The Wonderful Properties of Water
It has been estimated that if the earth were a perfect sphere with no mountains or valleys, the sea would cover the whole planet to a depth of 2.75 kilometres; this amounts to approximately 340,000,000 cubic miles of water. Water is the amazing substance that makes the plants grow and keeps us alive.
People that live in the North-East of England are not usually worried about a shortage of water as all of us, including the window cleaners, are well used to wind and rain especially in winter. Rain is normally contaminated with dust and dirt and it can make our windows very dirty. Ironically the window cleaner uses this same substance to get our windows clean again. In order to do that he mostly uses de-ionised water, which is filtered and specially treated to remove polluting substances. Interestingly, in theory at least, this makes the water a good insulator, it is the other substances that water might contain that make it conduct electricity.
As all window cleaners know water is a great solvent; its molecules can make strong bonds with many other substances, which means that water is not normally pure. In fact it is this very property of water that keeps us alive as it dilutes the chemicals in our blood which are transported around our bodies to give us oxygen and nutrients.
It is the ability of water to transport dirt away that makes it so good for cleaning as it can attract the grime from your clothes, your dishes and your skin, washing away the nasties and leaving things nice and clean. It does the same thing when it cleans windows, carrying off all the dirt and grime, and drying without streaks because de-ionised water starts off pure and doesn’t deposit any dirt onto your windows but only takes it away.
So when it comes to the dishes and the clothes why do we use washing up liquid or washing powder? Couldn’t we save money by not buying it?
The problem is that water does not attract everything. It gets nowhere with grease and oily things. Detergents contain molecules called surfactants. These molecules have two ends; the head attracts water and the tail attracts grease, which means it can pull the grease off the clothes and into the water. Surfactants reduce the surface tension of the water making it a more effective solvent and the water then obligingly flushes it all away. This is why sometimes window cleaners use washing up liquid on their applicators, especially if they are cleaning ground floor windows on busy roads. In this case there is no need to use de-ionised water as the squeegee blade will take the water and all the substances off the windows and leave them clean and dry.
The friendly professionals at K2 window cleaning and carpet cleaning use water in one form or another for cleaning windows every day; it is what helps them to achieve their trademark “Peak Shine.”
You can trust K2 window cleaning to be reliable and to always do the job right; more often than not they will use the reach and wash system because it is kind to the environment, but on builder’s cleans where there is danger of concrete scratches on the windows, you can trust that they know how to handle difficult jobs too.