Window Cleaning in Thorneywood

Window Cleaning for Thorneywood homes

The ground falls away behind the terraces, so a first floor window at the back can sit at third storey height off the yard. That is pole work from a firm footing, and it is why nobody puts a ladder on a slope.

The back of a terrace here is the interesting part. Where the ground drops away, a first floor bedroom window can be a full three storeys above the yard behind it, and that yard is often a narrow strip with a retaining wall at the far side, so there is nowhere flat to stand and no room to set anything up. Ladders are out of the question on ground like that. It is water fed pole work off whatever solid footing exists, and the reach needed at the rear is frequently a size up from what the front of the same house takes. The front elevation is the straightforward half: shorter drops, a level pavement, and a pole worked from the street.

Thorneywood sits in NG3, under Nottingham City Council. The housing here is mostly late Victorian and Edwardian terraces built in short runs across the slope, some standing a storey above their own pavement and others dropping below it, with interwar semis on the higher ground, and that is what shapes this job more than the floor area does.

What we run into on Thorneywood window cleaning jobs

Stone sills on the older terraces have a drip groove cut along the underside, a shallow channel whose only job is to make water fall clear of the wall instead of tracking back to it. On a great many of these houses that groove has been filled with paint over successive decorations, or packed with moss, and once it is blocked the run-off from the glass goes straight down the brickwork below. That is the dark streak under the window that people ask us about, and washing the glass more often makes it appear more often rather than less. We clear the groove where it can be reached from the pole and tell you where it cannot.

How a Thorneywood window cleaning job actually runs

The rear of these terraces is the part that has to be arranged rather than simply visited. Where the only way round to the back is a shared passage between two houses, that gate is often bolted from the neighbour's side or kept locked, and a dog in the adjoining yard settles the question on its own. So the first visit is a look at both elevations with you, and after that a standing arrangement: the front on every visit and the back on whichever cycle access allows. Weather sets the rest. Pole work on an exposed hillside stops being safe long before rain would stop it, so it is wind rather than drizzle that moves an appointment, and we reschedule to the next dry, still slot rather than the next free one. Frequency is worth thinking about by aspect. Glass facing out over the valley catches low afternoon sun, which shows every streak and every fleck of road film that a shaded elevation hides completely, so a house with windows on both faces often ends up on two different intervals.

Who books it here

The local reference points are Carlton Road at the foot of the slope, Porchester Road above, and Bakersfield east, which is usually enough for us to find a property without a postcode lookup.

We run Thorneywood on the same round as St Ann's, Sneinton and Porchester.

What we check on every Thorneywood job

The bay windows on these houses usually carry a row of small leaded lights across the top of each opening, and the front door often has a coloured panel in it. Both need different handling from a plain pane. The lead cames oxidise to a dull grey, and that oxide comes off on anything wet, so a cloth run over the panel spreads a grey wash across the glass squares and it looks worse than before it was touched. It has to be rinsed and flushed away rather than wiped across. The other detail is the putty. On original glazing it is often shrunk and cracked, and water pushed hard at a failing putty line goes straight past the glass into the frame, which is how a sash rots from the inside. We keep the pressure low along those lines, work the pole across rather than into the joint, and tell you where the putty has gone rather than washing over the problem.

What the window cleaning covers

A sample of what is included

• Exterior: Glass, frames and sills cleaned together
• Also: Conservatory roofs and glazing
• Exterior: Drainage holes at the bottom of the frame cleared, which otherwise block and let water pool inside
• Also: Green algae on north-facing frames

That is a sample rather than the whole list. The full window cleaning page sets out every section of the scope, what is deliberately excluded and why, how long it takes on each property size, and what tends to go wrong.

The cleaner who comes to your Thorneywood property is directly employed and vetted by us rather than subcontracted, and the questions that come up before a first booking are answered on the FAQ page. If you are not certain this is the right service, the services hub compares all 14.