According to http://homebuying.about.com here’s a list of things you can do to make your home sparkle:

Make the House Sparkle!
Wash windows inside and out.
Rent a pressure washer and spray down sidewalks and exterior.
Clean out cobwebs.
Re-caulk tubs, showers and sinks.
Polish chrome faucets and mirrors.
Clean out the refrigerator.
Vacuum daily.
Wax floors.
Dust furniture, ceiling fan blades and light fixtures.
Bleach dingy grout.
Replace worn rugs.
Hang up fresh towels.
Bathroom towels look great fastened with ribbon and bows.
Clean and air out any musty smelling areas. Odors are a no-no.

Notice the first item is cleaning the windows! Nothing makes a home feel fresh and appealing like clean windows. It just feels good! A lot of the things can be done yourself like changing towels and cleaning out the refrigerator. But some items like window cleaning, pressure washing and cobweb removal should be done by a professional. As a matter of fact Money magazine states that window cleaning yields up to a 768 percent return on investment when selling your home. That means for every $100.00 invested you’ll get back $768.00! Who wouldn’t want that? Here’s some more great news. One phone call to A.B. Window Cleaning and we can handle all of your window cleaning, pressure washing, and cobweb removal needs. We’ll make your home sparkling fresh, clean and do our best to increase your home’s curb appeal. And tell you what when you get back your 768 percent return on your window cleaning investment, we won’t even ask you to split it with us. But if you want to buy us a soda, we’ll take it.

We’ll answer all these questions and more over the next few posts so you can be well informed when it comes time to hire your next window cleaner. Stay tuned….

2. Keep your water clean. You can’t clean windows with dirty water.

3. Wipe off your squeegee often. Always put a dry squeegee on glass. It keeps streaks to a minimum.

4. Use clean dry towels to detail. Wet dirty towels streak all over your freshly cleaned windows.

“Well great, a lot of good that does me,” you say. Hold on. Here’s what you as a do it yourselfer can do. Add one half ounce of any name brand dishwashing soap to one gallon of water. That will be more than enough. Mix it up really good but keep the suds to a minimum. No need to use ammonia or vinegar. They both stink and ammonia will eat the tint off of windows over time. Just good old fashioned dishwashing soap and water. It works about as good as the professional stuff and smells good too!! Now if you win the mega millions lottery tonight could please click on the link here and hire us to clean your San Diego windows? We specialize in San Diego mansions!!

First off let’s start with your shopping list for the local hardware store. You’re going to need to buy the following:

SHOPPING LIST
A bucket
A 12 to 14 inch squegee (stainless steel or brass)
A wetting wand or “mop” as we call them. They’re usually right next to the squeegees.
A telescoping pole (a 4 to 8 foot pole is common and that’s what we use.)
A small bottle of dishwashing soap
Clean Microfiber towels (this is key to getting that professional clean)

PROPER WATER MIXTURE
Ok, now that you have all your equipment you’re ready to get to work. Start by putting 2 to 3 gallons of cold water in a bucket. To that add about an half to one ounce of dishwashing soap. That’s all you’ll really need as far as soap. A little goes a long way. Now take your wetting wand or mop and stir the solution for a good 30 seconds. KEEP THE SUDS TO A MINIMUM. The better you mix the solution the more effective it will be on cleaning your glass. And did I mention to keep the suds to a minimum? It just makes squeegeeing easier later on. Believe me solution is much easier to squeegee than bubbles.

WETTING THE WINDOW
Now that you have your soapy water ready, dunk your wetting wand in the bucket and completely soak your wand. As you take it out wring it out over the bucket a couple of times. You want it just wet enough so only a few drops of water come off the wand as you are putting on your pole. You want to wet the window, not the ground all around you. So take your lightly “wetted” wand, put it on your pole and start wetting the window. Wet all 4 corners and get the window nice and wet and soapy. Also, don’t wet a window in direct sunlight. It will begin to dry and leave a soapy residue on the glass before you get a chance to squeegee it.

SQUEEGEE THE WINDOW
Ok take the wetting wand off the pole (if you’re using one) and put the squeegee on. Now here is a technique that I use to teach EVERY new window cleaners who comes to work for me. Take one end of the squeegee and “cut” a half inch “dry strip” across the top of the glass. In other words, the first time the squeegee touches the glass you are squeegeeing across the top of the glass with one end of the squeegee. It will take a little practice to get it right but this little technique will pay off with professional-looking streak free glass in the long run.
Once you have that nice dry strip across the top, dry off your squeegee rubber with your towel. Now take your DRY squeegee and put it directly on the DRY STRIP OF GLASS. Think “DRY RUBBER TO DRY GLASS” over and over. That is the secret to streak free glass. “Dry rubber to dry glass.” Now that you’ve placed your dry squeegee to the dry strip on the glass. pull down in one continuous fluid motion, keeping consistently light pressure on the glass. Let the squeegee do the work. This too will take a little practice. A little tip, turn your brain off, don’t think about what you’re doing. Pretend like you’ve done it a million times before and you can do it in your sleep. And in no time you will. Just repeat this process all the way across the glass. After EVERY PULL, dry off the squeegee so you are putting dry rubber on a dry piece of glass.
At about the bottom one third of the window is where most people run into problems. The squeegee comes off the glass or the angle of the squeegee doesn’t fit flush against the glass when you are pulling down At this point do this. Cut a dry strip on one side of the bottom third of glass. And in the same you you pulled down the glass, now pull across the glass. Within a couple of pulls you should be done.

Detailing the window
Once you’ve gone around cleaning all the glass you can access, take your towel and wipe out the track and window frame to give it that “professional” look. Do this last, wiping out the tracks will gunk up your towels pretty fast and you don’t want to be drying off your squeegee with gunked up dirty towels. That dirt will get back on your squeegee and you’ll be cleaning your window with a dirty squeegee. Kinda defeats the purpose.

FINAL TIPS
Keep a good supply of clean towels on hand. You’ll be going through them pretty quickly at first as you practice. As you get better you’ll need less.

“DRY SQUEEGEE ON DRY GLASS” This is the key to hassle free do it yourself window cleaning. Always start squeegeeing a window in this manner. Never deviate from it.

Turn your brain off when squeegeeing. Don’t overthink it. It’s not brain surgery. Just window cleaning.

Be patient. The first few windows will go slow. That’s to be expected. But like anything else the more you do it the better and faster you will get at it.

That’s it. Now go out to your local hardware store get some supplies and give it a shot. But for those of you who feel that the whole process is too involved and would rather leave it to a professional, well if you are in San Diego County and want a professional window cleaning, customer service oriented company come out and thrill you with their experience and service, then click here

You know you can predict the weather after you wash your car right?  It can be a perfectly hot sunny day while you’re out washing your car and it never fails.  Within a few days it will rain.  Well what about when you get your windows cleaned?
What happens if it rains right after you pay good money to have a professional company come and clean your windows.  It sure costs a lot more to have your windows cleaned than getting a car wash doesn’t it?  And for that kind of money I want my windows to stay clean longer than a week!!

The good news is…it will!!  Let me explain.  It’s actually very simple.  When rain water hits a dirty window, the raindrops and dirt on the window mix together to create “dirty” water droplets on your window. After the storm clouds have passed and the weather begins to dry out, the “dirty” water droplets evaporate.  Once completely evaporated all of the dirt, minerals and deposits contained in that droplet remain on the window in the form of a spot.  Hence the spotting you see on your windows most of the time.  Since windows are usually dirty when the rains come it’s natural for us to think that: RAIN = DIRTY, SPOTTED WINDOWS.

Not True!!  Here’s the scoop.  Rain water is “pure”.  It’s completely free of minerals and deposits.  Left to itself, rain water would evaporate “spot free”.  In order for rain water to spot your windows it needs….dirty windows!  When rain water evaporates on a freshly cleaned window it will evaporate SPOT FREE. There’s nothing on the window to mix with the rain water to create a spotting issue.   So, if it rains soon after you’ve had your windows cleaned you have nothing to worry about.  Your windows should still be clean once the rain has passed. With that knowledge most window cleaning companies in San Diego County won’t offer a rain guarantee.

But I believe in giving the customer what they want. If you want a rain guarantee we’ll give you one for free. You’re paying us good money to clean your windows and you want it to last.  So we offer you a 30 day rain guarantee.  If for any reason you’re walking around your home after the rain and decide that one or all of your windows need an exterior touch up, no problem.  Call me back and say “I’d like you to come back and touch up a few windows please” and we will schedule a time to come back at your convenience. It’s like getting a second window cleaning for FREE.  Just one more way we make your service experience with A.B. Window Cleaning the best it can be for you.  So please don’t hesitate to call me if you want a touch up. Your trust in my company to always do the right thing for you is valuable to me. And I welcome the opportunity to show off just how good we really are.

Damian Casillas
A.B. Window Cleaning
1-800-388-0880

That is the professional window cleaner’s secret.  Good old fashioned practice, and a love of clean windows. ; ).   I know you were hoping for some tips and tricks to make you into a superstar window cleaner overnight.  But the truth is there are none.  So if you have a minimum of a week to 6 months to dedicate to giving your windows that streak free shine, head down to your local hardware store and pick up a bucket,a squeegee, a pole, and a window cleaner wand and go for it!  There’ nothing like that streak free shine on your home windows!  But, if you’re like most people and have a life, and time is a precious commodity, click here.  Let us show you how affordable it is to have your San Diego home windows cleaned professionally and not only save you money, but something even more valuable to you…..time.

That’s where the story turns.  On the day of your appointment, the time comes for the window cleaner to show up and he’s not there.  A half hour goes by, no call from him, nothing.  45 minutes go by…nothing.  An hour later there’s a ring at your doorbell.  And there he is in a 2 day old wrinkled shirt that he picked up from the Salvation army, stained dirty jeans, hair uncombed, unshaved and he smells like cigarrettes. His work truck looks like it’s being held together by duct tape and elmers glue.  His equipment is in even worse shape.   Still think saving that $100.00 is such a good deal?  Now it’s time for him to get to work.  He brings his ladder in your house.  He leaves a  nice trail of footprints from the mud on his shoes trailing across your carpet.  There are no protective covers on the ends of his ladder as he slams it up against your wall.  Now you have 2 scuffs in your wall to match the footprints on your carpet.  As he is coming down the ladder his squeegee holster knocks over a lamp damaging the shade cover. He goes about his work and yeah, the windows do look better than before.  But the water running off the sill down your wall sure doesn’t look too appealing.  He goes about his job and after 6 hours (it should have been 4 but he was an hour lateand he needed a couple of cigarrette breaks)  he comes collecting.  The windows look ok, there’s a few streaks here and there but you guess that’s acceptable.  You write him a check and he stops you saying he only takes cash.  You don’t have it so you need to run to the bank to get it for him.  You eventually pay him and he’s on his way.  After he’s gone you check out the windows from the outside.  “Hey these screens weren’t bent like this before.” you say to yourself.  So, you saved a few bucks, but now you have a trail of muddy footprints on your carpet, dings on your wall, bent lampshade, bent screens and you lost an hour waiting for the guy to show up.  At this point you really wish you would have spent a little more to get better service. It’s like the saying goes, “You Get What You Pay For”.

So how do you avoid this happening to you with your San Diego Window Cleaning Company?  Do your research!  Ask the right questions before you hire your window cleaning company. There’s more to having your windows cleaned than just a low price.

Here are 4 questions you should ask any company that is going to step foot on your property and service your home:

1. How long have you been in business?  Experience counts!! 50% of all new businesses go out of business within the first year.  After 5 years the number is up to 80%  Any business that has been in business longer than 5 years is doing something right. The longer the company has been in business the better the chance of you having a pleasurable experience when getting your windows cleaned.

2. Do you offer any kind of guarantee?  Most window cleaning companies don’t!  They finish the job, collect their money and they are on their way.  Look for a company that offers a guarantee.  If they are confident in providing you a quality service then at minimum they will offer a 100% satisfaction or you don’t pay guarantee.  A very select few are so good they go the next step and offer a 100% satisfaction or they will pay you!

3. Are you licensed and insured?  A lot of companies are licensed.  That’s good!  It’s required!  It’s a great first step towards being a legitimate business operation. But what about business liability insurance? What if there is an accident on your property that does damage to your home?  If it’s $100.00 to $500.00 worth of damage, the window cleaning company has a problem.  Usually that can be compensated by the company out of their cash account. However, what if it’s $5,000.00 up to $1000,000.00 worth of damage, depending on the size of the company, you the homeowner has a problem.  Now we’re talking a lot of money!  The type of money most companies don’t have for these circumstances.  That’s where business liability insurance comes in.  TO PROTECT YOU!!  Don’t even think of hiring a window cleaning company without a business liability policy!  Most insurance policies are cover up to one million in damages.  Some go the extra mile and provide 2 million in liability protection.  If one million is good, 2 million is better!  Again, business liability insurance is for your protection! Ask them if they can provide proof of insurance.  The only acceptable answer is yes.  This is non-negotiable.

4. How do I know the job will get done right?  Don’t just assume that the people showing up to clean your windows are going to do a good job.  A good service provider provides a checklist for their employees.  The checklist should be designed to provide a great experience for the customer.  It should include details such as how the uniform should look when showing up at the front door, how to address the customer, proper procedures for cleaning windows, proper steps to ensure safety, and proper procedures for checking out with the customer.  As long as the employees follow the checklist that is designed to provide an excellent customer service experience, the experience will be great time and time again.  If this issue is important to you, here is a San Diego Window Cleaning Service that provides just that!