Eight things to do before the snow finishes melting. Including the one most people skip.
Posted April 25, 2026 · By Barrett Teeney · 6 min read
Every Flathead Valley homeowner has the same thought when the snow starts thinning out: "the windows look terrible." They do. Winter coats Montana glass with a layer of road salt, blowing dust, sap from the cottonwoods, and cottonwood pollen that's been baking on for weeks. Most people grab a bottle of Windex and a roll of paper towels, spend two hours getting smearier results than what they started with, and either give up or call us.
Here's the order I do it in when I'm working on my own house. Eight steps. The fifth one is the one most homeowners skip, and it's the difference between glass that's clean and glass that's actually clear.
Don't start the day after snowmelt. The ground is still saturated, the lows are still hitting freezing, and any water you put on the glass will streak the moment the temperature drops overnight. Wait until daytime highs have been above about 45°F for three days running, and overnight lows are above freezing. In Kalispell that's usually mid-April. Whitefish runs about a week behind. Bigfork can sometimes go earlier because of the lake's thermal moderation.
If your property has cottonwoods anywhere within a few hundred feet — and in the Flathead Valley, it almost certainly does — there's a film of pollen on every south-facing pane. Pollen rehydrates with morning dew. The moment you touch it with a wet rag, it smears into a yellow-green streak that's nearly impossible to remove without doing the whole pane over. Hose the exterior glass off first, top to bottom, before you do anything else. Let it air-dry. Then start cleaning.
Window tracks accumulate sand, dead bugs, and cottonwood seeds over the winter. People grab a wet rag and immediately turn it into mud. Then they wipe the mud onto the sill. Then they curse. Vacuum first. Use the brush attachment, get every corner. Then wet-clean. The whole job goes about 30% faster and looks significantly better.
Pop the screens out. Lay them flat on grass or on a moving blanket. Gently scrub with warm soapy water and a soft-bristled brush — the kind you'd use on car wheels, not the kind you'd use on a deck. Rinse with the hose. Stand them up and let them air-dry while you clean the glass. Don't put wet screens back into the frames; you'll trap moisture and rot the wood.
This is the one. Most homeowners skip the squeegee entirely or use it badly, which is why their glass never looks like the glass on a freshly-cleaned commercial building.
If your glass still streaks after this, your solution is too soapy. Use about a teaspoon of dish soap in a gallon of warm water. That's it.
A microfiber and the same soapy water. Wood sills get a quick visual check for soft spots while you're working — Montana's freeze-thaw cycles drive water into any tiny crack and grow it into rot over the winter. If you find a soft spot, mark it for repair before summer rain.
Spring is when you catch failed seals before summer thunderstorms find them. Run a finger along the caulk line where the window meets the frame. Anything cracked, missing, or pulling away gets a fresh bead of paintable silicone. Weatherstripping that's hard, brittle, or torn gets replaced — it's $4 a foot at the hardware store.
If you're on a lakefront property or you've got sprinklers that hit your windows, you've likely got hard-water spotting. It looks like permanent fingerprints or a hazy film. Regular glass cleaner won't touch it — those minerals have bonded to the glass. You need a mineral remover (CLR or a glass-specific product like Hard Water Stain Remover by Bio-Clean) or a professional treatment.
This whole checklist takes about 2 hours for a typical Kalispell home if you're efficient. If you've got 30+ panes, multiple stories, or extensive lake-spray staining, it's all day work and you're climbing ladders. That's where we come in. A typical residential clean from us runs $200–$500, takes 2-4 hours, and you don't have to climb anything.
Either way — yourself or pro — get it done before the cottonwood seed-fluff starts in May. That stuff sticks to everything.
We do this 5 days a week across the Flathead Valley.
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