How to clean window tracks, screens and frames, in the order that works

Most people who clean their own windows start with the glass. Spray, wipe, step back, and then notice the track is full of grit, the screen is grey, and there is a dirty line where the frame meets the pane. So they wet the track, the grit turns to mud, and the mud ends up on the glass they just finished.

The glass should be the last thing you touch. Everything around it gets done first, and it gets done dry before it gets done wet. That one rule fixes most of what goes wrong.

Here is the order, and how to do each part.

1. Take the screens out first

Screens come out before anything else. Leave them in and you are cleaning around them, and everything they hold falls into the track you clean next.

Most screens on newer windows lift out from the inside with two small tabs or a pair of spring pins. Lift, tilt, and pull. If one will not move, do not force it. Bent screen frames never sit flat again.

To clean them:

• Lean them against a wall outside, on grass or a towel so the frame does not scrape.
• Brush both sides dry with a soft brush. A lot comes off before any water is involved.
• Rinse with a garden hose on a gentle setting. Add a little dish soap on the brush if they are greasy, which kitchen screens usually are.
• Stand them up to dry before they go back in.

Do not use a pressure washer on a screen. It stretches the mesh, and a stretched screen sags and pops out of its spline.

2. Tracks: vacuum before you add any water

This is the step people get backwards. A track holds dry grit: sand, pollen, dead bugs, bits of leaf. Add water and you have paste, and paste goes into the corners and stays.

So do it dry first:

• Open the window or the sliding door all the way.
• Loosen the grit with an old toothbrush or a small stiff brush, working toward one end.
• Vacuum it out with a shop vac or the narrow nozzle of a house vacuum.
• Only then wipe the track with a damp cloth. A butter knife wrapped in a cloth gets into the corners.

Sliding door tracks are the same job on a bigger scale, and they collect more because feet and paws carry dirt straight into them. A door that drags is often a door riding on grit. Vacuum the track and brush off the rollers before you blame the door.

3. Find the weep holes

Look at the outside bottom edge of the frame on a sliding window or patio door. There are small slots or holes there. Those are weep holes, and they let rain that lands in the track drain back outside.

When they plug, water sits in the track, and that standing water is what leaves the black line along the bottom of the frame. Clear them with a toothpick or a pipe cleaner, then pour a little water into the track and watch that it runs out. If it does not, keep clearing.

4. Frames and sills, top to bottom

Now the frames. Start at the top, because whatever you loosen runs down.

Vinyl and aluminum frames want nothing stronger than warm water with a few drops of dish soap and a soft cloth. Skip abrasive pads and anything with bleach on coloured frames. On painted wood, use a cloth that is damp, not wet, and dry it right after.

Wipe the sill last. It catches everything from above.

5. Glass last

With the screens out, the tracks empty and the frames wiped, the glass takes a few minutes and it stays clean, because nothing is left around it to run down on the next wet day. That is the same reason a window streaks after rain when only the glass was cleaned, which we went through in does rain ruin freshly cleaned windows.

For the glass itself, use a squeegee, not paper towel. The full method is in what professionals use to clean windows without streaks.

Then the dry screens go back in.

What fills the tracks around here

It depends on where the house is.

• Wasaga Beach and the Georgian Bay shoreline: sand. It blows into every track and it is abrasive, so vacuum it and never wipe it dry across a frame.
• Gravel sideroads in Oro-Medonte: fine limestone dust that never really goes away.
• Midhurst and anywhere under mature pines: needles and pollen, packed into the corners.
• Newer subdivisions with no roof overhang: less debris, but the tracks take more rain, so the weep holes matter more.

When it is not worth your Saturday

Ground-floor windows and a patio door are a fair afternoon of work, and the steps above are all you need. Second-storey screens and frames are a different job, because the outside of an upper window means a ladder.

When we clean a house, this part is included. Screens come out, get a rinse and a brush, and go back in. Sills and tracks get wiped, and frames get a once-over. A bungalow, inside and out, is about $300, and a standard two-storey is about $400. The cover photo is one of us working on a door by hand at a takeout counter in Innisfil, which is how the close-up work still gets done. We are based in Horseshoe Valley, we carry $2 million in liability insurance, and there is no rural surcharge anywhere in Simcoe County.

The window cleaning page has the full price breakdown, or you can book online.