Rocklin is the opposite problem from Sacramento.
Down in East Sac we’re working carefully around ninety-year-old wood sashes. Up here the windows are new, big, and in perfect condition. The challenge isn’t fragility. It’s that the glass is enormous, a lot of it is twenty feet off the ground, and the sprinklers have been quietly ruining it for years.
We’re Alex and Molly, and Rocklin is one of the three cities where most of our work happens.
The hard water problem here is real
If you own a house in Rocklin with irrigation running through the summer, this is the section that matters.
Sprinkler water lands on your glass, the sun evaporates it, and the mineral it was carrying stays behind. Deposits start building within a day or two of the first cycle that hits the window. It’s not a slow seasonal thing. It’s daily.
For a while that deposit sits on top of the glass and comes off with the right work. Left long enough, it stops sitting on the surface and works into it. That’s etching, and etched glass cannot be cleaned back to clear by anyone.
Check it yourself in thirty seconds. Go find your worst-looking window and run your hand across it.
- Rough, gritty, catches your fingertips: deposit on the surface. Removable.
- Smooth but still cloudy: the glass is etched. Not removable.
That’s exactly the test we do before quoting hard water work, and you can do it right now without calling anybody.
Why Rocklin gets hit harder than most places
Three things stack up here.
Big windows on the wrong walls. The tract homes built through the nineties and 2000s put large picture windows and tall two-story elevations facing whatever direction the lot faced. A lot of that glass is west or south facing, and west-facing glass in a Rocklin August bakes deposits on faster and harder than shaded glass ever will.
Irrigation on a timer. Most yards here run automatic systems. Automatic means it’s watering at six in the morning when you’re asleep and you’ve never once stood outside and watched where the heads actually throw. A head that shifted a few degrees can put water on the same pane twice a day for two years.
Not much shade. The newer neighborhoods have young trees. Less canopy means more direct sun on the glass, which means faster evaporation and faster mineral deposition than you’d get on a shaded East Sacramento house.
What to do about it
Aim your sprinklers off the house. It’s free and it fixes the cause rather than the symptom. Walk the yard while the system is running and watch the heads.
Then keep the glass on a schedule so buildup never gets thick enough to matter. Quarterly is a sensible baseline in Rocklin, and if your heads are hitting glass directly, more than that.
More on hard water · Hard water removal · Recurring plans →
Two-story stucco and getting up there
Most of what we clean in Rocklin is two stories of stucco with a lot of glass on the upper floor.
We use a water fed pole for those upper story exteriors. Purified water goes up through a brush head, the glass gets scrubbed and rinsed, and it dries without spotting because there’s nothing left in the water to leave behind. We’re standing on the ground the whole time.
On a stucco house that’s the right call for reasons beyond safety. A ladder against a stucco wall marks it. A ladder in a flower bed compacts it. A ladder against a gutter puts weight where the gutter wasn’t designed to take it. Working from the ground avoids all three.
The glass over your entry
Nearly every two-story tract home in Rocklin has it: a tall window or a stacked pair above the front door, or a run of glass climbing the stairwell wall.
Almost nobody cleans them. They get done when the house is built, and then people look up, think about the ladder, and decide to live with it. We’ve walked into houses where the entry glass hadn’t been touched since the builder handed over the keys.
Inside, this needs planning rather than nerve. There’s flooring underneath, a stair rail in the way, sometimes a light fixture hanging in the middle of it, and no flat spot to set a ladder properly. We come with the right reach equipment and we protect what’s below.
When you call, tell us the ceiling height and what’s underneath. That’s what determines the approach.
Solar screens
Solar screens are everywhere in Rocklin, and for good reason. A west-facing window here in July is a heater, and dense solar mesh cuts a serious amount of that before it reaches the glass.
They also clog. The mesh is tight by design, it faces the sun and the wind, and it loads up with dust faster than standard insect screen. When it’s packed, it holds heat instead of rejecting it and it blocks more of your light than it’s supposed to, so you get a room that’s darker without being cooler.
We take them out, clean them on site, and put each one back in the window it came from. We go slowly with them, because solar mesh creases and holds the crease, and older frames that have baked on a south wall for years can be brittle.
To be clear, since these get confused constantly: we clean solar screens, the mesh over your windows. We don’t clean solar panels on your roof.
Neighborhoods we work in
Whitney Ranch. Newer construction, big elevations, tall entry glass, and irrigation that’s been running since the landscaping went in. A lot of what’s described above is Whitney Ranch specifically.
Stanford Ranch. Nineties and 2000s tract homes. Established landscaping now, which means some houses have grown shade and others have grown a sprinkler problem. Very mixed.
Sunset Whitney. Older Rocklin, and a different job from the newer neighborhoods. Smaller windows, more mature trees, more debris and less mineral.
Springfield. Quieter, well-kept, and the kind of neighborhood where people tend to stay on a regular schedule once they start.
If you’re elsewhere in Rocklin, we still come. Call and ask.
Rocklin driveways
Same water, different surface.
Those orange-brown rings on your concrete near a sprinkler head are the same mineral doing the same thing to your driveway that it’s doing to your windows. Rocklin driveways show it clearly, partly because there’s a lot of newer light-colored concrete here for it to show against.
If we’re already at your house doing windows, adding the driveway is cheaper than a separate trip. There’s a right order too: wash first, glass after, since washing throws grit and runoff up onto the windows.
Why call us in Rocklin
We’ll tell you the truth about your glass. If your hard water is still removable, we’ll quote the work. If it’s etched past saving, we’ll say so and refer you to a company that resurfaces glass. We’re not taking money for a cleaning that physically can’t succeed.
Same two people, every visit. Alex and Molly. On a house where the awkward parts are the upstairs glass and the entry window, it helps that we already know your house rather than sending someone new each time.
We check every window before we leave. Walkthrough of the whole house at the end. On a big Rocklin two-story with a high window count, that’s exactly where things get missed if nobody looks twice.
Licensed and insured, which matters when the job involves working at height on your property.
The right tool for the height. Water fed pole from the ground rather than ladders leaned against your stucco and your gutters.
Jessica Z. in Rancho Cordova put it simply:
“Very thorough with attention to detail! I would hire again!”
What we do in Rocklin
Interior and exterior window cleaning · Hard water stain removal · Solar screen cleaning · Screen cleaning · High and vaulted windows · Skylight cleaning · Pre-listing cleaning · Recurring plans · Storefronts · Offices
Questions from Rocklin customers
My windows look permanently cloudy. Can you fix them?
Feel them. Rough means mineral deposit sitting on the surface and it comes off. Smooth but cloudy means the glass is etched and cleaning won’t bring it back. We’ll tell you which you have before quoting anything.
How often should I get my windows cleaned in Rocklin?
Quarterly for most homes here, because of the irrigation. More often if your sprinklers hit the glass directly. Less if your heads are aimed properly and you’ve got shade.
Can you reach the window above my front door?
Yes. Tell us the ceiling height and what’s underneath when you call.
Do you clean solar screens?
Yes, on site, and each one goes back in the window it came from. We don’t clean solar panels.
Can you do my windows without putting a ladder against the house?
Yes, that’s the normal approach for upper story exteriors. Water fed pole from the ground.
Do you do the driveway too?
Yes, and cheaper booked together with the windows. Driveway first, glass after.
Is it worth cleaning windows if the sprinklers will just spot them again?
That’s exactly backwards. Regular cleaning is what stops deposits building thick enough to etch. Skipping it is how the glass gets permanently damaged.
Get a price for your Rocklin home
Text four photos, one of each side of your house, to (916) 597-0257. Stand back far enough to get the whole wall in frame.
Mention any tall entry or stairwell glass and roughly how high the ceiling is, plus whether you’ve noticed cloudy or spotted windows. Those two things change the plan more than anything else on a Rocklin house.
Hours: Monday to Friday 7am to 6pm, Saturday by appointment.