Painted grey frames water causing leopard print effect

A customer has just had their wooden frames painted grey 6 weeks ago, I cleaned them today for the first time since being painted.  I did the fronts then did the back.  I always wipe down my lower ground sills when done and started with the back wiping the sills then went to the front to wipe the sills and noticed the paint on the first window I got to didn't look right and thought the painters must have done a bad job, didn't really think much more about it but then noticed on the next window that there were circles where the water had dried and had dried a light grey colour, I then started to panic as I noticed the rest of the windows were the same.  It was like a leopard print effect where the beads of water that had formed on the sill had dried to a light grey colour, looked absolutely awful.  I frantically scrubbed with a microfibre cloth and they did blend back into the dark grey paint but it has now got me concerned about the upper sills as I cannot see them.

To make matters worse their neighbour also had theirs painted at the same time, so I explained the potential problem and said I wanted to do a test on just one of their windows, they were happy to do that, I went away came back 2 hours later and it looked ok so I'm going to proceed with their clean tomorrow.  

Just wondering if anybody else has experienced any issues like this and if you have does it go back to the original colour when it's properly dried?

Was it just the sills where there was some "standing water" or on frames too. You used same water on both.

Many of my houses have those Grey aluminium windows and I'm noticing shading on the colour, turning white.

mike007 said:

Was it just the sills where there was some "standing water" or on frames too. You used same water on both.

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The face of the front door also had bleach like drip marks on it.  Same water '0' ppm.  It looked like a bleaching effect.  The frames looked ok from what I could tell but there wasn't much of a surface for the water to grip on to.  It seemed to be where the water was just sat in a single spot and left to dry.

I wouldn’t worry about it. It happens all the time with freshly painted surfaces that have used and oil based paint. I dont know the technical drivel but it’s something it do with the water reacting with the oil in the paint or so my P+D friend once told me. It always disappears as everything dries out. 

scottish cleaning service said:

Many of my houses have those Grey aluminium windows and I'm noticing shading on the colour, turning white.

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I did one of these today, well, I presume its aluminium, its metal of some sort. Modern style a lot have nowdays. I had to dry off the sills to keep it as it was. As for the upstairs, had to leave that. Cant think that pure would do anything to it that rain wouldn't though.

ks789 said:

I did one of these today, well, I presume its aluminium, its metal of some sort. Modern style a lot have nowdays. I had to dry off the sills to keep it as it was. As for the upstairs, had to leave that. Cant think that pure would do anything to it that rain wouldn't though.

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Update, I think I know what it was in my case. Hadnt been done since they were put up over a year ago, so the sills needed a good clean anyway, and this type isn't like your pvc. Should be better next time.

ks789 said:

I did one of these today, well, I presume its aluminium, its metal of some sort. Modern style a lot have nowdays. I had to dry off the sills to keep it as it was. As for the upstairs, had to leave that. Cant think that pure would do anything to it that rain wouldn't though.

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Its the sun that's turning it milky, South facing windows and doors are the worst.

I did the other house today, it did do the same and it looked really bad but by the time I had got my camera out and returned it had disappeared.  Really weird, did worry me yesterday when it first happened.  Completely fine now though, not a hint of a problem.

Wasted about 1.5 hours on that, better to be safe than sorry though.  Always learning.