You hardly ever think about your windows, after all, they’re made so you can look through them. But just because windows are transparent doesn’t mean they aren’t important. Windows allow light and airflow into spaces. Depending on what kind of windows are used, they can also perform other functions. Some widows simply need to allow light in, while others have to be easy to open and close. Whatever it is you need from a window, there’s something on the market for you. Here are some of the different types of windows for buildings.

Different Types of Window Frames

Window frames play a big role in the aesthetics and use of your windows. While some are made to open easily, other frames simply let as much light through as possible.

Double-hung and Single-hung Windows

This window frame design is the most popular type for houses. These frames usually has a large window pane in the center, with two smaller panes on either side. Or, a large pane on one side and a smaller pane on the other.

There are many variations in the layout of these frames, such as the center or side panes being split in two horizontal windows, or sometimes there can even be four panes equal in size.

Generally though, double- and single-hung window frames are made from either metal or wood. The designs are discreet, not drawing attention to the windows, but still aesthetically pleasing.

The windows open to the outside and are easy to adjust, but often not all panes can open and close. These windows open by simply by allowing the frame that contains the windows to rotate diagonally within the main window frame.

Awning Windows

Awning windows are another popular option in homes. The main difference between double-hung and awning windows is how they open. While double-hung windows rotate within the main frame, awning windows open to the outside by pivoting from the top or side of the main frame.

The great thing about awning windows is that they allow for a lot of airflow when they open. However, if there’s a walkway outside, they tend to obstruct the passage more than a double-hung window would.

Slider Windows

Slider windows are a great option if you’re looking for airflow, but don’t want to obstruct narrow passages outside. As the name implies, these windows simply slide over each other when opened.

Picture Windows

These windows are popular in commercial buildings and homes with modern architecture. Unlike most options, picture windows can’t open. Having picture window frames is almost like have no frames at all. Instead, window the windows panes in picture windows look like a glass wall.

The benefit of picture windows is that they allow a lot of light in and can offer stunning views. However, the fact that they don’t open and close means they’re not good for spaces where having airflow is important.

In some cases, picture windows can be combined with other kind of frames to allow for airflow in a space.

There’s an almost endless variety of window frames. Box frames windows, fixed windows and Palladian windows are just a few of the additional options to choose from.

Different Types of Window Panes

While most homeowners focus a lot on their window frames, the glass that goes into these frames is often overlooked. The quality of your window glass can help increase the longevity of your windows. Glass can also be made with useful extra functionalities.

There are different types f windows for buildings that help perform important and practical functions. Here are some of your main options when choosing window glass.

Annealed Glass Windows

Annealed glass is the most basic type of window glass available. This glass is colorless and inexpensive to buy. To make annealed glass requires that large window panes are cooled slowly, allowing a strong glass to form.

All other kinds of windows are made by enhancing annealed glass for better functionality. While annealed glass is the cheapest option, it will shatter when it breaks, leaving sharp edges.

Laminated Glass Windows

During the process of lamination, a regular float glass window is enhanced into a safety glass. Laminated glass windows provide extra strength, making them a more popular for safety reasons.

The glass in manufactured by taking two regular glass panels and fusing them to an inner layer of a strong plastic material called PVB (polyvinyl butyral).

Laminated windows can stay in their frames even when they’re almost completely shattered. Because of this, car manufacturers use laminated glass to make windshields. This type of glass is normally substantially stronger and more durable.

Obscure Glass

This kind of window is highly popular for fitment in bathrooms and as shower doors. Most obscure glass windows have textured inside surfaces, causing the window to not be completely see-through. Alternatively, some obscure glass windows are coated with a layer that makes the glass look sandblasted.

The great thing about obscure glass is that it protects privacy while still allowing light to come through.

Tinted Glass Windows

Tinted windows are an excellent choice if you want to limit the UV exposure in your space and enjoy more privacy. Just keep in mind that not all tinted windows offer UV protection, so if that’s a functionality you want, you must opt for a tinted glass that offers UV protection.

Tinted glass can be a good option in bathrooms instead of obscure glass. It’s also a popular choice for skylights. That said, you can have all the windows on your building fitted with tinted glass. It adds aesthetics while blocking only a minimal amount of light from coming in. Because tinted glass does block at least some light, it’s not an ideal option for dark spaces that don’t get a lot of sunlight.

Insulated Glass Windows

Insulated glass can help you control temperatures in your space more easily. The main benefit of insulated glass is that it creates an energy efficient space, as you’ll need less air-conditioning. To make insulated glass, multiple glass panels are layered together with spaces in between. The spaces in between the glass are normally filled with argon, providing better insulation.

There are still a few other window glass options, such as Low-E glass, which is also great for regulating temperatures inside your home, allowing you to save on energy costs.

Different types of windows are good for various purposes. Overall, both the window frame and glass you use in your frame depend on the functionality you need. Consider your space and needs before choosing your windows.

Keeping Your Windows Clean

A lot can go into creating a space with the perfect windows. Once you’ve fitted your ideal windows, it’s important to keep them clean. Despite this, you probably don’t have time to clean your windows often.

At Window Cleaning Miami, we specialize in helping you keep your windows clean throughout the year.

Windows cleaning benefits aren’t just about making your place look good. Keeping your windows clean can also enhance their longevity and prevent surface scratches.

After investing time to learn about different types of windows and choosing the perfect styles, it’s important to protect your investment by keeping them clean.

Call Window Cleaning Miami today to schedule a date for your windows today. We do more than just cleaning windows, we also clean other exterior areas of your house like sidings, fencing and driveways.

The days are over of you spending hours cleaning windows only to see those dreaded streaks when you’re done! The thing about glass is that it shows every imperfection, no matter how small, which is why knowing how to clean windows properly will save you a lot of time and frustration. You can enjoy beautiful, clean, streak-free windows. So, if you’re wondering how to clean glass windows without streaks, be sure to read through.

Window Cleaning Equipment: What You’ll Need

Your window cleaning kit will depend on the size of your windows, how dirty they are, and the amount of time you have. A basic kit includes:

• A bucket with warm water
• Cleaning solution
• A squeegee
• A sponge
• Lint-free cloths
• Gloves.

Your cleaning solution of choice will depend on a lot of things. You could opt for a homemade, DIY window cleaner or a commercial, store-bought product.

Tips for Cleaning Glass Windows Without Leaving Streaks

Get Rid of Dirt First

Before you apply your cleaning solution onto the windows, remove any dirt and dust off the frame by using a brush or vacuum cleaner. Doing this will prevent dirt from mixing with the cleaner, avoiding a muddy mess.

Don’t Hold Back on the Cleaner

Be generous when applying your cleaning solution, even more so if your windows are exceptionally dirty. The cleaner helps to dissolve the dirt so it can be wiped off. If you don’t apply enough cleaner, you’ll have streaks to contend with. Additionally, if you’re going to be using commercial cleaners, opt for a more gel-like product that doesn’t run down the second it touches the surface. The less dripping there is, the easier the job.

Don’t Just Use Any Cloth

The fibers that regular cloths are made from generally aren’t good for cleaning windows. They’re notorious for leaving streaks, irrespective of whether you use branded sprays or homemade cleaning solutions. What you want to use instead is a reusable microfiber cloth to clean windows. Microfiber cloths are better because they are lint-free and their super absorbency means they do a brilliant job of giving you shiny windows without a single streak in sight. And since they’re reusable, they’re also an eco- and budget-friendly cleaning option. If you prefer paper towels, however, just make sure that they’re also lint-free.

Use Newspaper

An alternative to using microfiber cloths is newspaper to clean windows (or if you like, you could use both). It’s really easy and works well. All you have to do is take some newspaper, scrunch it up, and start wiping it dry until your windows are sparkling clean. Just be warned, however, that this method does require a bit of effort, but the results are definitely worth it.

Squeegees Are Super Useful

Squeegees can be a little tricky to master, but once you get the hang of it, you won’t want to use anything else.
Start by wetting the window with your cleaning solution. Next, take a damp, lint-free cloth to wipe the blade of the squeegee clean. Starting from the top, pull the squeegee horizontally across the window once. Wipe the blade before wiping the window again, making sure to overlap the first strip by an inch or two to avoid creating visible lines between each strip. Continue doing this until you get to the bottom of the window. Finish off by using lint-free cloths to wipe any remaining soap and to dry off the window for a spotless clean.

Repeat this on the outside of the window, but with vertical movements. If any marks are left behind, using this method will allow you to distinguish between window marks on the inside and out. If you have very large windows, clean them in small sections to avoid streaks forming as a result of the cleaning solution drying up before you can wipe it.

Window Vacuums Are a Thing

Ever heard of a window vacuum? If you haven’t, listen up. If you want to to clean glass windows without streaks, these provide another great way to ensure a good finish. After you’ve cleaned your window as usual, take your window vacuum and use it to suck up the excess water, cleaning liquid or dirt left on the window. They can also be used beforehand to remove dust, cob webs and other debris from your windows.

Clean with Vinegar

You don’t have to use chemical cleaning products to get your windows clean. You can make your own homemade cleaning solution that works just as well.

One popular homemade solution is a vinegar and water solution. All you need is half a cup of white or cider vinegar, two cups of water, and a quarter cup of rubbing alcohol with a concentration of 70%. An alternative is to mix two tablespoons of the vinegar with warm water in a small bucket. Mix these ingredients together, pour the solution into a spray bottle and you’re good to go. Put on some gloves and follow the soapy water method below. Simple, yet still effective.

The Soapy Water Method

This method is especially good if your windows have a lot of dirt that isn’t necessarily stubborn. Make a soapy water solution made up of one gallon of warm water and half a tablespoon of liquid dish soap. Using an abrasive sponge, wipe the soapy water onto the window without adding suds (avoid making the water too bubbly, as suds cause a lot of streaks). Rinse the window using clean water and use a squeegee to remove any excess soap before drying it off with lint-free cloths. It’s and easy, simple method and your windows will look great.

Clean with Lemons

Another simple, inexpensive method involves using a lemon. This is particularly for smaller windows as it’s a bit labor-intensive. Cut a lemon in half, remove the pips, and rub the lemon all over the window. Then take a lint-free cloth and wipe it clean.

Never Clean Your Windows on a Sunny Day

You want to clean your windows only on cloudy days. When the sun is out, the heat causes the window cleaner to dry quicker, before you can wipe it off, leaving behind some stubborn streaks. If you can’t wait for a cloudy day, start cleaning the windows on the shady side of your home first then work your way around.

So just to summarize, if your windows aren’t that dirty, simply use a dampened microfiber cloth to wet the window, then dry it off with a squeegee and dry lint-free cloths. For slightly dirtier windows, use the abrasive sponge and soapy water method. And if your windows are seriously dirty, then the vinegar solution will give you streak-free windows. Using the right method for your windows is an important part of learning how to clean glass windows without streaks.

Don’t Have the Time? Call a Window Cleaning Professional

If you simply don’t have time to clean your windows yourself, just hire professional window cleaners to do the job for you. One of the benefits of hiring professionals is that it’s the quickest, easiest way to get clean, streak-free windows without having to put in the work yourself.

You don’t have to spend your Saturday morning cleaning windows – but you still get to show off your beautiful home to your guests. Especially if you have large windows, calling in a professional makes more sense than doing the job yourself. Either you’ll need to strain dangerously on a ladder to reach your whole window, or you’ll only be able to clean the bottom half within your reach.

Enjoy Streak-free Windows

And there you have it! Now you know how to clean glass windows without streaks and annoying marks. Getting streak-free windows is not as complicated as you might have thought. It’s just about choosing the right cleaners and methods. The methods above work and they are effective, so you don’t have to keep putting your window cleaning off anymore. You too can get flawless, clear windows after the first time clean.

Like all regular cleaning materials, microfiber cloths are simple items. This is exactly why it might come as a surprise that there’s a lot more to microfiber cloths than meets the eye.

Microfiber has been around on the market since the 1970’s and since that time it’s developed and improved quite a bit. No longer are these microfiber cloths only good for cleaning your eye glasses or polishing the side view mirrors on your car. Microfiber is the modern way to clean almost anything!

One area of cleaning where microfiber is particularly useful, is for cleaning windows and glass. That’s because the properties of these cloths help you get the crisp, clear shine you expect to get from from a freshly cleaned window.

What Is Microfiber?

Microfiber is a term to refer to any fabric that has strands of less than one denier. Most microfiber materials are made from synthetic fabrics such as polyester and polyamides such as nylon and tragomide.

To give some perspective to the thinness of microfibers, a denier is a measurement unit to measure the mass density of fabric fibers. It’s a measurement system that works by measuring the mass of a fiber (in grams) per 9 kilometers (which is approximately 5.6 miles) of its stretched out yarn. Although the density of a specific fiber’s material will also play a role in the denier measurement – thinner fibers will tend to yield a result that’s a lot lighter than that of thicker strands.

Also, for a material to qualify as microfiber, its fibers should be thinner than 10 micrometers, meaning the individual fibers in a microfiber cloth are microscopically small.

When comparing the results of microfiber to that of other common fibers, it becomes especially apparent just how thin the cloth fibers are. For example, silk fibers – which are very thin – tend to be about one denier. As mentioned, microfiber is always less than that, meaning all microfiber is finer than silk. When compared to a human hair, microfibers are about 100 times thinner.

The super thin nature of microfiber strands is exactly what makes it a great material for cleaning cloths.

Cleaning Benefits of Microfiber

Microfiber is a useful material and is often used to manufacture all sorts of products, not only cleaning materials. However, the benefits on microfiber go hand in hand with effective cleaning.

The fact that microfiber strands are so thin is exactly what gives the material such good qualities for cleaning purposes. That’s because the ultra fine fibers have the ability to trap even the finest dust particles.

In fact, the fibers in microfiber cloths are so small, they can even trap bacteria and microscopic mold spores. While microfiber cloths aren’t as effective at cleaning away microscopic pathogens as a disinfectants are, microfiber cloths can significantly reduce bacteria in areas you clean – making it highly effective for everyday cleaning.

Microfiber also has a great capacity for attracting and trapping moisture between the tiny fibers – making microfiber cloths great for polishing anything, as they don’t leave any water lines behind after wiping.

Perhaps the only thing that microfiber cloths aren’t quite as good at cleaning is oil. Oil particles will get trapped between the super thin fibers and is nearly impossible to wash out again – causing the cloth to become permanently soiled in oil.

In summary, here are some of the main benefits of using microfiber cloths when compared to other cleaning materials:

• No streaks are left behind after wiping
• Even microscopic particles can be wiped off surfaces
• Cloths attract moisture and can hold up to 8 times their weight in water
• The tiny fibers are suitable for even the most delicate surfaces
• Quality cloths are extremely durable and can last much longer than other common materials

All these factors combined make microfiber cloths the ideal thing for cleaning almost any surface.

Reduce the Need for Cleaning Chemicals

Because microfiber cloths have great properties for attracting and trapping dirt, the cloths are great to use without cleaning chemicals. A simple spray bottle of water and your cloth is all you need. Water can also be mixed with a mild cleaning agent like vinegar or some form of alcohol like ethanol – both of which are natural and safe for cleaning.

This means that using microfiber cloths can greatly reduce the amount of harmful chemicals necessary to clean an area. Reducing the need for using harmful cleaning chemicals is good for the environment, human health and saves a lot of money, seeing as strong chemical cleaning agents are often expensive.

This adds to the benefits of microfiber cloths, as they’re an environmentally friendly alternative to strong cleaning chemicals and are also highly economical in terms of cost and durability.

Why Normal Window Cleaning Methods are Ineffective

One of the traditional ways of cleaning windows is using a squeegee soaked with a combination of water and cleaning chemicals wipe the window clean and remove dirt. After that, comes the dreaded crumpled newspaper pieces, which are used to prevent of water stains and lines often left behind after cleaning with a squeegee.

There are multiple reasons why this method of cleaning windows isn’t very effective:

• The water-soaked squeegee drips onto floor, leaving a mess behind
• Using crumpled newspaper to prevent stains and watermarks off windows isn’t very gentle and can leave scratches on windows
• Once the crumpled newspaper becomes soaked, small pieces of paper can start it peel off while polishing, causing a mess
• Cleaning windows in two steps takes a lot longer than cleaning them in one easy and gentle step

Another popular way for cleaning windows, is using paper towels and a bottle of window cleaner. With this method, the window cleaner is sprayed onto the window and immediately wiped away with a paper towel. The benefit of this cleaning method is that it only involves one step, seeing as the paper towel won’t leave behind any marks on the window.

However, using this method to clean windows is still inefficient, as it takes a lot of paper towels and window cleaner to clean a relatively small area of window. This is not only costly, but harmful to the environment. Because this inefficiency, using the paper towel method simply isn’t an option when cleaning larger commercial buildings with a lot of windows.

As with newspaper pieces, paper towels can start to peel when they become too wet. Both paper towels and newspaper are prone to shed some of their particles while cleaning. Creating lines of dust-like lint particles on clean windows.

Cleaning Windows with Microfiber Cloths

Cleaning windows with a microfiber cloth is simple. Here’s how to use a microfiber cloth to get beautifully clean windows without any hassle:

• Dampen your microfiber cloth with water
• Fold the cloth in half, then fold this half again to create a square pad
• Wipe the windows as you’d normally wipe a counter top or other surface area
• Once the window is clean, flip the cloth over to its dry side to wipe away moisture on damp areas
• If the microfiber cloth becomes dirty, simply refold it to get a fresh area of the cloth to clean with

That’s it! No need for strong cleaning chemicals or anything like that. As an alternative to dampening the cloth before you start cleaning your windows, you can also have a spray bottle with water on hand. With this method, you’ll spray water onto the window and wipe it away immediately using a dry microfiber cloth.

For dirtier windows, a mixture of water with a mild, natural cleaning agent. Vinegar, alcohol or dish washing liquid are great choices to mix with water and spray onto windows. Simply wipe the mixture away with your microfiber cloth the leave windows spotless.

For alcohol to mix with water, ethanol is a cost-effective and relatively easy to find option. However, if finding ethanol for cleaning poses a problem, you can even use vodka. The good thing about using alcohol to clean with, is that it’s a natural choice. When compared to using harsh synthetic chemicals, alcohol is good at disinfecting and cleaning. Alcohol can also dissolve fats, so it will dissolve a thin layer of fatty deposits that might be present on your window.

You can also use normal cleaning agents when cleaning with a microfiber cloth. So long as it doesn’t contain any wax or oily ingredients, which will damage your microfiber cloth.

Choosing a Microfiber Cloth for Window Cleaning

Using a microfiber cloth for cleaning should make things a lot easier. But to get the most out of microfiber cloths, you need to choose the right one for the job. For cleaning windows, it’s best to use an ultra fine, smooth cloth with a flat-weave to get great results.

Using a fine cloth will prevent any scratches on delicate glass surfaces and even electronics. It’s also important that any microfiber cloth you use has a dense weave. To check the quality of a microfiber cloth before buying it, simply hold it up to a light. If you see any light shining through the cloth, it’s not a good quality microfiber cloth. Keep looking until you find a cloth that passes the light test.

It’s great to know that microfiber is an alternative option for cleaning your windows spotlessly. However, if the thought of cleaning your windows yourself is enough to make you run for the hills, hiring professionals to do the job is a great alternative. At Miami Affordable Window Cleaning, we specialize in cleaning residential and commercial windows. From homes to high rise buildings, we do it all. Contact us for a free, no-obligation quote.