Scratching troubles

I recently started up my business as a  cleaner, since starting i have noticed several scratches i think i have left behind. Of course i can't be sure i have made the marks but these are newer properties and there is some similarity between the marks i have been finding after closely inspecting the windows. I am using top of the range brushes (Gardiner Ultimate with Dupont bristels) - and a bronze wool adapter for stubborn stains. I rinse my brushes thoroughly every night and soak in pure water over night. I tested the brush on the inside of my door today, i scratched with lots of force the edge of the brush head along the glass and it left no mark. Also i tried to push the plastic jet heads onto the glass and that was not possible. 

Some marks are very fine wire marks which i think could have been left by the bronze wool - i am not sure on how much force it is okay to use for these pads (they claim to not leave any marks on glass). The marks look a lot like a wire wool would make.

I decided to stop using the bronze wool temporarily and just stick to the brushes - yesterday i did a large new build and noticed afterwards a ground floor pane with numerous thin line scratches going both vertically and horizontally. The lines are super fine but clearly visible and i scrubbed the area with pure water and a professional glass cloth to make sure they were in fact scratches. 

I am not sure what i could be doing wrong. Initially i considered that i may have not been correctly rinsing the frames before i moved on to the glass, but yesterdays house was pretty clean framed and i didn't see any dirt coming off the frames during my frame rinse. Maybe i am forcing the pressure on the glass to much, but from video's i have seen guys are pretty heavy handed with their brushes and not scratching.

Moving forward i really want to solve this, as i am now tentative to put my brushes onto glass ? 

What brush are you using?

THL4KEL said:

What brush are you using?

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He said a gardiner ultimate with DuPont bristles , sounds a strange thing to scratch glass with that I can understand bronze wool scratching as I have seen people scratch glass with that before , I wonder if the scratches were there before and only became visible  after cleaning .

DeLaCruz said:

I recently started up my business as a  cleaner, since starting i have noticed several scratches i think i have left behind. Of course i can't be sure i have made the marks but these are newer properties and there is some similarity between the marks i have been finding after closely inspecting the windows. I am using top of the range brushes (Gardiner Ultimate with Dupont bristels) - and a bronze wool adapter for stubborn stains. I rinse my brushes thoroughly every night and soak in pure water over night. I tested the brush on the inside of my door today, i scratched with lots of force the edge of the brush head along the glass and it left no mark. Also i tried to push the plastic jet heads onto the glass and that was not possible. 

Some marks are very fine wire marks which i think could have been left by the bronze wool - i am not sure on how much force it is okay to use for these pads (they claim to not leave any marks on glass). The marks look a lot like a wire wool would make.

I decided to stop using the bronze wool temporarily and just stick to the brushes - yesterday i did a large new build and noticed afterwards a ground floor pane with numerous thin line scratches going both vertically and horizontally. The lines are super fine but clearly visible and i scrubbed the area with pure water and a professional glass cloth to make sure they were in fact scratches. 

I am not sure what i could be doing wrong. Initially i considered that i may have not been correctly rinsing the frames before i moved on to the glass, but yesterdays house was pretty clean framed and i didn't see any dirt coming off the frames during my frame rinse. Maybe i am forcing the pressure on the glass to much, but from video's i have seen guys are pretty heavy handed with their brushes and not scratching.

Moving forward i really want to solve this, as i am now tentative to put my brushes onto glass ? 

Click to expand...

Where abouts in Cornwall are you ??? 

DeLaCruz said:

I recently started up my business as a  cleaner, since starting i have noticed several scratches i think i have left behind. Of course i can't be sure i have made the marks but these are newer properties and there is some similarity between the marks i have been finding after closely inspecting the windows. I am using top of the range brushes (Gardiner Ultimate with Dupont bristels) - and a bronze wool adapter for stubborn stains. I rinse my brushes thoroughly every night and soak in pure water over night. I tested the brush on the inside of my door today, i scratched with lots of force the edge of the brush head along the glass and it left no mark. Also i tried to push the plastic jet heads onto the glass and that was not possible. 

Some marks are very fine wire marks which i think could have been left by the bronze wool - i am not sure on how much force it is okay to use for these pads (they claim to not leave any marks on glass). The marks look a lot like a wire wool would make.

I decided to stop using the bronze wool temporarily and just stick to the brushes - yesterday i did a large new build and noticed afterwards a ground floor pane with numerous thin line scratches going both vertically and horizontally. The lines are super fine but clearly visible and i scrubbed the area with pure water and a professional glass cloth to make sure they were in fact scratches. 

I am not sure what i could be doing wrong. Initially i considered that i may have not been correctly rinsing the frames before i moved on to the glass, but yesterdays house was pretty clean framed and i didn't see any dirt coming off the frames during my frame rinse. Maybe i am forcing the pressure on the glass to much, but from video's i have seen guys are pretty heavy handed with their brushes and not scratching.

Moving forward i really want to solve this, as i am now tentative to put my brushes onto glass ? 

Click to expand...

TBH you are worrying about something there is no need to worry about. Have you had any customer complaints with regard to this?

I think you're being too conscientious using bronze wool (I've never had to use it in 4+ years) and are making a rod for own back, just stick to the Gardiner's brush & you'll be OK.

Not trying to patronise but there's nothing to worry about. There are windies on here, that take less care then you do, and have never scratched a window. The only way you will scratch windows is if you do builders cleans with cement on them. I appreciate it's hard not to worry, but I, and many others on here will tell you the same. 

i got an idea for you..

Add a load of WD40 into your pure water supply. Not only will it lubricate the brush so it slides up and down them windows like it's on grease, your customers will see nice rainbows they've "never been able to see before" whenever they look out of their windows in the rain LOL.(I am of course joking)

Personally i'd never use anything metallic like bronze on glass. I've heard of other windys that do for whatever reason but not something that appeals to me - i might as well use sandpaper! In my eyes if the brush isn't capable of scratching / causing injury to me when i run it over my hand, it's not capable of scratching glass meaning there must be contaminants on the actual glass itself which is getting caught and dragged down the glass. You can't realistically be expected to see and protect against that. What I do though is between every few windows while the brush is wet, i run it across my hand a few times just to that any **** in it will flick off the bristles. I did start using a plastic box with purewater to rinse the brush but it was a pain carrying that in / out of properties along with all the other stuff.

I did **** it after washing our own back door and seeing scratches - never noticed them when our own windy has been - however it was the only bit of glass to have scratches and the missus remembered that the last people here had a dog - presumably scratching at the door to get in / out. But then i noticed scratches on the other half of the back door - on the INSIDE! No way i could have caused those! Just make sure you're insured with "current windows being worked on" or whatever its called and IF you get any complaints you can put it through your insurance.

The bronze wool pads sold by DA Components are absolutely fine to use as they are  000 grade but when you buy them you always get a notice with them which says to clean them after each use, but if you are leaving them on the adapter permanently and they are catching window reveals and or brickwork the this could be the issue. 

We watched a cleaner once stand his pole upright against a customer's wall with the bristles resting on the brickwork when he stopped to talk to his customer who came out the front door. When he got back to work he just carried on. If there were any loose bits on the brickwork his brush picked up he could have transferred those across to the next pain of glass and that could have scratched the glass he was cleaning.

We need to be very careful when cleaning off hardened on birds lime. Its easy to scratch glass if you use the edge of the brush to 'rub' it off on some types of glass. Those Gardiner scrapers do work quite well. I see Gardiners have a longer one available now.

I would not worry too much about it. The 'sparkle' clean done on new builds sometimes isn't done with much care and scratches are left behind. Its only when you clean the glass wfp that it cleans all the dirt out of these fine scratches and they become noticeable.You have already proved to yourself that your brush can't scratch anything, so you need to just make sure that you regularly run your hand through your brush head to clean any little bits off from the previous window and sill you have cleaned.

I usually do that (run my hand through my brush) after I've finished to top windows and start the lower ones. After all these years of window cleaning I'm still paranoid about my brush picking up grit from the top window sills and scratching the lower windows I start to clean.

If this is just an issue you have noticed on one estate @DeLaCruz then it will could also well be down to the glass manufacturers the builders used. One of our customers did ask us once about the swirls of what appeared to be scratches in his lounge window which was over the whole pain of glass. He saw that the way we cleaned , vertical strokes and horizontal across the top and bottom weren't consistant with those scratches, hence why he asked. I said I didn't know but I would have thought it was something that could have occurred during manufacture. It only affected one window and none of the others. We never heard anything more about it from the customer.

New build windows IME are riddled with very fine scratch marks. Wether this is done by a heavy handed builders clean or the windows are not handled with care before being installed, I don’t know. But I have come across this on new build houses that have never been cleaned before (well, unless they were given a builders clean before people moved in). This is before I’ve ever touched them. You will only notice these scratches on a sunny day when the light is at a certain angle, which gives you the impression you have caused them as you all of a sudden notice something you never noticed before. As long as you don’t rest your brush on the wall or floor (I have seen this!) and your brush isn’t caked in bits of grit/paint you should be fine. A higher flow rate is also a good idea. I have also seen these same scratch marks on the inside of windows when I clean the insides. As long as you aren’t getting complaints and are taking every precaution, I really don’t think you should worry.

Thank everyone for the advice on this one - of course its knocked my confidence. I will stick to keeping my brushes super clean and no bronze for the time being. I honestly was worried i was doing something wrong in my technique. 

You should have Public Liability insurance, then if a customer accuses you of scratching a window all you need to say is "I will report it to my insurers - if they accept the damage was caused by me they will pay".  If the insurance company refuses to pay the customer has the right to sue, but they have to sue the insurance company, not you!

Only downside is if you have a high excess on your policy - could be more than the cost of replacing the window so the insurance still wouldn't pay out.

Another ploy is to hand the pole to the customer and challenge him (her) to scratch another pane with it.  If they succeed, you pay for both, if the brush is clean they won't succeed so no problem.  Never actually had anyone take me up on this one?

Yes i have the insurance setup - tbh no one has challenged me on anything yet, but for my own confidence i want to be sure i am doing everything as well as possible from a technical pov. Thanks for the advice.