Boise glass gets dirty four different ways inside a five-mile radius: decomposed granite blowing down out of Hulls Gulch, aphid honeydew off the maples over the North End, jet soot on the Bench, and winter inversion film downtown. We clean it with pure deionized water and no soap, from $199.
Boise is the only valley city built hard against the Boise Front, and that geography sets the dirt. Nightly downslope drainage out of Hulls Gulch, Crane Creek and the Military Reserve carries decomposed granite off the Idaho Batholith onto north- and east-facing glass in the Highlands, Boise Heights and Warm Springs Mesa. It is pale, fine and sharp-edged, and it will scratch if anyone dry-wipes it, which is why a rag and a bottle of blue spray is the wrong first move here. Layer on aphid honeydew misting down off the maples and lindens all summer, exhaust film off Vista, Fairview and the Connector, jet soot from Boise Airport and Gowen Field over the Depot Bench, and December-through-February inversion smoke, and one pane is carrying four separate films.
Warm Springs Avenue and Harrison Boulevard hold 1890s-1910s Queen Anne and Colonial Revival with tall wood double-hung sash, true divided lites, transoms and original wavy glass. The North End, East End and Hyde Park run 1905-1935 Craftsman bungalow, Foursquare and Tudor with painted sash and divided-lite uppers. Both sit inside local historic districts with design review, so owners keep original wood in service instead of swapping to vinyl, and Boise carries more true divided lite and glazing putty than anywhere else in Ada County. That changes the work. We control how much water goes into a frame instead of flooding it, we stay off muntin edges where paint is already lifting, and if we find failed putty or a soft sill we tell you rather than soak it and move on.
South and west of downtown the stock changes completely. Depot Bench, Central Bench, Morris Hill, Hillcrest and South Boise Village are 1940s-60s ranch and mid-century: aluminum single-pane sliders, corner windows, jalousies and wide picture windows under low 3:12 roofs with almost no eave, so nothing is shielded from weather or from the flight path overhead. Those big single panes show every streak when the low winter sun rakes across them. Collister, Veterans Park and West Valley add 1970s-90s tract sliders. Barber Valley, Harris Ranch and Bown Crossing are the opposite job: two-story great-room window walls and black-framed fixed picture units on narrow side yards, catching raw canyon wind and grit blowing down past Lucky Peak, with upper glass that gets reached on a pole, not a ladder planted in the foundation beds.
Veolia Water Idaho serves most of Boise on a Boise River and deep-well blend that commonly tests 10 to 13 grains per gallon, hard to very hard, and the well-fed West Bench and Southwest Boise zones usually test harder than the surface-fed downtown and North End. On top of that the city is laced with live gravity irrigation. The Boise City Canal runs from Warm Springs Avenue across to Collister and Hill Road, and the New York and Ridenbaugh canals feed pressurized Boise Project systems in Southeast and Southwest Boise. That water is untreated: silty, algae-carrying and mineral-heavy, and one misaimed impact head leaves tan film plus hard white spotting on glass, screens and light fiber cement. We rinse with 100% pure deionized water and no soap, so nothing is left on the pane to dry into a spot. That is the RainShield finish.
Before you call anybody, run a fingertip across the outside of the glass. Tacky and slightly sticky is aphid honeydew off a maple or linden, and hose water will not lift it. Gritty and pale is foothills or construction dust, and that is the one you must not dry-wipe, because the granite in it leaves fine scratches. Chalky white rings that do not move under a wet thumb are sprinkler or canal minerals; if that spotting has baked through several Boise summers it may have etched the glass, and no cleaning brings etched glass back. An honest quote says so instead of selling you a wash. And if it is early April and the windows are only dusty, wait. The mid-April irrigation turn-on sends the season's dirtiest first water through every head, and a cleaning done the week before it gets undone.
Exterior window cleaning starts at $199 and is priced by pane count rather than square footage, so a 1920s bungalow with divided-lite uppers is quoted on what is actually there instead of a guess off the address. Most Boise homes settle into a quarterly rhythm: after the April irrigation turn-on, after cottonwood fluff clears in late June, after the October leaf drop through the North End and Bench canopy, and once during the winter inversion. Memberships are monthly or quarterly with no contract, quarterly saves $100 per cleaning, and screens get a free annual clean. Every job carries a 7-Day Rain Guarantee. We run Monday through Saturday, 7am to 7pm, closed Sunday, with same-day and next-day slots most weeks. Fully insured, locally owned, started in 2025 by Hunter Stevens and Ethan Seusy, with 115+ Google reviews at 4.9 stars.
ZIP codes: 83702, 83703, 83704, 83705, 83706, 83709, 83712, 83713, 83716 · Part of our wider Boise service area.
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It starts at $199 and is priced by pane count, so the number depends on how many panes you actually have rather than the size of the house. That matters here more than in most of the valley: a North End Craftsman with true divided-lite uppers can carry three times the pane count of a same-size West Bench ranch with aluminum sliders. Send the address or a few photos and we will count it before you commit.
Yes, and it is a large share of what we do on Harrison Boulevard, Warm Springs Avenue and through Hyde Park. Original double-hung sash means painted wood, glazing putty and sometimes wavy glass, so we control how much water goes into the frame instead of flooding it, work the putty lines carefully, and stay off any muntin edge where paint is already lifting. If we find failed putty or a soft sill, we tell you.
Often, yes. Fresh mineral spotting from Boise tap water or ditch overspray comes off with the right work and a deionized rinse. Spotting that has baked on through several summers can etch into the glass surface, and once that happens no cleaning restores it. That becomes a glass restoration or replacement conversation and we will say so straight. Aiming the impact head off the window is the real long-term fix.
Aphid honeydew. The mature silver maples, Norway maples and lindens shading the North End, East End and much of the Bench carry heavy aphid populations through the summer and mist a fine sugar film onto windows, screens, siding and whatever is parked underneath. It streaks, it holds fingerprints, and plain hose water will not lift it. It keeps returning while the tree is running aphids, which is why shaded Boise homes usually go quarterly.
Late April into May, after the mid-April irrigation turn-on has pushed the season's dirtiest first water through every sprinkler head, is the strongest single cleaning of the year. Second best is late June, once the black cottonwood along the Greenbelt has finished throwing fluff and matting screens. If you clean twice a year, add early November after the canopy over the North End and Bench finishes dropping.
Boise only gets about eleven to twelve inches of precipitation a year, so rain here tends to loosen dirt without rinsing it, and a shower after a cleaning rarely marks glass the way people expect. If it does, the 7-Day Rain Guarantee covers a return trip at no charge within a week of the job. Call (208) 453-6760 and we will get you back on the schedule.
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