Resolving Heavy Mineral Deposit Issues on Glass

We recently have run into a situation when cleaning the glass of a commercial building. After washing the glass it still looked dirty due to heavy mineral deposits on the glass that had appear to have been accumulating for years. Justifiably, our customer was not happy with the results of cleaning the glass. Fortunately, our customer recognized that the issue was not our window cleaning but rather that the glass was in need of more of an intense restore process than a general window cleaning.

We have now prepared a video outlining three separate strategies designed to overcome those mineral deposit issues.

One strategy involves using a solid commercial window cleaning solution and employ elbow grease using superfine 0000 steel wool. This method will greatly reduce the mineral deposits, but will greatly increase the labor involved which in turn impacts the price. However, the chemical is relatively inexpensive, making this the most economical one.

A second strategy involves using a much stronger chemical that will actually dissolve the mineral deposits and reduce the elbow grease but still greatly increase the time to treat the glass. This method also carries a slight risk as the chemical can react with certain glass, so each window must first be tested by cleaning a small sample spot prior to applying to entire window. This method is more expensive than the first method.

Finally, the third strategy is more of a glass restoration using a stain removing and polishing agent that will essentially result in almost new looking glass. The chemical used is expensive and the process is time consuming in that it involves application of the paste using a buffing pad. This will give the best results but will ultimately cost the most.

Another factor is that we are not sure how many years it has taken to get this buildup of mineral deposits on the glass, so cannot be certain how often this procedure would need to be performed. Ideally, regardless of which method is used, it would seem that it could be employed in stages rather than the whole building in the same year. In other words perform this effort on 1 or 2 floors per year and do another 1 or 2 floors the next year and so on. After the first treatment, we could inspect the treated glass the next year for signs of mineral deposit buildup and determine if this stage strategy will suffice to keep the buildup under control. Our preliminary thinking is that it should because it seems that what is present currently is the result of a buildup over a number of years. If this proves true it can greatly reduce the cost by spreading the cost over a number of years rather than absorbing the total cost in one year.

We are adding a video demonstrating those 3 strategies.