I got my bottle of Screen Magic in and thought I’d post up the video I made of my test. Sorry it’s a little long, I wanted you to see how I conducted the experiment (how long and hard I scrubbed etc.) Hope this helps you guys out. Oh yeah, excuse the garage, it was a rainy day 
Part 1
Part 2
Thanks for taking the time to do that.
I had the same experience with the frames. They were not clean. Even with me wiping them, they didn’t come as clean as my normal method.
My normal method is different than yours. I have a soft bristle nylon brush on the end of a 4 foot pole. I soak all the screens with a hose and then clean with the brush, which is dipped in my solution of water and Tide with bleach. Then, I rinse with the hose and tap dry. This gets 99% of the frames shiny white. I do the screens before I do the windows, so that by the time I’m done with the windows all the screens are dry.
I think Screen Magic will do a good job on maintained screens. But for the really filthy ones, I’ll still be scrubbing them with my method.
Thanks for the videos. really good stuff.
even if screen magic did work, who could afford the hefty price tag.
I’ve found that if you immediately wipe the excess off the frames they turn out great. Next weeks Weather or Not is on the value of using SM in the winter. We are also incorporating it as part of our basic cleaning package. If the screens need more we will up sell a deep screen cleaning.
I think if you were to wipe the excess off with a rag you would be fine using it. It would still be much faster (in my opinion) that scrubbing with a brush and then rinsing with a hose.
I wanted to compare the results to tide w/ bleach but I forgot to pick some up on the way home that day. Oh well…
Thank you so much for taking the time to do the video. I can’t tell you how valuable it is to visibly watch someone test our product based on just reading the directions and not having seen a live demonstration.
When you said at the beginning “Wipe off the excess with a towel” and then when you said “Wipe of the excess with a towel” the second time I realized you missed the critical word “frame”. The instructions say "5. Wipe excess off [U]frame[/U] with a towel”. I know the text is small so it’s easy to miss the word “Frame”. So you thought wiping the excess off meant “the screen” when it actually meant the “frame”.
So, on the second screen you actually followed the intended directions when you wiped off the frame. We have found it not only cleans pretty well but glosses up the frame to. I think you were pretty happy with it and it saved you a lot of time.
On really dirty screens, some do like you did on the second frame and use a micofiber towel to wipe the screens and the frame. Others do it on all the screens as an extra touch to give it a smooth look. I initially was against the idea of spending the time to wipe down the screens after spraying them but I have to admit that for a very small amount of time the screens do appear to turn out better.
One other thing I noticed. It was hard to tell from the video but I think you may have been holding the spray bottle to close to the screen. You need to be holding the sprayer back about 14 inches away from the screen so you get a good fine droplet mist and wide pattern. When you hold it to close, you use too much Screen Magic and it also makes it appear blotchy. The great thing about Screen Magic is that it looks the same when it’s wet and when it’s dry so you are able to tell if you missed a spot right away instead of waiting for it to dry. That also affected your paper towel test because you were running the paper towel over the parts of the screen that were not treated with Screen Magic so their obviously would be dust.
Also the sample bottle that you got applies a lot differently then the professional air powered pump sprayer that you get for free when you order a gallon. With the air pump sprayer you get a good even coverage and a higher yield then the little sample spray bottle.
So here is what I took away from your test. I need to update the directions to say hold sprayer back about 14” and make the directions bigger and easier to read so others don’t have the same issue.
I’m not sure if you still have a virgin dirty screen but if you do, try holding it back further, making sure you don’t miss any spots. Try not wiping down the screen but just the frame after spraying, then try the paper towel test. I think you will be happier with the results. Thanks again for your demonstration, I think it was very helpful for everyone.
Thanks for the info! It’s nice having the guy responsible for the product responding to give out this kind of information. I’ll go out in the garage tomorrow and do another test with the new directions and see how it turns out. It did a great job at cutting through that dirt so just TOUCHING the frame with a cloth wiped the dirt off pretty well. I’ll continue to use this product in the future just for the time savings in washing the screens.
Okay, tried the correct method of using Screen Magic and got some VERY interesting results!!
I sprayed the screen from ~14 inches away, as advised, and immediately the screen turned a nice black color. I would ALMOST say the screen looked new. I wiped the excess off the frame which did an excellent job of cleaning the dirt off without much pressure or effort.
After letting the screen sit for a few hours (we watched a movie) I came back out into the garage and the screen was dry. It still looked shiny and black, no signs of dust on the screen itself. HOWEVER, when I wiped the screen with a huck towel there was still dust on the screen. This wasn’t visible but it was still existent. I turned the screen a number of ways to compare the freshly wiped part to the un-wiped part and for the life of me, I can’t tell a difference.
NEW CONCLUSION: While screen magic doesn’t make the dirt go away, it does make it disappear and it does make the screen look like new. As far as I can tell, there is no oily residue or anything that will actively attract new dust onto the screen. I’m leaving the screen in the garage along with the other screens tested. In a few months (assuming I remember) I’ll check back to compare new dust collection.
The original conclusion remains that Screen Magic is a great screen cleaner and removes dust and caked on dirt with the help of a rag. If used properly, aka sprayed from 14 inches away, Screen Magic will make dirty screens look brand new with hardly any effort.
All in all, I will be using Screen Magic on jobs going forward and am impressed with the results!
Great Bryan, I’m glad you got the results you wanted.
I know a lot of you have gotten the 24 oz samples like Bryan or bought the one gallon size with the free sprayer. To make sure you know how to properly apply Screen Magic, we shot a demonstration to show the correct way to treat a screen and clean the frame.
A few questions regarding your test. (very good video BTW)
I noticed you were spraying the screens without having any kind of drop cloth underneath. Does/did this product leave any residue on the garage floor and would it be safe to clean the screen inside a home right at the window or do you need to take it outside?
You left the screens for a couple of hours then came back. You did this on both of your tests. I would like to think that a time saving product would be to just apply it, leave it and forget about it. Would you say that from your results, one should check back on the screens after applying?
Based on your tests, how many screens do you think you could clean with the bottle size you had?
You say after the second test that although wiping the screen after a couple of hours (how was the movie?) with a huck it showed that there was still dust on it but it was pretty much invisible. How would you handle a customer that gave it a wipe test after you were done and also noticed these results?
Not knocking you or your test, it was very thorough and I really appreciate the time it took to do it.!
From what I can see there is no residue on the floor of the garage. I think I would take the screens outside to apply the product just from a courtesy standpoint but as far as residue goes, I don’t see any.
I left the screens for a few hours and came back just to see the difference time would make on the screen. When I went back in last night for the second test of the product there was no visible difference from 10 seconds after application to 2 hours after application. In a real world situation you can apply the product and immediately move to the next screen, there is no need to go back to the screens that have already been treated.
To be honest, I’m not sure. I meant to put a mark on the bottle to give me an indication of how many screens I could do but completely forgot once I got involved messing with the camera. I’m thinking about doing another test in which case I’ll mark the bottle.
The movie was great (watched Silverado, a classic). I honestly don’t know how I would handle a customer that gave the wipe test. If it was a few days later I might say something to the effect of dust and pollen in the air could be the cause. I would ask if the screens looked bad and if the customer said yes I would re-clean the screens for free.
One thing I did NOT test is the ability of the dust to wash away after applying the Screen Magic. I think I’ll do that this afternoon. I’ll put Screen Magic on a dirty screen, allow it to dry and gently run the hose over the screen to simulate rain. After that has dried I’ll do the wipe test again. I’ll get back with you on the results from that.
Thanks for your answers. Maybe as an additional test you could put a window pane (do you have a slider or storm window that comes out) behind the screen to see how a rain fall can transfer (or not) the screen magic onto glass.
I don’t have a window that will pop out but I could probably set that up in a window using a hose.
Hey Mark, let me expand on his answers a bit.
Other surfaces to avoid is asphalt, pool decking. I would not recommend using it indoors (if you remove the second story screens from the inside), but if you do be sure to put down a big enough drop cloth and be aware of the over-spray.
I’m curious as to what type of screen you are cleaning, is it a metal bug screen for example. I have done the wipe test on a lot of screens. I use solar screens to demo because they are the hardest to clean and I never have a problem with it, but I have a lot of practice thoroughly cleaning screens so maybe that has something to do with it. One person did have an issue but they did the test while it was wet (by the way it takes 20-30 minutes to dry). Not sure where you at but if it was really cold it might take longer to dry, but you said that you watched Silverado, one of my favorites (Costner was great in that show) and I believe its at least an hour and a half. So get back to me on the type of screen. It’s also possible that I made you under-compensate the spray after suggesting that you over did it on the first one.
With the air pump sprayers it takes about a half an ounce for an average screen. The sample 24 oz sprayer will usually use more Screen Magic because it’s not as efficient.
As for at the product transfer test we did that test. To see how we did it for ideas for your test check out the link below:
http://windowcleaner.com/vBulletin/screen-magic-monday/6858-screen-magic-monday-1-a.html
Are you talking about cleaning the screen inside the house?
I prefer not to spray the Screen Magic inside the house.
So, I see two options:
What do you think? Doing option #2, would the overspray possibly come back onto the window if the wind is blowing??..I’m sure it could.
So, if I don’t want to spray the product in the house, the only good option I see is to clean the screen outside.
Any ideas??
Myself I would never clean a screen inside the house, but that is just me. Cleaning them outside the window is not a bad idea depending on which way the wind is blowing. If you think about it, that is not much different then being up on the latter and doing it. It may even be a better option since you have the option of holding the screen to the left or right depending on the wind. I would certainly treat the screen first before doing the window, so as not to over-spray a clean window. Since Screen Magic is not hydrophobic, it won’t make washing the window harder. So if it were me I would hold the screens out the window and do it when possible.
The jury is out on this. Has anyone found that windows covered by screens treated in screen magic suddenly are hydrophobic? I WFP everything and the tops of all the doubles on this house I did today were fine, but all the bottoms are now hydrophobic. The screens were only on the bottom half. The windows without screens were all fine. I treated all the screens last spring with ScreenMagic and this was my first time back. I’ve used about 6 gallons to date, but am just coming back through for follow up cleans.
Anyone?
Good question. I returned to a house I cleaned a week ago because the screen magic had transfered over to
the glass leaving an oily sheen. I ended up hoseing off the screens and towel drying to get as much S.M. off as
I could. The windows took some scrubbing but came clean. They did seem to have a hydrophobic quality when
I was cleaning them which they didn’t on the initial clean.
I used a ace pump sprayer to apply as directed, but instead of doing them individually I had the screens all stacked
against each other so the overspray would get the next one in line. I guess I over-applied using this method.
I never get callbacks so this could get old real quick. I will say the screens look great though.
Funny you posted this today Brennon; just yesterday we cleaned for one of the first houses we used it on and half of the glass was hydrophobic… I don’t remember for certain but I’m nearly positive that the glass wasn’t like that before. And none of the windows without screens had the issue.
They all cleaned fine, and the screens looked great, so I don’t know how big of a problem it is but I did notice it.
This is a problem!
I’ll only use this product on interior screens for casement windows. No more on exterior screens.
