I hate cleaning windows, but I love clean windows.
What to do? I needed a foolproof way to have them beautifully clear with as little work as possible.
After some research, I bought an E-Cloth Window Cleaning Kit. Basically, it is a large weave microfiber cloth for getting off dust, schmutz, and large cruft along with a fine weave microfiber cloth for polishing. The cloths are fine, but there was still a lot of elbow grease involved and depending on the angle, the windows still looked cloudy.
My next purchase was a professional-grade squeegee. My thinking is that it would take care of the majority of the grime and leave me with a little bit of detail work around the edges of the window frame. It was definitely faster than hand scrubbing, but the windows didn’t look much better.
Maybe the issue is the cleaning fluid. I started off with just water since that is what the E-Cloth kit recommended. Then, I moved up to vinegar and water. That was followed by a trip to the store to buy the original formula Windex. How about Dawn dishwashing liquid and water? Finally, I tried acetone fingernail polish remover.
Nope. Nope. Nope. Nope and nope. Still cloudy.
Finally, I ran a razor blade across the surface of the glass. It didn’t move smoothly. I ran my finger over the glass but couldn’t feel anything. I continued with the razor blade, moving it over the same area again and again. At first, there was a little bit of dust. Then there were lines of dust. After a few minutes, the razor blade was covered with a green powder the same color as the window frames. The glass was covered with an ultra-fine layer of overspray from the painters.
I ended up having to scrape the exterior side of all the windows until the razor blade moved without resistance. After that, I was able to use the squeegee, microfiber cloths, and Windex to get a result I could live with.
Is it perfect? It depends on the angle of the sunlight, but it is good enough to get me through to the spring.