Window Cleaning in Hamilton

One city, two completely different jobs

The escarpment does more than divide Hamilton geographically. It divides the housing stock, and with it the work involved in cleaning the glass.

Below the Mountain you are mostly dealing with pre-war brick. Durand, Kirkendall, Corktown, Stipeley, Crown Point — double-hung wood sash, frequently with separate wooden storm panels, narrow side yards, and mature street trees overhanging everything. The pane count on paper understates the job, because every storm panel means four glass faces rather than two.

Above the Mountain the stock is post-war and later. Bigger panes, aluminium and vinyl frames, generous side access, and driveways you can actually park a truck on. The same square footage of glass takes a fraction of the time.

Quoting these at one rate per pane produces a number that is wrong in both directions. We quote by elevation, having looked at what is actually on the wall.

The bayfront film

Hamilton’s lower city carries an environmental factor most Ontario cities do not: fine industrial particulate off the bay lands.

It behaves differently from ordinary dirt. It settles heaviest on north and northeast elevations, because that is the prevailing direction it arrives from. It carries a light oily component, which means it bonds rather than sitting loose, and a plain pure-water rinse — the standard exterior method — will lift the loose dust and leave a faint grey haze exactly where the film has bonded.

The fix is a detergent pre-treatment on the affected elevations, then the pure-water rinse. It is an extra step and it is the difference between glass that looks clean and glass that looks clean from one angle.

It also affects frequency. A Durand or Crown Point home may want three visits a year where a comparable property in Ancaster is comfortable with two, and the reason has nothing to do with how tidy the owner is.

Neighbourhood notes

Durand. The most demanding stock in the city. Three-storey century homes, original sash, storm panels, narrow side yards, and often no safe ladder footing anywhere on the lot. All pole work. Expect the crew on site longer than the pane count suggests.

Kirkendall and Locke Street. Similar age and construction, generally slightly better access. Heavy mature street canopy means the spring pollen visit earns its place.

Corktown and Stipeley. Tight lots, frequent shared-wall and semi conditions, and enough on-street parking pressure that we usually confirm staging arrangements before the day.

Westdale. A high proportion of student rentals near McMaster. Landlords typically want the work done between tenancies — late August and the first half of May. Booking outside those windows is usually easier and cheaper.

Ainslie Wood. Dense canopy, significant spring pollen load, and a mix of rental and owner-occupied stock.

Ancaster and Dundas. Larger lots, mature hardwood, and a later spring than the lower city. Access is generally good. The valley setting in Dundas holds pollen and leaf litter longer than the escarpment top does.

The Mountain and the brow. Efficient pole work on modern stock. Brow properties are the exception — wind exposure there drives grit onto east-facing glass noticeably faster.

Stoney Creek. Newer subdivisions, large fixed panes in great rooms and stairwells, straightforward pole access.

How we do the work

Exterior glass is cleaned with a deionised pure-water fed pole. The water is filtered until it carries effectively no dissolved solids, so it dries without spotting and leaves no detergent residue behind to attract the next layer of dust. The pole reaches three storeys from the ground.

On Hamilton’s lower-city lots that is not a stylistic choice. Between narrow side yards, planting beds, basement stairwells and neighbouring interlock, there is frequently nowhere to safely foot a ladder against a Durand three-storey. Working from the ground removes that problem entirely.

Interiors are cleaned traditionally — squeegee, scrim, careful edge work. Pure water belongs outside.

Screens are removed and washed separately. Tracks are vacuumed dry before anything gets wet. Sills are wiped down. On century homes the track is where the material actually is.

Seasonal timing

Spring, from late March, is about salt. Hamilton salts heavily and the spray reaches ground and second-floor glass on any property fronting a plowed street. Salt is abrasive dry, so it wants flooding off rather than wiping off — March is the month homeowners scratch their own windows trying to help.

Late spring, in the treed neighbourhoods, is about pollen. Dundas, Ainslie Wood and the Kirkendall canopy all produce enough to be worth a dedicated pass.

Autumn, from mid-October, is the visit that leaves the glass clean through the winter. The Dundas valley runs later than the rest of the city — early November is usually the right call there.

Winter is interior season, and Hamilton has more good winter interior work than most cities: sunrooms, enclosed porches and the big front bays that come standard on Durand and Kirkendall century homes.

Access, parking and the practical stuff

Hamilton throws up a few logistical constraints that are worth settling before the day rather than on it.

Lower-city street parking. Durand, Kirkendall and Corktown have narrow streets with permit parking on many blocks. We need roughly one vehicle length for the two to four hours we are on site, because the truck carries the water and the filtration. If your block is permit-only with no visitor allowance, tell us at quoting stage — we can usually stage a street or two away and run hose, but it adds time and we would rather price it than surprise you with it.

Escarpment access roads. Properties on the Jolley Cut, the Claremont access and the streets immediately off them can be awkward to stop on safely. We schedule those for off-peak hours rather than trying to work a narrow shoulder at rush hour.

Alley-access and rear lanes. A number of lower-city properties have their best window access from a rear lane rather than the street. If that is your situation it usually makes the job faster, not slower — but only if we know before we arrive and park at the front.

Gates, dogs and side yards. The most common cause of a return visit is a locked side gate. Our exterior work needs a clear path around the perimeter, and on Hamilton’s narrow lower-city lots that path is often a metre wide with a gate at each end. We will confirm access arrangements when we book.

What we will not do

We will not force a painted-shut sash. On a century Durand home the sash has often been painted into its frame several times over, and freeing it is a carpentry job that risks the glazing putty and, on original glass, the pane itself. We clean what opens, clean the rest from outside, and tell you which is which.

We will not walk a roof to reach a dormer. If a pane cannot be reached from the ground with a pole or from inside, we say so.

We will not quote a per-pane rate over the phone for a lower-city century home without seeing it. Between storm panels, leaded glass, transoms and enclosed porches, the pane count on these houses is routinely double what the front elevation suggests, and a phone quote would either overcharge you or get revised upward on the day. Neither is a good way to start.