Cleaning Window Screens

Cleaning window screens is an important part of your yearly window cleaning routine. It's amazing how much dust one dirty screen can hold. The worst thing about it is that this dust is trapped between the screen and the window glass and gets blown around by the wind, roughening and in effect "sandblasting" the glass.

Your windows can be ruined by dirty screens left in place too long. Dont believe it ?, just go look at any twenty year old apartment window with a screen and see how impossible it is to clean the glass behind the screen. The glass is permanently sandblasted.

The problem is compounded nowadays by the fact that many new windows have screens which cover the whole window. Not just the window which opens. Cleaning window screens is important because you could end up having to replace all the glass from the constant abrasion of dust caught between the screen and glass.

To clean screens Dont start by getting them wet. Fist take a nice stiff brush and take them outside and brush all the loose dust out of them. If the screens are too weak to withstand a good brushing, get them rescreened.

Next get the soap and water out, and wash them down. Once all the dirt is brushed off, this should be a much easier task. Use a seperate bucket of water than what you use to clean the windows. Its going to get dirty fast.

You can blast the dirt off with a garden hose, but dish detergent and hand washing does a better job. Make sure the screens are dried off before reinstalling them. If you leave them wet, they can drop water all over your freshly cleaned windows when you slide them back into place.

Screen Brush

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