[Mike George]

A few people have mentioned that they use pure water for trad cleaning - what is the advantage of this over tap water?

[Ian Rochester]

None, all it does is kill the bubbles! IMO

[windows_chepstow]

I'm not sure about pure water 'killing the bubbles'.

If you put a good squirt of Fairy into a bucket of pure water, you have bubbles everywhere.

I'm heavy-handed with the Fairy, so prefer my normal 140 TDS tap water; unpurified for sqeegie work, but if caught short, I'll use pure water too.

I don't think there's much of a difference, really.

[AuRavelling79]

.... but if caught short, I'll use pure water too.

Tosh, I heard that if you're caught short you use your bucket - that's what squeaky told me anyway.....

[windows_chepstow]

.... but if caught short, I'll use pure water too.

Tosh, I heard that if you're caught short you use your bucket - that's what squeaky told me anyway.....

Malc,

Your poor attempt at humour suggests that you've had too much 'Sun' today.

Don't worry, Friend; I also suffer from 'naff joke syndrome'.

Regards,

Tosh.

[Sarah Sarill]

Mike,

We used pure water traditionally for a period of 2 months in preparation for wfp.  It did break down the film which made the transition less traumatic as there were hardly any spots.

Dont know what the benefits would be for traditional other than in theory you would save time finishing.

Perhaps trads using its will explain further.

Sarah

[windows_chepstow]

Mike,

We used it for a period of 2 months in preparation for wfp.  It did break down the film which made the transition less traumatic as there were hardly any spots.

Sarah

Ah, Sarah, that could be that because when you first start with WFP, if you're a concientious window cleaner (which you and 'hubby' are; I guess); you put a lot of effort in.  Scrubbed frames, windows and rinsed well.

Unless you left one area out and just cleaned them with normal tap water; as a 'control'; you don't really know if it 'breaks down the film'; if indeed there is a film!

Prior and leading upto using a WFP, we used Fairy and tap water, and didn't clean the frames.

We changed over to WFP without any problems.

I'm only pointing this out, because I've read a lot of stuff here over the years about how to prepare your work for WFP.

Looking back, I think some of it just creates extra work at no real benifit.

Regards,

Tosh.

[Londoner]

I use pure water and a LITTLE squirt of squeegee off. Now  I am WFP pure water is the only water I carry. What I can say is that it does give a lovely result.
My tap water is high TDS and any mark or run you miss leaves a stain. With pure it doesn't.

Windows that have been cleaned a few times with pure seem to stay clean longer. I can see that might not be viewed as an advantage.

"The film" that Sarah was mentioning in the previous post is a form of polish called surfacer or surface agent that is added to washing up liquid to make the dishes look shiney. It seems that housewives regard shiney dishes as looking cleaner.
Check the label on a bottle of washing up liquid next time you get the chance.

[Sarah Sarill]

You MAY well be right Tosh and unless we could use a time machine and go back to trial it again we will never know for definate.

All I can say is that when we take on any new houses, we have to work harder to leave them as spot free as we did when we preped them.

Just our experience but am sure there are many who say they did no prep and things went OK too.

You hit the nail on the head Tosh when you said we are very conscientious w/c and any attempts to make the changeover as problem free as possible were, and are, worth it for our piece of mind (even if it does involve a bit more time and effort).  

Sarah

[Andrew McCann]

Got to agree with Sarah (as usual) 

Whilst you can clean frames 1st time with no prep with WFP and get decent results if you have already given them a good clean down with a decent detergent say a couple of times life will be easier 1st time around with WFP.

We find trad is much easier and leaves better results using pure water for our solution. We are in a VERY hard water area though so the difference may be more noticable. We use far less detergent, do far less detailing and like has been said above the results do last longer.

Andrew

[matt]

i use GG3 and pure water

the shine i get is much better than GG4 and tap water

and imho GG beats fairy hands down, EVERY time

[borg]

i will go with matt on that 1.

[rosskesava]

I also live in a very hard water area and the first time I tried pure water I was shocked at the difference partly because I added the usual amount of Fairy and had bubbles coming over the top of the bucket. Seriously though, pure water seems to make the job easier.

Personaly, I've never found a real difference between gg4 and fairy except after 8 or 10 cleans and then it seems that with fairy I get more smears.

The best results I've ever had window cleaning, which we do for a number of jobs, is to use wfp and then blade it off.

[Londoner]

I blade off with WFP on a few jobs but the rubber sticks in the bends and doesn't glide so well if you are not very carefull.

[gaza]

NOW FOR THE DEFINNATIVE ANSWER FROM AN EXPERT: Pure water annd squeezyoff
is the bees knees ,the pure water does not glide very well but add s/off and it glides
loverly jubbly.tHE BENEFIT OF USING PURE WATER IS THE SAME AS IT IS WFP,except
you squeezy it off, the results are fantastic,and it does prepare the winndows before wfp cus it breaks down the silicon in the fairy thats  in the windows

 leaving them more shinney

 gaza [suggested this method many moons ago] didnt I sarah

[Sarah Sarill]

You did Gaz but no one listened to us even then did they 

Best keep it our secret then eh 

Sarah

[EasyClean]

Hi, new on this site, love some of the comments, they're very witty and amusing. I take Sara's side. Purified water helps to break down the film of detergent left from trad w/cleaning prior to converting to WFP. When I was trad w/cleaning; if a customer complained their windows didn't require cleaning as frequently I would double, treble or quadruple the quantity of fairy liquid that went into my bucket knowing that the thicker film of detergent left on the glass would attract the weathered dirt back onto the glass much quicker and this in turn would allow me to continue cleaning at a regular interval.  The easiest way to WFP windows initially if you're lucky enough to win the lottery or come into some inheritance is to take the plunge and invest in a Thermal WFP system as it breezes through initial cleans a piece of **** and a hell of a lot quicker.

[NBwcs]

FAO Gazza/Sarah,
                             what proportion of sq..off to pure water did you use, and have you ever used gg4/4 and if so how does it compare? Im looking to change over to wfp at some point  and live in a very hard water area and want to start removing all the Fairy residue ive built up. Cheers Nick

[Mike George]

So, for straight trad work (not in preparation for wfp) the main differences seem to be:

1. The water is softer and you don't need as much detergent to get a good clean.

2. There are no salts or other 'hard stuff' in the water to leave a deposit if you miss a bit.

Have I got that right?

Presumably you have to start with fresh water for every house, to keep the second benefit, because the water in the bucket isn't going to be pure after you've dipped a dirty applicator in it?

[Sarah Sarill]

FAO Gazza/Sarah,
 what proportion of sq..off to pure water did you use, and have you ever used gg4/4 and if so how does it compare? Im looking to change over to wfp at some point and live in a very hard water area and want to start removing all the Fairy residue ive built up. Cheers Nick

Nick,  We did not add anything - just the pure stuff   

I gather adding GG3 or GG4 makes the bladding smoother so I would think it would be easier and faster if working traditional with no plans for wfp.

I'mnotsure if it builds up a filmover a time soif you plan togo wfp IMO keep it pure .

Presumably you have to start with fresh water for every house, to keep the second benefit, because the water in the bucket isn't going to be pure after you've dipped a dirty applicator in it?

Mike,

What we did was to use a pressurised spray pump to spray the water on the windows, leave it a few minutes to do its magic and just blade off.

Bit moere time consuming for a few cleans but IMO much quicker (and better results)  on first few cleans of wfp. 

Sarah