I recently completed a job on a larger French window job (502 panes). As soon as I started to clean, I knew I was screwed as each frame built up a cream-colored paste around EVERY… SINGLE… PANE…
It was 98 degrees out, but I quickly ruled out the frames melting from the heat and concluded that it was oxidation.
So, for those that deal with this as a matter of course due to your region’s environment, what do I do when I go back for their next cleaning? I was hoping WFP would fix my problems, but research - incomplete as it may be - told me that oxidation and WFP are not friends and should not be mixed.
I’m fine if your methods of dealing with it require a little special something. Short off stripping the “French pane” grid off of the window (yes, they were just glued on) and ultrasonically cleaning it, I’m open to suggestions.
I ran into this yesterday. They were terrible. If you use WFP on oxidized frames, do not bother with boars hair. I would just say skip wpf and trad em. I had to pretty much do that. The second the pure water touches the heavy oxidation it fouls your brush up. You end up just chasing your tail. Even detailing with a huck towel is a PITA when they are that bad.
It was 107F outside yesterday and it threw a wrench in my day. I also had to charge the client more because of the additional time it took to get the outsides acceptable by our standards…
That’s what I did, minus the upcharge. I just Trad the whole thing and ran through my Xero towels like crazy.
Would you think running a cheap nylon brush over them would work to knock off the oxidation where they can be redone with a boar’s hair brush? I don’t have a WFP yet but I’m looking at my options for when I finally get my hands on one. My only additional concern with WFP with Oxi is the residual Oxi running down the wall under the window. That would be a nightmare…
I use boars hair every day all day on everything, sometimes I’ll use the dual trim for my regular customers.
Xero boars hair with xero rinse bar and you’ve got zero worries…
Do them like this… it is an art and does take some learning, but waterfed is the best solution for oxidation on frames.
I also clean all exterior windows with a waterfed pole, for the last 10 years I’ve been virtually 100% waterfed on exterior windows (obviously some exceptions here and there depending on the fastest way to clean)
I’m really surprised that all these guys making videos are still using pencil jets.
I haven’t had a rinse phase in over 2 years, get a rinse bar that works while on the glass.
