Are you a window cleaner thinking about adding conservatory valeting to your range of services? We picked two off the shelf products that may or may not be able to assist with the uPVC cleaning required in conservatory valeting.
What is a conservatory valet?
This is a high value niche service aimed at detailing a conservatory inside and out. Sometimes it includes a treatment to help protect the valet finish so that the conservatory stays super clean for longer.
A conservatory valet will almost certainly include track brushes, toothbrushes and grout brushes in order to get into all of those nooks and crannies. It is labour intensive but the reward is high both in job satisfaction and money made.
There are a mountain of cleaners out there. Some work, some do not. Today we are comparing HG uPVC ‘Powerful Cleaner’ and Astonish uPVC Cream Cleaner. We compared both these products against old fashion warm water and Fairy Liquid just to see how the bottom end would compare. We had three soft sponge pads for each product and plenty of fresh water. ( Always test sponge pads first in a small area)
The HG Powerful comes in a handy 500ml trigger action spray bottle. The nozzle is twisted on or off to allow spray cleaning. The label sports a picture of uPVC windows and uses titles such as ‘easy and quick’ and ‘for all your synthetics’.
Directions of use are simple – apply spray and wipe. HG promises to be a very special and powerful cleaner capable of quickly removing all contaminants, nicotine and many other types of dirt.
We found this product to be slow in cleaning. Liberal spraying was required, in fact we treated our test window to the heavy soiling direction that involved spraying onto the surface and leaving it to work for a few minutes. It also advises to re treat if the stains are persistent.
Next up was Astonish uPVC Cream Cleaner. Now I knew this might do a little better since the cream has a mild abrasive in it. So always test an area if you are going to use this product and avoid polished areas, gold or silver coloured metals and lacquered surfaces.
The Astonish uPVC cream cleaner has a ‘no mess’ cap, which gets messed up. The label also shows a uPVC set of windows using titles such as ‘powerful cleaning action’ and ‘ shifts grease and grime’.
The cream cleaner worked best out of the two. Whereas HG was powerful it failed to take all grey staining out of the corners of the window sill. We found also that you had to work much harder, applying a lot more pressure in order to get the shortfall result it provided. When compared with Fairy Liquid and warm water to the HG, there didn’t seem a lot of difference in the two except for price. Disappointing really when HG is considered to be a high-end powerful product.
The cream cleaner stole it, however, with complete and utter ease. It was far, far less work and this was helped as the cream cleaner expanded into soap during the cleaning process. It made light work of the grey staining on the sills and sill corners. The only downside is that it can get pretty messy, so don’t go wild if using inside the conservatory and think about protecting the surroundings more.
We give HG uPVC ‘Powerful Cleaner’ 2 out 5 because it cleans, but does not clean deep, it is harder to use, but it does come in a handy trigger spray and the pink liquid colour is pretty too.
We give Astonish uPVC Cream Cleaner 4 out of 5, awesome cleaner, makes light work and removes all grey staining from the sill. Downsides are it can get a bit messy but its defo a winner and the Fairy Liquid test came no where near its finish.
Below Left: HG. Below Right: Astonish.
