Window Washing in Evanston, IL

Evanston's older residential blocks tend to hold onto summer long after it's gone elsewhere, and by the time we arrived at this three-story house the season had left its mark on the glass. A hundred windows and nine skylights on a home that tall accumulates a specific kind of grime — spider webs anchored in every corner, bug residue baked onto the panes, and the particular film that builds up when French-style divided lights give insects and spiders more ledge and muntin surface to work with. The property sat well above street level, and the sheer scale of the job was clear from the driveway.

We were brought in for exterior-only work, which let us move methodically from the ground floor up rather than coordinating interior access. The French-style windows meant extra attention at the muntins and along each individual pane division — webbing and insect debris collect in those channels and don't clear with a single squeegee pass. The oversized units on the upper floors required careful positioning to reach the full glass area cleanly, and at three stories the work demanded steady footing and deliberate movement throughout. The nine skylights were worked into the sequence as we reached the roofline. It was a full day's labor, worked through from one side of the house to the other, and the invoice went out once the last skylight was done.