Cleaning Window Sills

What is the best way to clean the dirt, pollen and other gunk that accumulates on the window sill?

This stuff is really caked on sometimes…

I carry a small pail inside my cleaning solution pail. I put a scrubby sponge and grout brush (giant tooth brush) in it to keep the really dirty water out of my mop water. I use the sponge to lay solution in the frames and then scrub with the grout brush, mop up water with sponge (squeezing the water out the window if I can) until dry and then wiping dry with a towel. If the frames are really dirty, I use the same procedure and use the 1.5 gal shop vac I carry to suck the crud out.

I begin residential service on the interior by removing screens and brushing and vacuuming the interior tracks, screen track, and exterior sill. After cleaning the interior surfaces, I use a 2-gallon pail with solution and heavy-duty sponges to scrub the bottom of exterior panes, frames ans sills as required. I then clean the exterior surfaces. Frames are wiped on both interior and exterior.

With a WFP and pure water, exterior frames and sills are scrubbed prior to scrubbing the glass, resulting in a polished appearance.

I carry a 1 gallon pump sprayer (bug sprayer) with water and a touch of SimpleGreen in it, squirt the sills down, and finish off with a huck. I also carry around a grout brush for the corners, comes in very handy.

We use a track brush sill and track brush to get into the corners, then a counter brush to get the loose stuff out. After that we use our Aqua Dry towels to damp wipe the rest. For really bad sills we’ll use a sponge and some Simple Green to do the job or better yet our wfp.

Thanks, guys.

I got absolutely killed on a residential job yesterday. 44 windows and 40 of them had screens to be removed and scrubbed. The sills had not been cleaned in the three years since the home had been built. I spend four, FOUR, hours scrubbing screens and sills. Then I started glass work.

I ashamed to admit that I was there 10.5 hours total and made only $26.00 per hour.

I was one hurtin’ pup this morning, too!

In time, 40 screens deep-cleaned should only take an hour.

The screens were pretty straightforward…40 really dirty sills with lots of gunk in the corners of the tracks killed me.

I carry a 3 inch paint brush with the handle cut off to sweep dry debris away. The extra bucket is a nice idea I may try.

Really? 40 screens deep cleaned in an hour? That’s a touch over 60 seconds per screen, both sides and screen frames. Is this speed method to include taking
the screens down, placing in order, scrubbing, laying out to air dry while then going back to tackle the windows? Sounds a little unrealistic to me, but I may just be
really slow as well.

I am amazed at how much time you are willing to put into the screens, tracks, and frames. That really slows
it down. The average customers I have experienced do not want to pay for that much time. You must have some high
end customers.

I stated deep-cleaned in my post.

To me, that means scrubbing screens and their frames, rinsing, tapping-off excess water, and laying them out to dry.

Perhaps you are slow and need to develop a more efficient process.

I would have to see that to believe it…unless you are talking about the screens in the bathroom above the shower

I do and they pay for detail and I give them excellance!

Why? How long does it take you?

You said 40 screens in an hour. You are going to wet them, scrub them, rinse them, tap them, and put them
out to dry. If each screen took 2 minutes that would be 80 minutes.

We can do deep cleaning of screens at a little over 1 minute per screen. 40 screens would take us an hour as well. Our system is as follows scrub (we have them flat on the ground and while we do them one at a time we stack up to 4 then flip to scrub the opposite side also prewetting only dilutes your cleaning solution), then we rinse each screen and stack them on a wall to drip[ dry while we finish the windows. I’m going to do a video of the way we do it before too long. You’ll be able to see it doesn’t take as long as you might think.

Screen Magic, I think WCR has it available now. This stuff is amazing to clean screens. REALLY…THE BEST!

It is amazing. I have some first time cleans where a deep cleaning is a must. Of course the screens have been severely neglected.

I don’t think it’s impossible. 1 minute can be a long time. It’s differant when someone is working their own job. They move faster and if the screens are started first the energy can be there. When I was cleaning windows, I would always start on the screens first cause I did not tap, tap, tap, tap. I would tap once stright down, then rest the screens below the window to the side. By the time I got the house done the screens would need a quick wipe of the frame and were good to go. My first year I had a large job (80+ windows) the helper I had cleaned the screens in a couple of hours give or take a few minutes. He had a full 6 gallon bucket with solution, brush and garden hose. Once he got rolling he flew through them.
I think kevin said it best in his book. I’m paraphrasing here. But sometimes, it’s really not worth going too crazy on things the average customer is never going to notice or care about. Of course you do the best job you can. We all know if we wanted to spend 30 minutes on a window and screen we could get every little stain/debris off of everything and make the window look almost brand new. But when it comes to windows that are neglected like the ones in the photos, any cleaning is going to be a major improvement. When the customer looks at those sills, if they see little bits of stain or debris stuck in the corners they are really not going to care. They are going to be overwhelmed by the dramtic result. Again you try the best you can, but there has to be a time where you stop.

Windows like these are an easy fix. When we run into this, we grab the garden hose, lock the window and blast away. Makes life easy.