Heritage window cleaning is slower, gentler work. We clean leadlight, stained glass, timber sash windows and the rest of the glass on Federation, Edwardian and Californian bungalow homes across Melbourne’s east, with light pressure, low water around old putty and nothing forced.
Canterbury, Camberwell, Balwyn and Surrey Hills are full of these houses, and we clean a lot of them. Their windows need a different approach from a modern aluminium slider.
Leadlight and stained glass
The glass is usually fine. It is the lead holding it that needs care.
Lead softens over decades, and old panels often bow slightly in their frames. Push on a bowed panel and it moves, and once it has moved it does not go back. So leadlight gets light pressure, no leaning, and no scrubbing at the joints.
If a panel is already bowed, loose in its frame, or has a cracked lead, we will show you. That is a repair for a leadlighter, and it is better to know before water gets behind it.
Timber sashes and old putty
Glazing putty goes hard and brittle with age, then starts to crack and drop out.
Soaking or scrubbing it speeds that up. Around old putty we keep the water low and work the glass, not the putty. Where putty is already failing, we point it out, because once water is getting past it the timber underneath starts to go.
Painted-shut sashes get cleaned where they are. Forcing one is how sash cords snap and old glass cracks, and that is not a decision we will make for you.
Colonial bars and small panes
Californian bungalows in particular love a colonial bar: timber bars breaking one window into eight or twelve small panes.
Each of those panes has four edges, and every edge has to be detailed. A single colonial window can take as long as a whole wall of modern sliding glass. Inside, where a squeegee will not fit, each small pane is sprayed and wiped by hand with a microfibre cloth.
It is also why they look so bad when done quickly. Miss the corners on twelve panes and you have forty-eight misses in one window. So we ask about them on the phone before giving you a price.
Why pure water suits these houses
Outside, the pole runs on filtered water with nothing dissolved in it, so nothing is left behind on the glass. There is no detergent either. Detergent residue sits in the lead joints and in the gaps around old putty, and it pulls dirt back to the places that are hardest to clean.
Working around an established garden
Mature hedges, narrow side paths, garden beds right up against the wall. A water-fed pole is worked from solid ground and reaches over all of it, and the hose is run in a clear line so it does not drag through the beds.
What we will not do
No abrasives on old glass. No harsh chemicals near lead, timber or original paint. Nothing forced.
If a window needs more than cleaning, we will tell you what we can see and leave the decision with you.
Call 0450 246 246, or request a callback and we will ring you.
