Sacramento is the hardest city we work in, and it’s our favorite for the same reason. Nothing here is standard.
Drive four blocks in East Sacramento and you’ll pass a 1920s Tudor with true divided lites, a mid-century remodel with aluminum sliders, a Craftsman with wood sashes that haven’t been opened since the eighties, and a new build with a twenty-foot entry window. Four houses, four completely different jobs.
We’re Alex and Molly. We’re based in Carmichael, about fifteen minutes out, and Sacramento is where the largest share of our work is.
Working on Sacramento’s older homes
Most of the city’s established neighborhoods were built long before anybody designed a window with cleaning in mind. That changes how you have to work.
Wood frames need a lighter hand
East Sacramento, Land Park, Curtis Park, and the older parts of Midtown are full of original wood sash windows, some of them ninety or a hundred years old. The wood is dry, the paint has been built up over a dozen repaints, and the glazing putty holding the pane in has often gone hard and started to crack.
You have to be careful around them. Too much water sitting against old glazing works into the joint. Too much pressure on a sash that’s already loose in its frame, and you’ve made a problem that wasn’t there when you arrived.
So on these houses we slow down. We work drier around the glazing line, we’re gentle with sashes that feel loose, and we don’t force anything that doesn’t want to move. If a window is painted shut, it stays painted shut. We’ll clean what we can reach and tell you what we couldn’t, rather than breaking a seventy-year-old paint seal and leaving you with a window that no longer closes right.
Divided lites take real time
A lot of these homes have true divided lite windows, the ones with individual small panes held in a wood grid rather than one sheet of glass with a decorative grille laid on top.
There’s no shortcut on those. Twelve small panes in one sash means twelve individual panes to clean, twelve sets of corners to detail, and twelve muntin edges to wipe without leaving water sitting against the wood. A single divided lite window can take as long as four modern windows on a newer house.
It’s worth knowing when you’re getting a quote, because it’s the main reason a house in Land Park costs differently from a house of similar size in a newer tract. We’re not charging more for the neighborhood. We’re charging for the pane count, and old Sacramento homes have a lot of panes.
Storm windows and add-ons
Older houses in this city have accumulated things over the decades. Aluminum storm windows added in the seventies. Interior storm panels. Wood-framed screens that predate the current owner. Security screens on ground floor windows in some neighborhoods.
All of that has to come off and go back on, and none of it is standardized. We take the time to work out how each one comes apart before we start pulling.
The variety is the job
The single truest thing about cleaning windows in Sacramento is that you can’t assume anything about a house from the outside. Every block has been remodeled at different times by different owners. One house has original single pane wood, the next has vinyl replacements from 2015, the one after that has both because the owner did the front and never got to the back.
That’s why we quote from four photos rather than a price list. We need to see what’s actually on your house.
The glass you can only reach from the roof
Sacramento’s older two-story homes weren’t laid out with ladder access in mind. Steep grades right against the wall, mature landscaping planted tight to the house, narrow side yards between homes on those long skinny lots, and second story windows tucked into dormers or under deep eaves.
Some of these panes genuinely can’t be reached from the ground. We get onto the roof for them when that’s the safe way to do it, and we bring the right ladder for the pitch.
Where we can, we use a water fed pole from ground level instead, which is safer for us and puts no weight on old gutters or fragile fascia. Older Sacramento homes are exactly the kind of place where leaning a ladder against the gutter is a bad idea, because a lot of those gutters are original and not built to take it.
If your house has windows nobody has cleaned in years because nobody could get to them, that’s usually the situation. Tell us when you call and we’ll plan for it.
Trees, and what they do to your glass
Sacramento calls itself the City of Trees and the canopy in the older neighborhoods is genuinely enormous. It’s the best thing about living here in July and it’s rough on windows.
Spring brings pollen, and it coats everything.
Summer brings sap and aphid honeydew dripping off the canopy onto whatever is underneath, including your windows. It dries sticky and it doesn’t rinse off.
Fall brings leaf litter, and in this city that means it goes on for a couple of months rather than a couple of weeks.
Under heavy canopy in East Sac, Land Park, and Curtis Park, glass gets visibly dirty faster than it does in a newer, more open neighborhood. It’s a different kind of dirty from the mineral spotting you get in the tract neighborhoods east of here, and it’s more forgiving, because none of it damages the glass. It just looks bad sooner.
Hard water in Sacramento
The honest version: it depends entirely on whether your landscaping is throwing water onto your windows.
We’ve found heavy mineral buildup on hundred-year-old homes with a badly aimed sprinkler in the front bed, and clean glass on newer houses where the irrigation was set properly. The age of the house doesn’t predict it. Sprinkler placement does.
If your glass looks white and cloudy in patches, run your hand over it. If you feel texture and roughness, that’s mineral deposit sitting on the surface and it comes off. If it looks cloudy but feels perfectly smooth, the glass has been etched and cleaning won’t bring it back.
Etching matters more on old windows than new ones, because replacing a single pane of original wavy glass in a 1925 sash isn’t the same errand as ordering a new insert. Worth catching early.
Downtown and Midtown storefronts
The commercial side of our Sacramento work is mostly street level glass downtown and through Midtown.
It’s a different problem from residential. Storefront glass on a walkable street takes constant hands on the door, road film off the street, and splash up the low panes. It’s also the first thing anyone decides anything about your business from.
We run storefronts on weekly and monthly schedules and we start at 7am, which for most places downtown means we’re finished before the doors open. Weekly is 15% off, monthly is 10% off, no contract.
Midtown has its own wrinkle: a lot of the businesses there are in converted Victorians and old commercial buildings with original storefront glass, transom windows above the doors, and tall single pane display windows. Same careful approach as the residential side.
Commercial window cleaning → · Storefronts →
Neighborhoods we work in
East Sacramento. The most demanding work we do and a good share of our Sacramento jobs. Old wood frames, divided lites, big canopy, and second story glass that’s genuinely awkward to reach. The Fab Forties and the streets around them are exactly the kind of house that needs someone who’ll slow down.
Land Park. Similar era, similar care required. Tudors, Craftsman homes, and a lot of original glass. Big trees.
Curtis Park. 1920s and 30s bungalows, tight lots, plenty of divided lites and wood screens.
Midtown. A mix of residential Victorians, converted commercial, and street level storefront. Parking and access are their own consideration here, which we plan around.
Downtown. Mostly commercial for us. Storefront and street level glass.
Tahoe Park. Post-war ranch homes, generally simpler windows, often original aluminum sliders with tracks that have decades of grit in them.
Pocket and Greenhaven. Seventies and eighties homes, larger sliders and picture windows, more irrigation than the older neighborhoods, so more hard water than you’d see in East Sac.
If you’re somewhere in Sacramento that isn’t on this list, we almost certainly still come. Call and ask.
Access and parking
Worth mentioning because it affects how a day goes.
The older grid neighborhoods have narrow driveways, long deep lots, and side yards you can barely walk a ladder through. Midtown often means street parking and carrying gear a distance. Alley access behind some East Sac and Curtis Park homes helps for backyard work.
None of this is a problem, it just means we plan the approach before we arrive. When you send quote photos, if there’s a tight side yard, a locked gate, a dog, or a parking situation we should know about, tell us. It’s easier to sort out beforehand.
Why call us for a Sacramento house
We slow down on old houses. The careful handling that original wood sashes and divided lites need is time, and we build it into the job rather than rushing through and hoping nothing cracks.
Same two people, every time. Alex and Molly. On a complicated older house that matters more than usual, because by the second visit we already know which sashes are loose, which window is painted shut, and how to get to the ones off the roof.
We check every window before we leave. The most common complaint we hear about other companies is that the work wasn’t detailed enough. On a house with divided lites and dozens of small panes, that’s exactly where things get missed. So we walk the whole house at the end and look at every one.
That’s the thing our customers keep bringing up. Kyle S. wrote:
“They did a fantastic job cleaning ALL of our windows and screens including the window runners of our two story home. They were punctual and took great care to clean every single streak or smudge they could find.”
We tell you what can’t be fixed. Etched glass, brittle screens, sashes we don’t think should be forced. You’ll hear it from us before we start, not after.
Licensed and insured, which matters on a house where roof access is part of the job.
What we do in Sacramento
Interior and exterior window cleaning · Hard water stain removal · Screen cleaning · Solar screen cleaning · Skylight cleaning · High and vaulted windows · Post-construction · Pre-listing cleaning · Recurring plans · Storefronts · Offices · Restaurants
Questions from Sacramento customers
Can you clean original wood windows without damaging them?
Yes, and it’s most of what we do in the older neighborhoods. We work drier around old glazing putty, we’re gentle with loose sashes, and we don’t force anything painted shut.
My house has divided lites. Does that cost more?
It takes longer, so yes. Every small pane is its own pane to clean and detail. It’s the pane count, not the neighborhood.
There are windows nobody has been able to reach in years. Can you?
Usually. That’s common on older two-story homes here. We get on the roof when it’s safe, and we use a water fed pole from the ground where that works better.
Do you clean storefronts downtown?
Yes, on weekly or monthly schedules. Weekly is 15% off, monthly is 10% off, no contract.
My windows have white cloudy patches. Can you fix that?
Feel the glass. Rough means mineral deposit and it comes off. Smooth but cloudy means the glass is etched and it can’t be cleaned clear. We’ll tell you which you have before quoting the work.
Do you do the tracks on old aluminum sliders?
Yes. On a house that’s had the same sliders since the sixties, that track is usually the most satisfying part of the job.
Do you work in Midtown where there’s no driveway?
Yes. Tell us about parking when you book and we’ll plan for it.
Get a price for your Sacramento home
Text four photos, one of each side of your house, to (916) 597-0257. We’ll count the windows, judge the height and access, and send you a real number.
If your house has divided lites, storm windows, or panes nobody can reach, mention it. That’s the kind of thing that changes the plan and we’d rather know first.
Hours: Monday to Friday 7am to 6pm, Saturday by appointment.