Hi all. I just came back to window cleaning after 12 years away from the biz. But now I’m having trouble with my squeegees leaving hundreds of tiny drag trails across the entire length of the channel. I’ve got a handful of new supplies starting off and nothing seems to solve this problem for me. Moerman liquidator, wagtail etc. Makes no difference. I’ve tried the moerman rubber, wagtail rubber and facelift red. Still getting those lines. I’ve tried GG3, GG4, regular dish soap, ecover, TSP. Always got the lines no matter what wash liquid I use. Tried holding my squeegee at higher and lower angles, with varying degrees of pressure and only by pushing with considerable force onto the surface could I stop those lines from coming up. I live in SW Florida where the humidity is generally quite high so I can’t count on evaporation to help me even a little bit. I don’t remember having this problem way back when I used to wash with Ajax and Ammonia using my Unger squeegee and 3 Star rubber. Any thoughts? I’m having fits cause this issue is making it really hard to be happy with my work.
Try wiping off the rubber with a damp sponge each time before you use it.
Tried that but still no joy. I also tried one of my old ergo tec squeegees with some brand new Unger rubber from Home Depot and it worked like a charm. No streaks mid-channel whatsoever. All those designer rubbers from moerman, wagtail and facelift have less than a day of residential use on them. Is it really possible they wore out so quickly?
I’ve never tried them but I’d it’s unlikely they wore out so quick. Sometimes there are bad batches of rubber. Call whoever you bought them from, they will probably get you new ones.
Humm, did you try left handed?
Take a white scrubby pad and scuff up the rubber a little bit and then try it.
Ettore has been putting something on their new rubber and it sucks. So you can either use a white scrubby or soak it in a dish soap solution. When I get close to needing to change my rubber, I put the new rubber in my squirt bottle for a day. Seems to help.
Hmmm…
I would of never thought about useing a white scrubby on the rubber,thanks.
Black diamond (hard) has work well for me i haven’t had any issues with it.
So here’s an update: I kept working with that Unger soft from home Depot and it only took about 5 windows before it began behaving the same as the others. From perfect to impossible in 5 windows, there is something amiss. I haven’t tried the white scrubby yet but I’ll let you all know how that goes.
Just to clarify, this is with the squeegee in my hand, nose to the glass. After the rubber starts streaking I can adjust my pressure from none at all to normal to heavy and the lines still show until I get into an absurd amount of force. By absurd I mean I’m actually leaning body weight onto the surface so that’s clearly not a sustainable practice. I believe we can rule out chemical fouling as my mix is limited to either glass gleam, dish soap or some combination of the two.
It seems there could be channel warp (less likey then the following) …
or the surface of the glass is not properly scrubbed and your pulling contaminants creating drag marks.
Maybe one of these things could be your culprit.
Good luck!
This is happening even at my own home on a window that has been thoroughly cleaned about a thousand times in the last month. Channel warp is ruled out by my reasoning, since the exact same problem spans my whole squeegee set from small to large, and because with a brand new rubber I get perfection for just a handful of panes, then the performance degrades sharply and the trails begin. I tried flipping new rubber once the problem started and even the fresh side performed miserably without ever having touched the surface.
LOL yeah actually I’m a lefty. Maybe using the right would help.
Switching to off hand might help with diagnosing.
Well… I think we covered the full range of potential problems and cures.
Its hard to tell what the true culprit is with out seeing the issue first-hand.
Pretty much, but I’m guessing one thing not mentioned.
Why, as a group are we so worried about being the master window cleaner,
to the point we can’t actually think about what we may NOT actually know?
On a good day, it’s “I tried it, I didn’t like it.”
I get kids who have “experience” and when I correct them, they claim it’s “your way.”
“ok, I’ll try it YOUR way, since you’re asking me to.”
- it’s not MY way, it’s THE way.
How do lines come about?
- Something is getting between the rubber and the glass.
- something lodged itself against the rubber, breaking the seal between the rubber and glass.
Either way, it’s created by outside forces…f-ing up the integrity of the rubber.
Take a grain of beach sand.
It’s coarse. It’s gritty. It doesn’t dissolve. It doesn’t break down.
The only way to get rid of it is to wash it away.
THATS what is happening with window cleaning, the rubber is soft, and the dirt is rough.
Sponges wash it away from the fragile rubber.
No offense @JaredAI but the white scrubber is like gouging a wood floor
and then sanding down the whole thing around it to make it smooth.
The OP claims he tried using a sponge, so I’ll take him at his word…
(that would have been my first guess)
I’d like to know what kind of sponge (synthetic kitchen) and frequency.
That leaves me with one cause for the lines…
Not really, it’s more about getting whatever the crap Ettore is putting on their rubber. I know soap dissolves it but in a pinch, I’ll hit it with the white pad to prevent me from going postal and burning the store down because my rubber won’t turn.
He’s tried all the normal stuff, might as well go off book.
