that do these projects can’t afford a simple piece of plastic and a bit of tape. Even an idiot like me had figured that out when I was a kid spray painting a bike. A bit of common sense goes a long way.
I totally agree with your last sentence Jack!!!
If you don’t want to use chemicals, try a heat gun and 6" scraper
[MENTION=171]bumblebee[/MENTION] Won.t work on concrete. TX heat already baked on but it may work on a lot of the different glue and caulking that solvents won’t touch, being careful of course.
What kind of warranty have any of you guys provided? I’d like to know for future potential work.
Thx
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Keep a sharp scraper blade. I have also had success with 0000 steel wool. My customers have been understanding to a price increase when this was unforeseen and that I might not be able to remove every spot.
