Window cleaning is priced per pane because the work lives in edges, not area. One piece of glass means one wet pass, one squeegee sequence, and four edges detailed by hand. Count your own panes the way a crew does and you can check any quote in about fifteen minutes.
A pane is a unit of labor, not a unit of area. Washing one piece of glass takes a wet pass, a squeegee sequence, and then four edges wiped by hand, and that last part eats most of the clock. Double the size of a pane and you add maybe fifteen seconds. Split that same area into six lites and you have added five more washes and twenty more edges. Square-footage pricing ignores all of it. Two 2,400-square-foot houses in Meridian can differ threefold in glass count, one with eight big fixed windows and one with thirty grid-divided ones. Hourly pricing has the opposite flaw: it pays a crew to move slowly. Pane count is the only input both sides can verify before anyone touches a bucket, which is why Reflekt's window cleaning starts at $199 and builds from the count rather than from your address.
A pane is one piece of glass in one frame. Fixed picture window: one. Casement: one per sash. Awning: one. Single-hung or double-hung: two, because the upper and lower sash hold separate glass. Horizontal slider: two. A French door with true divided lites can run ten or fifteen. Grids cause most of the confusion, and there are three kinds. True divided lites are genuinely separate pieces of glass with wood between them, and each gets hand-detailed. Simulated divided lites are bars glued to the surface; they slow the work because a squeegee cannot cross them. Grids sealed between the panes of an insulated unit feel smooth to your fingertips on both sides and change nothing about the labor. Here is the part that costs us money to say out loud: if a quote adds a grid surcharge and your grids are sealed inside the glass, push back. You are being charged for a decoration.
Do it in two passes. Outside first: start at a corner, walk the perimeter clockwise, and photograph each elevation with your phone so you count from pictures instead of memory. Mark every opening, classify it as fixed, hung, slider, or casement, and convert to panes using the rules above. Inside second: walk room by room and count again. The two totals should match, minus the garage and any unfinished basement. Where they disagree you missed something, and the interior pass is usually the honest one. Run a finger across the grids while you are in there. A ridge on the outside surface means those bars get detailed by hand; smooth glass on both sides means they do not. Write the result as three lines: total panes, total screens, anything unusual. Fifteen minutes of this and you can compare three quotes against one number instead of three different guesses.
Counts come in low, and it is the same list every time. Transoms above the front door. Sidelights flanking it, usually one tall pane each but sometimes four stacked lites. The glass in the door itself. Basement egress wells, which are real windows that put someone kneeling in a window well. Garage windows and the small lites in a garage door. Storm windows, which are not just more glass but more labor, since every storm comes off and goes back on at roughly a minute each way. Skylights, priced separately because the job is roof access, not glass. Interior-only glass such as French doors between rooms, shower enclosures, and mirrors. In older Boise, Nampa, and Caldwell homes, wood storms over true divided lites turn a count that looked like thirty into sixty-plus pieces of hand-detailed glass. Say all of it out loud when you request a quote. Surprises discovered in the driveway become change orders.
Three things sit outside the count. Screens are their own line, $50, because removing, washing, and reinstalling them scales with screen count, not glass count. Height is a multiplier rather than a pane: a second-story window above a landscaped bed can take three times as long as the identical window at grade, because the setup is the work. And hard water damage is not a cleaning problem at all. Treasure Valley tap runs roughly 10 to 13 grains hard, and sprinkler overspray baked on through a few Idaho summers etches pits into the glass surface. Light mineral deposits come off with restoration work. Deep etching does not come off, ever, by anyone, and the honest options are replacement or living with it. Ask for that verdict before you pay for a restoration attempt. Any company promising to make etched glass new again is selling a service that is going to fail.
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Still wondering about something? Call or text us at (208) 453-6760.
One pane is one piece of glass in one frame. A fixed picture window is one. A casement is one per sash. A double-hung or single-hung is two, since the upper and lower sash are separate glass. A horizontal slider is two. A true divided-lite French door can be ten or more. Companies count the pieces of glass because each piece carries its own wash, squeegee pass, and four hand-detailed edges.
Two. The upper sash and lower sash hold separate pieces of glass, and both get washed, squeegeed, and edge-detailed independently. This is the single most common counting error homeowners make, and it means a house someone counted as twenty windows is often closer to thirty-five panes. If a quote seems oddly low against a competitor, check whether one company counted openings and the other counted glass.
It depends entirely on the type, and this is worth checking. True divided lites are separate pieces of glass and legitimately cost more, since each lite is hand-detailed. Applied bars glued to the surface add time because a squeegee cannot cross them. Grids sealed between the panes of an insulated unit add nothing, because nothing touches them. Feel the glass; if both surfaces are smooth, you should not be paying a grid surcharge.
Most local companies land in the mid-single digits to low double digits per pane for interior and exterior, with access, height, and grid type moving the number. In practice, typical Treasure Valley homes come out between $199 and $450 inside and out. Reflekt starts at $199 and prices from the count, with screens at $50, and the Quarterly membership saving $100 per cleaning with no contract.
If your home is single story, every pane is reachable from the ground, and you count fewer than about fifteen panes with no mineral etching, you are paying a service minimum you cannot fill. A squeegee, a bucket, and half an hour will get you most of the way there. Professional work earns its price on second stories, high pane counts from divided lites, storm windows, and etched glass that needs restoration.
Because the number they need does not exist until someone counts. Square footage and bedroom count do not predict glass count, and two houses of identical size can differ threefold. A range over the phone is reasonable; a firm number before anyone counted is a guess that gets corrected in your driveway. Count your panes first, or use an online quote built on pane count. Reflekt's takes about a minute. (208) 453-6760.
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