At NIW this is a time of year for thanks, and we have many blessings

Thank you!

Another Thanksgiving is upon us and, with it, another opportunity to reflect on our reasons for gratitude. Here at Northern Illinois Windows, we have a lot to be thankful for. First and foremost, we’re grateful for our customers – those who have invited us out and trusted us to clean their windows, clean their gutters, install window film on their windows or install their holiday lights.

Our customers are the reason Northern Illinois Windows exist. They’re the purpose of our business. They’re the lifeblood of our business. And, each time you invite us to provide our services, you offer us an opportunity to shine. We thank you for that opportunity and strive to make the most of it.

We are thankful for all the testimonials we receive. These are more valuable than all the marketing and advertising in the world. We like to remind ourselves that our work gives our customers a clear perspective on their world. When they look through clean windows and are pleased with the difference, we have lived up to our goals and their expectations.

We’re also grateful for the window-cleaning technicians who make up our crews that go out, usually, six days a week, to clean those windows and gutters, and install that 3M window film or install those holiday lights. Our crews go out in the rain. They go out in the burning sun. They go out in the cold (yes, we clean windows in temperatures below zero).

We believe we have the best crews at Northern Illinois Windows. We demand the best and our goal is to reward excellence. We try to create an atmosphere where our crew members are inspired to do their best to ensure the full satisfaction of our customers. But, we have wonderful crews at Northern Illinois Windows because we’ve had the good fortune to hire some of the best workers in the industry.

We’re grateful for family and friends. And, we’re grateful to live in the best country in the world where the entrepreneurial spirit is rewarded with the opportunity for those who are willing to work for success. We’re in our 26th year of cleaning windows and gutters, installing window film and holiday lights. Surely, that proves just how blessed we are.

And so, at this special time of year, we would like to say Thank you and Happy Thanksgiving. We hope the joy of this holiday carries on to a Very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, as well.

Could Cpt. Kirk have used shields to keep the leaves out of his gutters?

Aboard the bridge of the Starship Enterprise, you might hear Cpt. Kirk giving the order, “Full power to the shields, Mister Scott.” With any luck, the hypothetical spaceship’s shields would repel the proton torpedoes that a Romulan Starship had fired. Well, if they can create a force field to protect a spaceship, how hard would it be to create a force field to keep leaves out of your gutters and downspouts?

Imagine you’re looking out the window in mid-October and you notice that the leaves are starting to fall. You turn to your husband and say, “I think it’s time to deploy the gutter shields.”

“What power do you want?” he asks.

And you tell him, “Full power to the shields. We’ll keep those leafy invaders out of our gutters.”

Of course, force fields are currently a product of imagination. The leaves falling from trees around your home, however, are very real. And, while less explosive than a Romulan proton torpedo, they can cause damage to your mothership – your home.

It’s not the leaves themselves that do the damage, it’s the water. Any time of the year, if your gutters are clogged, water can back up and sneak under your home’s shingles. Diabolically, some might say, the leaves come down to clog gutters just before winter sets in. It’s as though a Klingon High Council plotted to arrange a perfect storm that would leave your roof and roof structure in tatters.

How does this fiendish plot play out? With cruel simplicity. In the Spring, buds appear on trees. Over the summer, those buds turn to bushy bunches of leaves. Then, in the Autumn, the leaves fall from the trees. They fall in such abundance that, though many land on the ground, where you have to rake them, there is enough left over to fill your gutters and clog your downspouts.

Then, with your gutters clogged, Winter brings snow and ice. The snow builds up on your roof, which radiates heat that melts the lower layers of snow and ice. Unable to wash down the gutters and downspouts, because of the leaves, the water backs up the roof. That’s not the direction water is expected to go on a roof.

Roofing is designed to shed water as it flows down. But, when the water rolls up, it can roll right up under the shingles where it invades your home while rotting the plywood under the shingles. It can cause substantial damage.

The solution, since force fields haven’t actually been invented yet, is to clean your gutters. You could send your husband up on a ladder where, hopefully, he won’t fall and break his neck. Or, you could send out a desperate message to the Federation Starship Enterprise to swing by and use its lasers to destroy the leaves. Of course, that’s only an imaginary option (sorry, Trekkies). The other option is to hire some professionals who know how to safely climb ladders and have proper insurance in case the unexpected happens.

Is there a difference between cleaning windows with wood or vinyl frames?

Is there a difference between cleaning windows with
wooden window frames and windows with vinyl
window frames?

Glass is glass. So, when it comes to cleaning a window with a wood frame, or a window with a vinyl frame, the glass really won’t care. Is that to say there isn’t any difference? Not exactly.

In both cases, you’ll want to wipe the frames clean and dry. Who wants a clean window in a dirty frame? But, it’s also a matter of removing moisture from the frame. In the case, of the vinyl framed window, the biggest concern is spotting. If you don’t wipe that moisture away it will dry and leave spots.

Water can have a more damaging effect on a wood window frame. Moisture softens wood. It invades wood. It inspires mold and rot in wood. This is why it’s essential to paint and/or seal the wood frames of your windows. After all, they won’t just experience moisture when you wash your windows; they’ll also experience moisture from rain, snow, dew and that dew can also appear on the inside of your windows.

On the inside of your windows, that dew is called condensation. Of course, the moisture doesn’t care what it’s called. It will insidiously rob your wood window frames of their integrity if you’re not careful. Careful means sealing and/or painting your wood window frames with sufficient regularity. It also means wiping off moisture that collects on your windows, whether that moisture appears from the skies, from the atmosphere or from a squeegee wiping soapy water from the windows during the cleaning process.

Sometimes, wood frames are more of a hassle to clean. This is the case when the glass is divided by what are called ‘true divides.’ True divides are what you find in windows that are made up of smaller pieces of glass with frames built into the overall frame of a window. While you might find this with vinyl windows it’s rather rare. Instead, with vinyl windows, the appearance of ‘true divides’ is achieved by putting dividers in between the sheets of glass in a thermal-pane window. You have two full sheets of glass sandwiched over directive dividers.

With wood true divides, each piece of glass has to be cleaned individually. Then you have more frames to wipe and dry, and that can be a real pain.

How could something so beautiful be such a pane – those leaves will clog your gutters

Some folks will pile in the car and drive up to Door County, and other heavily wooded areas, to see the splendor of the varied shades of autumn leaves this time of year. Reds, yellows, oranges, purples, browns, greens, magentas: these are some of the colors that replace the almost universal green of summer leaves. They’re beautiful but the changing colors signify the changing of seasons and the falling of those leaves.

As the leaves come down they must land somewhere. They may land on the ground. This causes a rash of rakes to fly into the hands of homeowners who are coerced to join an army of yard-raking laborers. As inconvenient as that is, it’s not as bad as the leaves that get caught by gutters before the leaves can hit the ground.

You might tell yourself, ‘Well, if they don’t hit the ground, I don’t have to rake them.’ If that was the entire story, it would be a wonderful tale of increased leisure. But that’s not what it is. It’s not a good thing that your gutters catch a bunch of leaves before they hit the ground.

Autumn leaves that fill up gutters can cause substantial damage to your home. The gutters play a vital role in protecting your home. They channel the water that comes off your roof through downspouts and away from your foundation. Without gutters and downspouts, water comes straight off the roof and can find its way into your basement.

When your gutters are full of leaves, however, they conspire with elements of the next season – winter. In the wintertime, the water comes down as snow. As the snow piles up on your roof, the heat coming through your roof from your home can melt some of the snow or ice. Not a problem – your gutters will carry the water away. But your gutters are full of leaves.

With leaves clogging your gutters, the water builds up on your roof. ‘Building up’ is a contrary condition for the way your shingles were designed. Your roof shingles are designed to shed water as it comes down from clouds in the sky. But, water building up from a clogged gutter can work its way under the shingles. Instead of protecting the house from the water, water building up from clogged gutters gets in.

As the water comes in, it can rot the plywood sheets under the shingles. Then, it can move down into the insulation. When the insulation gets wet it loses most of its effectiveness. Now, more heat is coming up through the roof, more snow, or ice, is melting, and more water is coming in. Your gutters have started a vicious cycle. And all because those beautiful leaves clogged your gutters.

The solution is simple – clean the leaves out of your gutter. But, better than climbing a ladder yourself, or sending someone you love up that ladder, you might want to call in professionals to clean your gutters.

Why worry? Have the pros put up your Christmas lights this year

You’ve got plenty of time before you have to start worrying about putting up the Christmas lights and decorations. But, why wait when you can start worrying now?

Of course, it’s worth all the effort, isn’t it? The lights are so beautiful, if your husband takes his time and does a good job. Even if he rushes through it, you can always squint your eyes when you look at the house and the haphazard way he threw the lights at the house.

How much time he spends – how much attention he gives to detail – when putting up the lights and decorations usually depends on the weather. If it’s a nice late-autumn day, he’ll take his time. He’ll make sure every Christmas light is in its place and every light is lighted. But, if he’s out there on a bitterly cold and window day, possibly in freezing rain or snow, consider yourself lucky if the lights go up at all.

The truth is, you don’t have to worry about it now. You can put off worrying – worrying about the hassle of digging the lights out of the attic, checking the light strings to make sure they work, and hoping they’ll still work after your husband puts them up on the house. You can wait to worry when the holiday draws nearer.  But, there is another choice – don’t worry at all.

Not worrying at all may sound ridiculous. Why, it’s almost a Christmas tradition to worry, isn’t it?
And, how will the lights get up if you don’t worry. So far, we haven’t even mentioned about how you’ll worry that your husband will fall off the ladder while putting up the Christmas lights.

If he falls from the ladder, hopefully, all that happens is he gets hurt a big – breaks a leg or arm – anything but his neck. Still, he hasn’t fallen off a ladder while putting up the lights in the last 20-or-so holiday seasons; why would he fall now? And yet, he is getting older. Can he climb the ladder, and work on top of the ladder, as safely as he has in the past?

So, how does that fit into not worrying? Imagine putting up the lights without sending your husband up a ladder. It’s possible. You can actually have someone else put up the Christmas lights. It’s a present for your husband – he doesn’t have to brave the weather and the ladder. And it’s a present for you – you don’t have to worry if he’s not going up the ladder where professionals are.

Little finger prints on the windows – the kids are back in school – time to put the house back in order

Time to clean those fingerprints off the windows

 Summer was wonderful, wasn’t it? So, why are you so happy that the little ones are going back to school? Could it be that you actually welcome a little peace and quiet while they’re away for seven hours or so five days each week? Maybe you can start by doing something about the fingerprints they’ve left all over the house, including the fingerprints on the windows.

Yes, you probably did enjoy the time you had with your children this past summer. It doesn’t make you a bad parent that you appreciate they’re going back to school. It makes you normal. As much as you love them, they’re a handful. They’re full of energy and they put their hands all over everything.

Grab a cup of coffee and have a seat by the window looking out on the yard. This is your time. It’s the part of the day when you kick back, take a deep breath and relax. But, as you look out the window, you can’t help but notice the view is distorted by your youngest’s fingerprints. In fact, there’s a set of handprints on the window – a right and a left. In between the handprints it looks as though … no, that is her nose and mouth print on the window.

What was she looking at? Maybe there was a cardinal or a squirrel out in the yard. Maybe it was a rainy summer day and she was looking outside, longingly, wishing she could go out and play. Whatever brought her over to the window, it’s time for these tell-tale signs to go.

It’s not spring cleaning but you’ll still give the house a good once over; you’ll make sure things are clean and in their place. But don’t forget the windows. Your phone is full of photos and videos to help you remember the summer of 2017; you don’t need smears on your windows as reminders.  It’s time to wipe those fingerprints off the windows so you can have your quiet place back unencumbered.

How does the Yin and the Yang apply to window cleaning?

A wise man once said, “There are two sides to the universe. One side has dirty windows and the other side clean. This is the Yin and the Yang of window cleaning.”

Actually, I don’t know how wise he was. I was in a coffee shop and the two guys at the next table were playing chess. I just happened to overhear their conversation. My first thought was that he was joking. But, as I thought about it, it occurred to me, maybe he wasn’t too far off.

The Yin and the Yang are concepts of Taoism. The idea, as described in the Website www.personaltao.com, is that the Yin and the Yang have “Two halves that together complete wholeness.” We’re all familiar with the symbols of the Yin and the Yang. But, if the chess player in the coffee shop was serious, how could he think that the Yin and the Yang could apply to window cleaning. That’s just crazy, right?

Aha, not so fast.

Reading further in the Personal Tao Website, you learn that Yin means shady side and Yang means sunny side. Yin means night and Yang means day. These concepts, or definitions, are easily applied to window cleaning. Ok, maybe we need to stretch them a little to get there but, to humor our chess-playing friend, let’s go there anyhow.

Presumably and clearly, if you’ll pardon the pun, according to ‘the wiseman’s definition,’ Yin represents dirty windows and Yang represents clean windows. Now, to achieve equilibrium in the universe, you may want to have only half of your windows cleaned. Maybe, if you have vertical double-hung windows, you can clean the bottom halves for your Yang and the leave the tops dirty, for your Yin. If they’re side-by-side double-hung windows, where possible, you could clean the southern side – the Yang – because that side is closer to the sun. If you have casement windows, you could measure to a halfway point and clean to that line.

Then again, you might achieve the Yin and the Yang of window cleaning by only cleaning the outside of your windows and leaving the inside dirty, unless you’d prefer to have the Yang closer at hand, in which case you’ll want to clean the insides.

There’s also the possibility that the Yin and the Yang of window cleaning is a temporal matter – the windows are clean sometimes – the Yang – and dirty others – the Yin. This works out well if you clean your windows once or twice each year. Since winter is the Yin of the seasons, and summer the Yang, you can clean your windows in the summer and leave them dirty in the winter.

The drawback to dirty windows in the winter is that, with cabin fever, it’s rather nice to look out, through clean windows, on a pristine blanket of snow while sipping a cup of coffee, with or without playing chess. Then again, maybe you should seek equilibrium elsewhere in the universe and allow the Yang to dominate your clean windows year round.