Just learned some interesting facts from a UK blog on how to use a scrim
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Re: Who uses damp scrims?
Before it getting too wet and chucking it the van try using it on at least the fanlights, see how you get on!
Of course you must pay attention to the finish as you would using any other techique. Secret is to get the dampness of the scrim just right (wrap it around a dry towel when wringing it out if you must) too dry and it won’t remove the dirt, too wet and you’ll leave smears.
Wrap the damp scrim into a pad, with the face about 8x8 inches, after removing any birds muck with a scaper, you’d start at a top corner with firmish pressure, use horizontal movements backwards and forwards as you go down the window, make sure to go up and down the sides. Done! You’ll see the removed dirt on the face of the scrim pad. After cleaning several windows re-arrange the scrim to find another clean face. One scrim lasts me at least 12 houses and it’s back in the bucket for a quick wash and another wringing.
Your arm has only to reach into your pouch once, your arm has only to reach to the window once. Unlike the squeegee technique where you reach 1x applicator, 1x squeegee, 1x scrim for detailing. This is where you’ll save the time and time is money.
Also sills are a doddle as there’s nothing to mop up.
Effectivness depends on the frequency of the work, you wouldn’t use this technique on first cleans or one-offs or anything beyond 4 weeks in the city or other areas of high pollution. Nor above 6 weekly in country or rural areas. You may not want to use this technique in sight of fussy customers. And certainly you wouldn’t use this on very large windows.
Of course on bigger windows I always use a squeegee.
I don’t see any real world use for this technique. This technique won’t really clean truly dirty windows in a timely manner if at all. On truly dirty windows there would be too much (nearly dry) friction between the scrim and the glass that could result in scratching the glass if sandy type particles were dragged across the glass. A scrubber with solution doesn’t usually scratch the glass, nor does a squeegee or WFP.
The only windows I clean every 4 weeks is my monthly commercial and they’re too big to use this method. I don’t clean residential every 4 weeks but if I did the interior wouldn’t need to be cleaned and the exterior would be faster with WFP.
I use scrim for detailing the edges. I use a slightly damp part of the scrim for touching up smears or blemishies on any part of the glass.
The scrim is a great tool but I just don’t see any advantage to using it to clean complete panes of glass. But then again the technique described doesn’t really claim to clean truly dirty glass anyway.
But then again, while I think this technique would be a waste of time, some may actually want to use this technique. I guess to each his/her own. Just don’t scatch that glass by trying to clean it with nearly dry friction instead of with solution or pure water.
I’m not optimistic about this technique at all, it seems it is only for slightly dirty windows, I wish my customers called to clean their “slightly dirty windows” lol
and talking about static charges and attracting dust, wouldn’t that happen if you rubbed the whole window with a scrim? plus getting the scrim just at the right dampness just seems like a pain on a 4ss.
If you re-read the post you will see it came from a UK forum. Its about smaller panes on houses. They have alot of residential route work over there. We have a competitor that does all of his windows this way. They do not use squeegees or wfp.
If this technique is for regular maintenance cleans as I suspect why not just get a Backflip. It does wonders on regular cleans. Of course wfp w/ the new Reach Around from RHG solves the issue on regular and first time cleans!
