If eyes are the windows to the soul, are windows the eyes of your house? Ponder that for a moment.

And while you’re pondering, Check out the windows of your home or business to see if they are in need of cleaning. Too often windows are one of the most neglected portions of buildings since they are sometimes challenging to clean without risking damage.

Plus windows are more complex to pressure wash than other portions of a home or building:

• Windows themselves are easy to break or damage if pressure washing is too strong
• Casements, storm windows, and molding all requires slightly different approaches to clean
• Windows also have partial exterior parts that may need cleaning (e.g storm windows)

Cracks

The biggest risk in pressure washing windows is damaging them. A proper pressure washing service will inspect windows prior to pressure washing for cracks in the windows. Cracks are possible in windows regardless of age (often due to manufacturing defects or just time itself).

Obviously, pressure washing a window with a visible crack is dicey since you can easily expand the crack or break window completely. Blue Wave actively avoids pressure washing cracked windows until they can be repaired.

 

Molding and Siding Integrity

Just like cracks in pressure washed windows, poor weather stripping, caulking, molding, can cause water damage to your interior walls. While walls can easily be protected from normal rainfall, pressure washing can stress and cause undue damage through nail holes, seams between joints, old caulking, etc.

Remember that windows are, effectively, big holes in the wall of your home. A careful inspect of molding and casements can easily prevent long term damage to your interior walls.

 

Time of Year to Pressure Wash Windows

Believe it or not, the time of year actually matters to keeping your windows safe.

During the colder parts of the year (especially when freezing temperatures can happen at night in North Carolina), remaining water from an earlier pressure washing can crack and damage your windows.

Not surprisingly, we recommend pressure washing windows during the warmer parts of the year. Materials are less compacted and should be (unless a previous problem exist) able to handle the harsher cleaning of a pressure washing.

 

Time of Day

In the same way that time of year can influence the quality of your pressure cleaning, time of day is actually also a factor. The usual recommendation is pressure wash on cloudy days since this prevents streaking that sometimes can happen during full daylight.

 

Protecting Plants While Pressure Washing

If you have window boxes or any other plants near your windows, you’ll want to make sure that your pressure washer uses a solution that’s less harsh for nearby plants and other flora. In most cases, using a plant-friendly solutions works fine, while at other times it’s easier to use tarps or other covers to protect your plants.

We’ll also typically recommend soaking the soil around plants since it can help dilute any chemical from pressure washing solutions.

Clean Windows Make a Difference

The effect of having clean windows in your home or business has an effect. Interior light has the ability to make your home feel clean and, literally, makes you feel different. Aside from the promotion of Vitamin D and a factor in good sleep hygiene, natural sunlight has another big impact on a probably important area of your life: your wallet. Cleaner windows allow more natural sunlight in and can even help reduce your heating costs during winter.

There’s also evidence that sunlight can help disinfect portions of your home and could potentially keep your family or office cleaner and healthier.

But, What About the Inside?

We’ve done a lot of experimental testing on pressure washing from the inside of your home and, to be honest, the results weren’t great. Not only does it result in large portions of your home or business being soaked in water, but it’s not a very effective way to clean your windows.

Sorry to say, old fashioned elbow grease is still the best way to to handle the inside of your windows.

Get Started Today

If you’re even considering having your home or business—contact Blue Wave Pressure Washing for a consultation, and we’ll figure out whether window pressure washing is right for you.