Changed my mind about using a water hose to clean a big window job

I was doing a storefront in Tacoma last week, a 12-foot by 8-foot panel, and my old boss always said to just use a hose and squeegee. This time, the water had a ton of minerals and left spots everywhere... I had to redo the whole thing. My new guy, Carlos, suggested we use distilled water from the jugs we keep for the tools. It took an extra 20 minutes but the glass was perfect. Anyone else run into bad water messing up a finish?

3 comments

3 Comments

ellis.leo19d ago

Oh man, that's the worst. We had the same thing happen on a job in Everett last year, left the whole glass door looking cloudy. We switched to using a spot-free rinse system, it's basically a de-ionizer that hooks up to your hose. Costs a bit upfront but saves so much time on re-dos, and you don't have to haul jugs around. Hard water can ruin a perfect job in seconds, it's brutal.

milacraig18d ago

Two hours on a redo sounds like a nightmare. I can't believe someone would risk that just to avoid waiting a few minutes. That kind of stubbornness costs way more than time.

the_grace19d ago

Our crew chief tried the "dry with a squeegee in direct sun" method once. The glass looked like a toddler finger-painted the entire surface with dried toothpaste. We spent the next two hours redoing the whole front of that office building because he was too stubborn to wait for a cloud.