Sticky residue on PW house job

[bkwelker]

I cleaned a house last week, and on the followup call, the homeowner mentioned there was still a lot of mildew on his doors. I went by to take a look, and I don't know what it is. All the doors have glass in them and the residue is only around the glass frames where the caulk is old and rotting, he says the house is 13 years old. I scrubbed it with straight Clorox to see how it reacted, and it did take some off, but only with a good bit of scrubbing. It is dark brown and very sticky to the touch. It's not tree sap, and certainly not mildew. I'm thinking it may be coming out of the window frames in the doors themselves. Any ideas or suggestions on what I've got here and what will remove it? I'm in south Georgia with very high temperatures and extreme humidity 9 months out of the year(91 today).

Thanks,

Brian Welker
Great Panes Window Cleaning
Under Pressure Cleaning, Inc.
Statesboro, GA

 

[Dan Flynn]

Try using a product called Goof Off. You can get it at most home improvment stores. Hard to say what it could be without seeing. It's not ringing a bell though.

 

[bkwelker]

Dan,

Thanks for answering. Went out yesterday to work on it. Goof-Off helped, but it was pretty labor intensive. Tried several different spot, stain or mess removers altogether and what worked best was a spray bottle of professional-strength Greased Lightning and a stiff brush. Still no idea what it was though...

Brian Welker
Great Panes Window Cleaning
Under Pressure Cleaning, Inc.
Statesboro, GA

 

[JD@747]

bk, do you think it was caulk from around the window's of the doors?

 

[ghouchu]

i dealt with some gunk like that but it was on the windows at the edges more than on the frames. it was a metal door between two garage doors and had 3 x 3 6" windows on the top half. i concluded that some form of adhesive was used in manufacturing to attach grid frame to glass windows. there didn't seem to be any caulk--the coating on the door ran right to the glass. it came off the glass pretty well with a scraper, but i couldn't get it off the edges of the frames without taking off the door's coating. i told the owner (and i believe) that someone had installed a cheap door and i couldn't clean it any better without a risk of tearing it up. none of the degreasers i tried (goof off, and the like, no industrial types) wouldn't cut it unless i had scraped the area down to a thin, thin residue.

i hope the owner appreciated all the effort you put in, 'cause i know it took quite a while.

richard

 

[john orr]

Around here (S.E. VA), the doors have plastic panes that turn yellow over time. The plastic will not hold paint very well, so they are usually left unpainted. The value of the house has little to do with this problem. All doors, as well as sidelights of front doors, will eventually get it.

The only cure for the blackening of the old caulk is to re-caulk. Any time I encounter a house with this problem, I explain it to the homeowner BEFORE I clean it.