Residential Window Cleaning in Metro Detroit

Inside: every pane cleaned by hand, screens taken out and washed, sills and tracks vacuumed and wiped, frames and grids wiped down, and mirrors on request. Outside: every pane we can reach, cleaned with pure water, plus the frames and the cobwebs. Book either one on its own, or both.

Most people book both, and the outside gets done more often. Outside glass here takes road spray in March, pollen in April and May, sprinkler spray in summer and leaf stains in the fall. Inside glass collects dust, cooking film and, with kids or dogs, prints low on the sliders.

Tracks are the part people underestimate. A track that hasn't been cleaned in years is packed with dirt, dead insects, paint chips and pollen, and a rag just smears it. We vacuum them out first, then wipe. It's the biggest difference you'll notice between a careful interior cleaning and a fast one.

It's a water-fed pole running water with the minerals filtered out, first by reverse osmosis and then by a deionizing resin. Pure water cleans well on its own, and because nothing is dissolved in it, nothing is left on the glass when it dries. No squeegee, no soap and no drying.

That has two practical results. The finish gets better over the first couple of cleanings, as each pass rinses old soap residue out of the frame edges, and that residue is what causes the drips people notice a day later. The pole also reaches from the ground, so most second-story bedrooms, dormers and the glass over a walkout basement get cleaned without a ladder against the siding or the gutter.

Inside glass is still cleaned by hand, because a pole and a hose don't belong in your living room. Each method gets used where it works best.

Sprinkler spray is the most common cause of permanent window damage we see on Michigan homes, and people rarely know it until a window cleaner points it out. A head that hits the bottom of a first-floor window puts mineral-heavy water on the glass, the sun dries it, and it happens again every other morning all summer.

For the first season or two, the deposit is a stain, and acid-based restoration work can take it off. After several seasons it turns into etching: the minerals bond into the surface and take a microscopic layer of glass with them. Nothing cleans that back. The pane gets replaced, or it stays cloudy.

So the first fix costs nothing. Walk your irrigation zones while they're running and look for any head spraying the house. Turning it a few degrees or lowering the arc takes five minutes and saves the glass. If we see one hitting your windows, we'll tell you.

The houses around here split into two kinds of job that price very differently. It helps to know which one you have before you compare quotes.

Older homes, like those in the Downtown Northville Historic District, around Kellogg Park in Plymouth and in Plymouth's Old Village north of Ann Arbor Trail, tend to have wood sash with true divided lights and separate storm windows. One window can be twelve or sixteen small panes plus a storm that has to come off, get cleaned on both sides and go back on straight. That's slow, careful work, and a price that assumes one sheet of glass will be far too low.

Newer homes, in most of the 1990s and 2000s subdivisions in Novi, Canton, Northville Township and Commerce Township, have fewer panes and more height: two-story entry foyers with arched Palladian transoms, great rooms with glass up to the second floor, and stairwell windows that haven't been cleaned inside since the house was built. Those jobs are about reach and safety.

Livonia sits in between. Most of the city was built between 1950 and 1970, with brick ranches, colonials and split-levels that have big picture windows and aluminum storms. Picture windows clean fast and look great when they're done, which makes Livonia exteriors some of the best value we quote.

Two visits a year suit most homes: late spring after the tree pollen is done, and early fall before the weather turns. If you only book one, book spring. That visit clears a winter of road salt film and a spring of pollen together.

Michigan's weather sets the calendar. Outside window cleaning runs March through November. Below freezing, rinse water turns to ice on your siding and your walk, so once the overnight lows drop we stop booking outside work until spring. Inside cleaning runs all year, and January and February are the easiest months to get on the schedule.

Two dates worth knowing. Late April into May is peak pollen from the maples and oaks, so a cleaning just before it won't last. And the film on storm doors and lower windows in March is road salt, thrown up by traffic and your own driveway. Water takes it off easily, and a dry cloth just smears it.

We build every window cleaning quote from your windows. We count them and note which ones have divided lights, which have storms and which are above the first floor.

What moves the number, in rough order of how much it moves it: total window count, how many of them are divided-light or grid windows, whether exterior storms have to come off and go back on, how many openings sit above the first floor, and whether you want inside and out or just the outside. If you're also booking gutter cleaning, we do the gutters first.

For outside work, no. We need access to the yard and to an outdoor spigot, and that is it. For inside work, someone needs to let us in, and it helps to move breakables off the sills first. We work around furniture and window treatments, and we don't move them or take them down.

Send your address and a rough window count, and we'll come back with a real number. If you'd rather we count them, we can come out and do that.