Interior Glass and Mirror Standard

Purpose

Glass is the only surface in the house that gets inspected in backlight. Every other surface is judged from above in room light, where a thin residue is invisible; a window is judged with the sun behind it from a chair on the other side of the room, which is the harshest optical test on the route. That is why glass generates complaints out of all proportion to the time spent on it, and why a cleaner can be certain the pane is perfect and be wrong.

Two things follow, and this procedure is built on them. First, the inspection has to happen at the customer's angle in the customer's light, not at arm's length. Second, when glass streaks it is almost never the product: it is too much product, a cloth that has picked up softener or residue, hard water drying on the surface, or an edge that never got dried. The one decision that genuinely is a product decision is whether the glass carries a coating or an applied film, and that gets made before anything is sprayed.

Scope

Covers interior glass and mirrors on residential and small commercial visits: window interiors, glass doors and French door lites, mirrors, glass table tops, glass cabinet fronts, and the frames, sills and tracks that go with them.

Does not cover exterior glass, anything requiring a ladder taller than a step stool or work from a roof, post-construction glass with paint, mortar or adhesive on it, scratch removal, hard-water etching that has already damaged the surface, or leaded, stained and antique glass, which is a conservation job rather than a cleaning one. Shower glass is covered under the bathroom standard.

Roles and responsibilities

Procedure

1. Identify coatings and films before anything is sprayed. Look at the edge of each pane for the cut line of an applied interior film, check for a tint that stops short of the frame, and treat any mirror as edge-sensitive. Acceptance: every glazed area in scope is recorded as plain glass, filmed or tinted, or unknown. What wrong looks like: a scratched or hazed patch on a film discovered after the fact, which is not repairable and means replacing the film on that pane. Stop rule: filmed, tinted or unknown glazing gets an ammonia-free cleaner and a soft cloth only, no scrapers and no abrasive pads. Hazard: none at this step, it is a look-and-record step done from the floor.

2. Stage a two-cloth system and check the water. Set one damp cloth for washing and one clean dry cloth for buffing, both lint-free and both laundered without fabric softener. Acceptance: the dry cloth leaves no lint on a dark mirror when you test it on a small area first. What wrong looks like: a fine lint haze that appears only on dark glass, which is the cloth rather than the cleaner. Stop rule: a cloth that lints or smears comes out of service for the visit, not after it. Hazard: if you are mixing a concentrate, do it away from the glass and with eye protection on, and never combine an ammoniated glass cleaner with any chlorine product, because the two liberate chloramine; if they have already met, everyone leaves the room and it stays open until it has aired.

3. Dry-detail the frame, sill and track first. Vacuum or dry-wipe the track, the sill and the frame before any liquid reaches the glass. Acceptance: no grit in the track and no visible debris on the sill. What wrong looks like: a fine scratch arc in the glass corner, which is grit dragged off the frame by a wet cloth. Stop rule: grit that will not vacuum out of a track is left rather than scraped, and noted. Hazard: window tracks collect broken glass, dead insects, and on older properties flaking paint; wear gloves, and where the property predates 1978 and the paint is deteriorating, that is a lead-paint question that stops the step rather than something to brush out, because sanding, scraping or dry-sweeping deteriorated paint of that age puts lead dust in the breathing zone of everyone in the room, and disturbing it for pay in pre-1978 housing is renovation work under EPA's rule at 40 CFR Part 745, which takes a certified firm and a certified renovator you do not have on a cleaning ticket.

4. Wash the glass, applying to the cloth on small panes and to the glass on large. On mirrors, French door lites and cabinet fronts, spray the cloth. On a large pane, apply to the glass and spread it evenly, working top to bottom so you never wash down over finished work. Acceptance: even wetting with no dry patches and no runoff onto a wood frame, sill or a mirror's bottom edge. What wrong looks like: liquid pooling in the frame rebate, which lifts veneer, marks matting behind framed art and wicks behind mirror silvering. Stop rule: any runoff into a frame gets dried immediately before the pass continues. Hazard: never spray toward a sconce, a switch, an outlet or a heated mirror; spray the cloth instead, because liquid entering a fixture in a room you have just made damp is a shock path.

5. Squeegee large panes, and wipe the blade every pass. Start with a short vertical pass at the top edge, then run overlapping horizontal passes down the pane, wiping the blade dry before each. Acceptance: no line left where two passes met, and no drip line at the bottom edge. What wrong looks like: a repeating horizontal streak at even spacing, which is a blade that was not wiped rather than a bad product. Stop rule: a nicked or hardened blade produces a permanent line and is replaced rather than worked around. Hazard: never press on a pane that carries a crack, a chip at the edge or a failed seal, because a cracked pane fails under squeegee pressure and drops glass; note it, leave it, and if glass does break, nobody picks it up by hand, it is swept up with a dustpan and the customer is told before you leave.

6. Dry the edges, because that is where streaks live. Buff with the dry cloth, then run it around the full perimeter including the last quarter inch against the frame and the underside of a mirror's bottom edge. Acceptance: the perimeter is dry to the touch and no bead of liquid remains anywhere along the frame line. What wrong looks like: a clean center with a dark drying line about a finger's width in from the frame, which is the most common finish defect on interior glass. Stop rule: a mirror edge that shows black spotting is failed silvering rather than trapped liquid, and it stops the step; photograph it and note it so it is never attributed to the visit. Hazard: drying an overhead pane runs liquid down your forearm and into your eye, so work overhead panes with a barely damp cloth and a dry second pass, and wear eye protection above shoulder height.

7. Inspect at the customer's angle, in the customer's light. Step back to the room's normal viewing position, then check again from a second angle with the light behind the glass. Acceptance: no streak, haze or lint visible from either angle with the room's own lighting as it will be used. What wrong looks like: glass that passes at arm's length and shows a broad haze when backlit, which is residue from over-application rather than missed soil. Stop rule: haze at the second angle means re-doing that pane with clean water and a dry cloth, and reducing the product on the next one; it does not mean more cleaner. Hazard: stepping back to inspect is how people walk into furniture and off a step stool, so come down off any stool before you step back, and never inspect while reaching.

8. Restore, and record the glazing. Return blinds, curtains and any moved furniture to their original positions, and record the coating status from step 1 alongside any defect found. Acceptance: window coverings back at the same height and angle, cords back on their cleats, and a written glazing note on the job. What wrong looks like: blinds left at a different height in every room, which reads as carelessness even when the glass is perfect. Stop rule: a covering you cannot restore as found gets reported before you leave. Hazard: a hanging window-covering cord loop is a strangulation hazard to a young child, so it goes back on its cleat or tension device every time.

The record this produces

• Glazing note - plain, filmed, tinted or unknown, per area. Recorded once and used every visit, because film cannot be identified reliably after somebody has sprayed it.
• Defect photos - cracks, chips, failed seals, black mirror edges. Dated, so a pre-existing failure is never charged to the visit.
• Cloth and water observations - which cloth batch streaked, whether the property has hard water. This is what turns a recurring complaint into a fix instead of a rematch.
• Two-angle inspection confirmation - that step 7 was done and from where. A glass complaint is almost always a complaint that this step was skipped.
• Out-of-scope note - exterior glass, high glass, etched panes, specialty glazing. The quote and the exclusion together.

Worked pass: French doors that pass at arm's length and fail in backlight

Scope for this segment: two interior French doors of fifteen lites each, so thirty panes, plus one bathroom mirror. Planned at about 40 seconds a pane, which is 30 times 40 seconds, or 1,200 seconds, so 20 minutes for the doors.

Step 1 recorded both doors as plain glass and the living room picture window as filmed, identified by a film cut line stopping about a finger's width short of the frame on all four sides; that window went on the ammonia-free list and was not part of this segment. Step 2 tested the dry cloth on the bathroom mirror first, which showed no lint. Step 3 vacuumed the door thresholds and dry-wiped the muntins.

Step 4 sprayed the cloth rather than the glass, correct for lites this size, and step 6 dried each perimeter. The panes passed at arm's length.

Step 7 failed. Standing back to the room's viewing position with the afternoon sun behind the doors, eight of the thirty panes showed a broad haze, all of them in the lower half of the door nearest the window. The step's stop rule is explicit that haze at the second angle is re-done with clean water and a dry cloth rather than with more cleaner, so those eight were re-done at the same 40 seconds a pane, which is 320 seconds, about 5 minutes. The re-done panes then passed from both angles.

Total for the doors: 20 minutes planned plus 5 minutes of rework, so 25 minutes, which is 5 minutes and 25 percent over. The diagnosis went on the record as over-application on the lower half, where the cloth had been recharged most recently and was carrying the most product, and the correction is fewer sprays per recharge rather than a different bottle.

Two exceptions to expect. Where the customer asks for the exterior of the same doors while you are there, that is a different scope with a different access and fall assessment and it goes to the lead. And where a pane is already cracked, it is photographed, left untouched and reported at once, because a squeegee pass or even firm buffing pressure on a cracked pane is how a cleaning visit becomes a glazing claim and an injury.

References

• Window film manufacturer care instructions, which typically restrict ammonia-based cleaners and any abrasive, and which the film's own warranty is conditioned on.
• Glass and mirror manufacturer care documentation, particularly on edge sealing and on what causes silvering to fail.
• EPA Renovation, Repair and Painting requirements at 40 CFR Part 745 for work that disturbs paint in pre-1978 housing, which is the boundary step 3 stops at rather than crosses.
• See related: Bathroom Clean, Standard Residential; Bedroom and Living Area Standard; Window Cleaning; High Dusting and Vent Cleaning Standard.