Window and Facade Cleaning — Gleniffer Avenue, Brighton East

Two things made this house its own kind of job. White render shows everything and hides nothing: there is no colour to absorb a film, so the wall either reads as clean or it does not. And with around seventy floor-to-ceiling windows, the glass is not a detail on the facade — it is most of the facade. That rules out doing one without the other. Wash render above glass that size and the run-off lands on it; clean the glass first and you clean it twice.

Walls first, at low pressure with contact time doing the work. Render is a thin coloured coat over a soft base, and white render is the least forgiving version of it: a lance mark on white does not blend back, it just becomes a visible line. Then the glass, once everything that was going to run down off the walls had run down. Seventy openings of that height is where a second technician earns their place — alone it becomes a two-day job with the first panes drying while the last are still being done, and on floor-to-ceiling glass drying marks are the whole game.

• White render soft washed across the elevations
• Around seventy floor-to-ceiling windows cleaned externally
• Walls washed before glass so run-off was dealt with once
• Frames and sills done with the glass
• Seasonal visit rather than a one-off clean
• Before and after photographs supplied

• Render even across the whole wall, with no banding or lance marks on white
• Seventy openings clear and free of drying marks
• Glass and render finished in a single visit rather than two
• House back on its seasonal cycle, so the next wash stays a small one