I’m putting in a bid on an ivy covered house. I’d like to offer the owner the opportunity to clear ivy off the glass.
However, I’m wondering how does one get ivy off of painted wood frames? Or, off of painted metal framed storms? This house has both. And, how much should I charge?
My guess is that if I offer to get the ivy off the glass, they may want the ivy off the frames as well. It’s a historic landmark, built in 1882, so I dead sure don’t want to mar the paint or anything else when trying to remove ivy.
Unfortunately the suckers that ivy uses to adhere itself are very strong and very destructive. You can pull it off and then you’ll need to repaint the wood surfaces. If it’s metal you’ll need alot of time and TLC to get it off w/out badly marring the surface.
The owner better be ready to part with major bucks before I’d even consider attempting that job. And I wouldn’t touch the frames other than pulling the vines off. They’d have to get a professional painter to restore the frames.
If you really need work just do the glass and clear the vines from the frames without obligating yourself to restore the frames.
If the house is that old and I would assume the ivy is pretty old as well, then the owners already know the vine is a pain to remove and will mark the frames. You won’t be discovering anything new.
Trim the ivy off the glass (and charge extra for this service, it’s going to take time and you don’t want to be setting a “free clip service” precedent here) and try to trim it a little away off the frame. But don’t concern yourself with the sticky vine bits other than what’s on the glass. Remember that you’re not the groundskeeper or the gardener, you’re just the window cleaner doing them a little favour by giving the ivy a bit of a haircut and letting some light in.
Besides, the vines will be creeping back onto the window in just a couple more months anyway.
And watch out for wasps. They love making nests in ivy.
Thanks everyone. If it comes up, I won’t offer to clear the frames.
Luckily, out of 70+ panes, there’s only about 10 that are covered with ivy.
Just clip it and leave it. Sometimes when you pull this stuff it will pull cable tv lines off and the like. It is an ugly situation and I just offer to cut it away from the glass explaining all the reasons why it is not advisible to pull at will. Better safe then sorry on t his stuff.
Yea I would just try to work around it as best as possible. Clip where needed.
Sorry, we’ve only done ivy removal from stone with hedge clippers (snips too weak). Not sure about metal or wood…
