My customer has me all freaked out now and I remember reading lots of things about Andersen windows and milguard windows.
They have sun coat max tint, I will not be using a blade, duh.
However, is steel wool fine if needed?
Is under window cleaner safe? Is dawn safe? Or should I use her product they told her to use?
I was thinking this product is for cloths only, so I should be fine with my normal solutions and squeegees.
no abrasives especially steel wool should ever be used on tinted film, a mild detergent is what is recommended,
That’s all types of tint? Rather it be chemicals, cooked, or sheet? None the less I told the customer I would be using just my dawn dish detergent solution and my strip scrubber and whatever comes off comes off because she’s freaking me out lol and she was like sounds great but would this spray can be a better Solution to use?
So your saying yes I can use either of my solutions to clean the windows?
We have an entire community with windows like that. Renewal by Anderson with a “self cleaning coating” This is a coating applied it the factory. The construction crew has those windows all beat up and scratched.
Dawn, Glass Gleam, evcover, all will be fine. I would use a microfiber sleeve, stay away from the porcupine, or abrasive sleeves. Those white pads should be safe to use as well. No blades (exception 1 inch blades with very short small gentle wet stroke), Steel wool will show fine scratches in the direct sun. You could try a wet magic eraser. But test it first. We always test on a lower corner of windows that go to the floor and upper corner of windows that are waist high. You can use your fingernail.
You may feel significant drag on the glass. We add just little more soap for some good slip. Anderson told us adding a little denatured alcohol to the watermay help as well. We’ve never tried it.
These can be a bear to clean. Some cleaners really struggle with them. The windows we clean show every swipe mark, and towel detail. Alot some extra time for cleaning, and explain, as if you were talking to a 5th grader, what is going on and what to expect. They don’t need to know the science behind it just that you know what your doing.
Thank you, thank you so very much.
What’s funny? Is that she was literally saying everything straight from the book. New construction, guy cleans windows himself, entire back 43 panes got replaced due to him use a blade (no seriously) on all of them!!! Items inside such as stove fridge and washer, micro scratches… I made a joke, oh that’s because he never changed his rag, he used 1-2 rags for everything. She then explains to me how after the fact, guy admitted to using just a few rags for everything…
Anyway thank you so very much for your information, I have a busy month ahead of me.
so wouldn’t a WFP be better?
First time??..I think it would be okay for a maintenance clean. Might have to find a really soft brush head. Some of the cheaper synthetic bristles might be to rough. Probably a boars hair brush would work.
I have encouraged and recommended we do the exteriors quarterly.
SunCoatMax is a low-e366 glass, it doesn’t neccassarily mean that it is tinted. It does have a green hue to it because it does have that low-e coating on it. I clean these all the time with steel wool and razors. Do not do tempered glass with a razor though, however.
This is the kind of thread I need. Since I am going to do a three part article for the AWC on coated glass. Will have to see if I can pickup a couple squares of the SunCoatMax and waste it with some chems and abrasives. The kind of stuff we can’t do in the field!
Great answers and advice Matt! You are right on target. Coated glass is everything you said it is. Guys with no experience can so easily destroy this stuff. The very first step we all should take on a new job is to identify the surface we are working on.
Hery
I would be super careful on these. My best employee took a piece of steel wool to a picture window. To take off some overspray and left small streak of super fine scratches and can only see the sun.
Well I washed all of them, I used dawn dish soap, mongoose scrubber, and my 36” ninja. Some of the windows had goo on them that were harder to clean without using anything else. Had to rewash 3/5 times some times but no biggie. She added he entire kitchen of glass cabinet doors. $285 extra that Took me an extra 2 hours to do… 
then she added light fixture covers. Lol list went on! Walked away with a $900 invoice.
I want to use water fed pole next year to maintain them. So y’all think boars head or just keep doing traditional?
Milgard uses low-e on the inside, between the glass, but on the piece of glass that is closest to the exterior. So there is no way of scratching the low-e coating because it is between the glass… Like I said, I have had no issues with low-e3 (SuncoatMax). @mattolmschenk
