Sealing glass from hard water

a customer has asked me to research protecting glass from hard water stains once they are removed. i know nothing so i need to know everything, i assume i would need a glass sealant but…

what kind
how do i apply it
how much should i charge
how long can we realistically expect it to last

she asked about rain x but from what i understand that won’t last very long right?

thanks

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[MENTION=507]Henry[/MENTION]

Look into a company called unelko they sell a pretty good sealer that should last up to 2 years. It’s inexpensive and easily applied. I usually charge 40% of the total exterior as an add on.

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On my regularly scheduled customers (minimum 2 X/year) I will use a sealant like RainX, buffing it on/it with a cotton bonnet. Depending on size, I will charge up to 1/2 the cost to clean the window

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Leavingnc,

Those are all excellent questions! Unfortunately there are no simple answers. There are many sealants or glass treatments out there. Some are more resistant to alkali attack from hard water drops. Some will stand up to scratches. Some will stand up to uv radiation. Others will not. Some are just plain no good. Others are strongly hydrophobic. Others are hydrophylic. Application techniques differ. Cost differs. Hence what you would charge differs. I really need the time to put together a list and draw up a presentation for a seminar. At which I could actually show the difference between them. So you can SEE what I am talking about. I need to start doing seminars again. It has only been twenty years.

Henry

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we’ll i don’t need a seminar, the customer is concerned around keeping hard water spots off the windows behind the plants that her husband waters by hand, and i need to know which product to buy from here on the wcr

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and i don’t mean that to be as rude as it may sound, but i just need some guidelines, some recommendations for what to buy for this purpose and a range for how much to charge.

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Nothing will keep the spots from forming. Especially if you are using a water hating hydrophobe. Enduroshield is the latest craze. At least one very respected Window Cleaner I know uses it. When the spots reform they will need to be removed immediately. Then the product reapplied if the surface doesn’t bead water anymore. This product will cost you 50 cents per square foot. They suggest you charge three bux per square foot. Honestly if I were to apply Rain-X or Invisible Shield from Unelko I would still charge at least a couple bux per square foot. Price any stain removal separate. Rain X and IS will only cost you pennys per square foot to apply not counting time. I need to test Enduroshield for alkali resistance. These and many others are based on various silanes and siloxanes that can be attacked by mineral deposits. If degraded they cease to be as effective in resisting spots. Only testing in real time will give you any diffinitive answers. And as I mentioned there are probably well over thirty different glass treatment products and glass treatment franchises that have come out over the years. What I have realized is that many guys don’t really care about the science and chemistry of this technology. They only care about what works, how much does it cost, and what they should charge to apply it so they can make a healthy profit. All I can say is I am working on it. Because it is my VERY honest opinion that most people/manufacturers will say anything about their product just to sell it. With the exception of a few. That means spouting all kinds of science too. I don’t like crap. Never did. So I have already developed some VERY grassroot tests to determine the truth about glass sealants. The seminars I mentioned would be an expose’ of what these tests show. Essentially giving everyone the answers to what works, whats the cost, what to charge, and whats our profit?

The WCR does sell a number of different products. You might purchase at least four of these and do some side by side tests yourself on “your” glass/potential job. Give it a month or two and come back. As for the suggestions mentioned so far on this thread I have personally found both of them to be good products. But they will not give you everlasting protection. You will absolutely need to maintain. How often will depend on your job.

Hope this helps.

Henry

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You can start with can start with a Mr. Hardwater to remove the stains. Then use their sealer Envicoat or Mr Hard Water Protectant, I think its the same thing, to protect the glass it effective lasts for 6 months sometimes longer, but then you have to reapply. They have a one stop kit you can pick up. They also have some good youtube videos on how to apply and what to charge.

If the stains are really stubborn try OneRestore, but be careful it can get sideways quickly so test are small piece in a lower corner. I personally use Diamond Magic for stain removal. And am still amazed how well it works, and use Enduroshield for protecting the glass.

I am at about $4 a sq ft for removing the exterior stains and $3 a sq ft to seal the glass. But Enduroshield is more expensive but lasts much longer than the other sealants I have tried. But 3Star Barrier works well, and I didn’t like Glass Defender. I had lots of call backs to fix the problems.

I like to treat the entire surface of the glass to protect it, but you can treat only the area that is going to have water repetitively hitting it.

I do a ton of hard water removal so if you have any questions drop me a line.

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Thanx for the help Matt!

Very good info regarding the sealants and polish. I always suggest polishing.

Henry

We use Envicoat now called Mr. Hard Water Protectant. All my resi clients are very happy with their quarterly or biannual package that includes the total cost of all cleanings & annual sealant bundled together. Any 1st time client in our area of western Oklahoma usually requires exterior hard water restoration mainly due to sprinklers. PPM ranges from 350-450. So we’ve dealt with some severely neglected glass successfully with the Mr. Hard Water equipment. I realize there may be better & more durable products available, but I can definitely recommend Jeff’s products for sure. Hope it turned out great since you posted this a while ago. What did you end up using by the way?

Yea Envoicoat is good stuff. His new Mr Hard Water sealer is good as well. Glass Sealants & Hard Water Protection

What difference did you notice in Glass Defender vs Enduroshield? Because you mentioned callbacks for problems. Just curious because i will definitely be trying out Enduroshield. Thanks…

Im not super familiar with the Enduro Sheild and Im not sure of the properties. But I know the Glass Defender will leave the Glass Hydrophobic. @Henry ?

Enduroshield is a hydrophobic sealant, that they claim to last 10 years. I have been using it for 3ish years and the protectant is still holding up. This stuff is tough. We applied it to a golf course where the sprinkler hit the glass everyday. Had to use the GlassRenu to take off the mineral deposits. 2 years later the water still beads up like day one. And that water is coming out of the ground at 600-750 ppm. It is not as easy to apply as Envicoat, but only takes a few minutes longer.

Glass defender is what it is. It works fine for some projects. It didn’t hold up on shower glass. Now, some of that may have been me not giving good care instructions, some may have been in the application, (i was pretty green)and the rest in the product. But our go to is Enduroshield and Envicoat as a quick fix.

Excellent info matt…would you say it reacts to abrasion the same as envicoat? Meaning that it will wear down faster with repeated cleanings and scraping the deposits off? Ive found that sometimes Envicoat will only last 6 months on a quarterly cleaning with heavy coverage but usually we get a year or more if the glass isnt in the sun and gets only light coverage from sprinklers. What area of the country are you in if you don’t mind me asking? Do you prefer not coming back to clean & reseal a post-restoration job more frequently & just getting more restoration work? Definitely appreciate the reply back for sure! I started out 7 yrs ago testing chemicals/3 star barrier sealant then prob 4 yrs with the Mr. Hard Water/Envicoat…Then on the last quarterly round of residentials i used the Glass Renu kit for the 1st time to fix a weird burn mark in the glass that my brother put in it with a bronze pad & liquid polish. I had never seen anything like it before but thankfully it came out with just a grey pad & polish. Im pretty new to posting but maybe i can put up a few pics. Anyways thanks again!

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Ive still got to put some more practice time in but they were happy and i didn’t have to pay for replacement so it was a win-win :smile:

Plants don’t actually require the foliage being drenched while watering. The roots are where the plant gets its nutrition to feed the foliage, so the husband should alter his wasteful watering and concentrate on the roots so as not to damage the windows with hard water deposits. This may be hard to convince him of doing, so suggesting that he talk to his local nursery professionals about which method is best; that way he can learn to conserve some water, and eliminate the need for expensive time consuming mitigation. Just a thought.

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Looks nice!