The brief
A skylight is the only pane in the house you look up through, and the only one that cannot shed what lands on it.
This was a villa in Quinta do Lago where the brief was the outside of the property, plus the skylight. Vertical glass has one advantage: rain runs down it and takes some of the dust with it. A skylight has no such luck. Everything that lands on it stays there, water pools instead of running off, and dust and minerals dry in place until the glass is not so much dirty as coated.
That is why the difference after cleaning one is larger than people expect. You are not looking across it at a view, you are looking up through it at the light, and a coated skylight quietly greys down the whole room underneath.
The rest of the property was the standard exterior villa job: every pane we could reach safely, worked top down, with frames, sills and sliding door tracks done alongside.
How we worked it
Traditional method throughout. Applicator and solution to wash the glass down, squeegee to take it off, microfibre to detail edges, frames and sills. Ladder and pole for the height, with the skylight washed down properly rather than given a wipe on the way past.
Set the order before touching anything
On a villa the sequence is most of the job. Outside faces, high before low, elevation by elevation, so nothing already finished gets run over by dirty water coming off something above it.
Skylight washed, not wiped
Horizontal glass collects everything and holds water where it falls, so dust and hard water dry on in place. It gets flooded and worked properly. Wiping a dry skylight just drags the grit around and puts fine scratches in it.
Ladder set on solid ground
The high glass was reached from a ladder standing on something level and solid, not propped against cladding, guttering or the glass itself. Where a pane cannot be reached safely we say so rather than improvising on the day.
Salt and dust floated off wet
Quinta do Lago glass carries salt off the air and dust off the ground, and both have to be washed off rather than wiped. Dry cloth on a gritty pane is how glass gets scratched.
Frames, sills and tracks alongside
Sliding door tracks cleared and frames wiped down as part of the job, because grit sitting in a track is back on the glass the next windy day.
Checked at an angle before packing up
The property is walked and the glass checked in raking light rather than straight on. Anything missed is redone before the van moves.
What was included
- Skylight, washed down and detailed
- Every reachable pane, exterior face
- Sliding doors, outside face
- Frames and sills
- Sliding door tracks cleared
- Glass checked in raking light before leaving
The result
When we will not clean a skylight
Only where it can be reached safely. Some skylights sit on a roof pitch with no safe standing position anywhere near them, and the only ways to reach those involve either walking on tiles that were never meant to take weight or leaning a ladder somewhere it should not go. We will not do either, and we will tell you at the survey rather than turning up and finding a reason.
The other honest limit is hard water. If minerals have been drying on a skylight for years they eventually etch into the surface, and at that point the marking is in the glass rather than on it. Cleaning improves it and will not remove it.
Common questions
Can you clean a skylight?
Where it can be reached safely, yes, and it is worth doing. Horizontal glass gathers dust and dries hard water in place, and because you look up through it rather than across it, the difference afterwards is more noticeable than people expect.
Why does a skylight get so much dirtier than a window?
Because nothing runs off it. Rain that would wash a vertical pane down instead sits on a skylight and evaporates, leaving behind everything it was carrying. Over a few Algarve summers that builds into a layer rather than a film.
Can you clean the outside only?
Yes. On a villa where the inside was done recently, or where nobody is in the country, exterior only is a sensible job. It just will not improve the inside face, and once the outside is clean the inside becomes more noticeable, so it is worth thinking about.
How do you reach high villa glass?
Ladder and pole, with the ladder set on level solid ground. Nothing gets rested against cladding, guttering or glass. If a pane cannot be reached safely we say so at the survey.
Do you cover Quinta do Lago?
Yes. Quinta do Lago is at the centre of our core round along with Vale do Lobo, Vilamoura, Almancil, Loulé and Quarteira, so it is a local job for us rather than a trip.
