When to book your spring window cleaning in Barrie

The first time I noticed how bad my own windows had gotten was driving home from a Friday night Colts game in late April. Headlights from the cars behind me hit the front bay window of my house and the whole pane glowed white. Three months of road salt, pine sap from the spruce out front, and whatever else had blown across the yard since November had built up into a haze you could not see through.

Most Barrie homeowners notice the same thing around the same time. The snow goes, the sun finally hits the south-facing side of the house at the right angle, and suddenly the windows you thought were fine all winter look terrible.

This is the time to clean them. But there is a right week, and there is a wrong week.

The four things on your windows right now

After a Simcoe County winter, your glass has four kinds of grime stacked on top of each other.

• Road salt, mostly on north-facing and street-side windows. Comes off easily but leaves a faint film if you wipe it dry.
• Pollen, peaking late April through early May, especially birch and poplar. Yellow film on horizontal surfaces is the giveaway.
• Pine sap and tree pitch, sticky and yellow-brown. Worst on lakefront properties or anywhere with mature spruce or pine within twenty feet of the house.
• Lake spray, if you are anywhere within sight of Kempenfelt Bay or Lake Couchiching. Wind off the water carries fine moisture that dries with mineral deposits, especially through April and May when the lake is rough.

Each one needs slightly different handling. None of them come off well with a garden hose.

Why the second or third week of May is the sweet spot

Pollen counts in Barrie peak in the last week of April through the first week of May. If you clean before that finishes, your freshly cleaned windows pick up a fresh coat within ten days and you are back to square one.

Wait until mid-May and the air clears. You also get exterior temperatures consistently above 5 degrees, which is what our cleaning solution needs to work properly. And you are still well ahead of the June bug splatter that comes with the first warm humid week of the year.

We start booking heavily around the third week of May. By June, most of our preferred Saturday slots in Barrie are already taken. If you want a weekend appointment, getting on the calendar before Mother's Day is smart.

What it looks like when we show up

We arrive in a marked truck, walk the property with you so we know what to expect (the dishwasher-steam haze on the kitchen window, the lake-spray ring on the dining room glass, the spot where the kids drew on the back slider in marker), then get to work. Exteriors get the pure-water pole, which leaves nothing behind to dry into spots. Interiors get the cloth-and-squeegee because there is still no replacement for it on the inside.

Screens come out, get a rinse and a brush, and go back in. Sills get wiped. Most jobs take two to four hours depending on the size of the home.

A standard bungalow in the south end of Barrie is around $300 for inside and out. A two-storey in Painswick or Holly with 15 to 20 windows runs about $400. Lakefront homes on Kempenfelt with a wall of picture windows run a bit higher. We send the number before we start, so there are no surprises.

Booking

You can book online in about a minute. We confirm same day and send a text the morning we are heading your way. If you want to talk first, call or text (705) 718-1856.

If your front bay window looks like mine did after the Colts game, you are not alone. It happens to all of us. Let us get it sorted before the patio season starts.