The picture window on a Hillcrest ranch sits under about a foot of eave. Rain blows past it, never over it, so three months of Gowen Field soot and Franklin Road dust just sits there until somebody washes it off. We clean these single-pane aluminum units the way they need to be handled.
Most of Hillcrest went up between about 1952 and 1965 on a 3:12 or 4:12 roof with eaves you can measure in inches. That matters more than it sounds. On an old bungalow with a deep porch, the glass at least sits out of the weather. Here the picture window is flush in the open with nothing above it to shed water, and Boise only gets eleven or twelve inches of rain a year anyway, most of it March through May and most of it arriving sideways on a pre-frontal wind. So rain wets the dirt, drags it down the pane, and dries. It does not clean anything. Homeowners on the bench usually notice it in December, when the low south sun rakes across the living room glass and every streak left over from summer shows at once.
Hillcrest sits under the approach and departure path for Boise Airport and Gowen Field, and the Franklin Road light-industrial corridor is a few blocks north. What lands on the glass is a fine carbon film with grit mixed into it. It is greasier than the plowed-field silt that dirties Kuna or Star, and it is why a garden hose makes these windows look worse instead of better: water moves that film around rather than lifting it. We wash with 100% pure deionized water and no soap. The water does the pulling, and because every mineral has been stripped out of it there is nothing left behind to dry into a spot. We finish with RainShield, which sheds the next round of soot and dust instead of letting it bond into the glass.
A lot of Hillcrest still has the aluminum sliders and fixed picture units that came with the house. That glass is thin, single pane, and often carrying decades of hard-water etch from a sprinkler head nobody ever re-aimed. The frames chalk white as the anodizing gives out, the pile weatherstrip is brittle, and the glazing bead has dried and shrunk. None of that takes the same handling as a modern insulated vinyl unit. We do not run a blade across old single pane as a matter of routine, we keep pressure off the mitered corners of the frame, and on corner-window assemblies we work each lite separately rather than flooding the joint. Screens come out labeled and go back into the same opening, because 1950s aluminum screen frames bend easily and a bent frame will not seat again.
The maples, elms and sycamores planted when these blocks were new are well over the roofline now, and a mature canopy over a low-pitch roof with five-inch K-style gutter is a bad combination in October. Water sheets slowly off a 3:12 roof, so a packed gutter does not overflow cleanly at the front edge. It backs up under the shingle line and gets into the fascia. On short ranch runs with only two or three downspouts, one plugged outlet takes out an entire side of the house. Gutter cleaning starts at $199. We hand-scoop debris out instead of blowing it into the beds, flush every downspout to confirm it actually drains, and tell you straight if a gutter is undersized or pitched wrong rather than just clearing it again next fall.
Single-story ranches are the easy part. Most of a Hillcrest house is reachable from the ground on a water-fed pole, which means no ladder feet in the beds and no weight leaning against a sixty-year-old aluminum frame. What costs time is everything else: one back gate in a chain-link or board fence, junipers and arborvitae planted tight against the picture window in 1962 and never taken out, window wells over the basement lites, and a detached garage down a narrow driveway. Tell us when you book whether the gate is padlocked or the dog is out, and if there is a shrub we should not push through, say so and we will pole that window from the side. Street parking on the Overland and Orchard side streets is rarely an issue.
Window cleaning starts at $199 and is priced by pane count, so a ranch with one wide picture window and a run of sliders prices differently than the same square footage cut into small lites. Screens are $50 to pull, wash and reinstall. Pressure washing runs $0.20 per square foot for driveways and walks, and house washing is $0.18 per square foot on a soft-wash setting that is safe over painted lap siding and old brick. Gutters start at $199. Memberships come Monthly or Quarterly with no contract, Quarterly saves $100 per cleaning and includes a free annual screen clean, and every job carries our 7-Day Rain Guarantee. We usually have same-day or next-day slots open on the bench. Locally owned, fully insured, 4.9 stars across 115+ Google reviews. Call (208) 453-6760.
Part of our wider Boise service area.
Free, no-obligation estimate in under 60 seconds.
Get My Free EstimateStill wondering about something? Call or text us at (208) 453-6760.
That is the right question to ask on a 1950s or 1960s Hillcrest house. Old single pane is thinner than modern glass and often has fabrication debris or hard-water etch already in it, and a blade dragged across that can leave a mark. We wash with deionized water and soft bristle as the default, keep steel off the glass unless there is a paint or stucco speck that genuinely needs it, and we point out existing etch before we start so it does not become a question afterward.
Pricing starts at $199 and goes by pane count rather than square footage. A ranch with one big picture window, a corner unit or two and four or five sliders often lands near the low end, because there are fewer panes than the size of the house suggests. Add $50 if you want the screens pulled, washed and put back. Give us the address and a rough window count on the phone and we will quote a real number, not a range.
It builds steadily rather than dramatically, but it is a different soil than the foothills grit or farm silt other parts of the valley deal with. It is fine and slightly greasy, so it dulls the whole pane evenly instead of spotting it. Most Hillcrest homeowners on our Quarterly plan are happy with that interval. If your house faces Franklin Road or sits directly under the approach line, Monthly exterior-only is worth pricing out.
Yes, and interior work is quoted with the job rather than tacked on afterward. On corner assemblies we do each lite separately and hand-dry the mitered post instead of flooding it, because water standing in that joint is what kills the frame seal on these older units. We put cloth down under the window and move what needs moving, but it saves everyone time if the sill is cleared before we arrive.
Usually yes, and on a low-pitch ranch it is the sensible order: we clear the gutter first, then wash the glass, so grit and debris off the roofline do not end up back on clean windows. Gutters start at $199 and windows at $199, and we quote them together. If the roof is wet or iced we will move the gutter portion to another day and keep the window date.
Every job is covered by our 7-Day Rain Guarantee. If rain within a week leaves the exterior glass looking worse than when we left, call us and we come back and re-clean the affected windows at no charge. On a low-eave Hillcrest house, rain rarely spots freshly DI-washed glass, because the RainShield finish sheds it. What shows up is the dust blowing in behind the front, and that is covered too.
Free estimate in 60 seconds. Same-day and next-day slots available.
Get Free Estimate Now