Answers · Buying decision
For ground-floor windows on a small home, doing it yourself is genuinely fine and cheaper. Professional window cleaning is worth paying for in three situations: when a meaningful share of your glass is above ground floor, when you have hard water scale that ordinary cleaner will not touch, or when the house has divided lights, storms or track detail that turn a two-hour job into a full Saturday. In the Treasure Valley that describes most two-story homes.
Last reviewed 3 September 2026 by Perfect Shine Home Solutions, Kuna, Idaho. Serving the Treasure Valley since 2016.
A bucket, a decent squeegee and a scrubber costs about $40 and lasts years. If your house is single-story, has ordinary modern panes, and you do not mind an afternoon, you will get a result close to professional on the outside and equal to it on the inside. Anyone telling you otherwise is selling. What you will not match is the tracks, the sills, the screens and the second story, and that is where the time and the risk actually live.
Height is the honest dividing line. Second-story glass means a ladder on uneven ground, often on soft landscaping, usually alone. Falls from ladders are one of the most common serious home-maintenance injuries there is. The second line is hard water. If the bottom of your glass has gone cloudy and stayed cloudy, that is bonded mineral scale and there is nothing on a supermarket shelf that removes it. The third is complexity: a North End home with twelve divided lights per opening is not a two-hour job.
Tracks and sills detailed rather than wiped, screens washed and dried properly instead of hosed and put back wet, second-story glass done from the outside, and mineral restoration on hard water panes. On our jobs all of that is inside the per-pane price rather than added on.
If you have a small single-story home with modern vinyl windows, soft-ish water, and no hard-to-reach glass, hire the professional once a year for the exterior and do the inside yourself. That is the cheapest sensible arrangement and we will happily quote it that way.
| Your situation | Our honest recommendation |
|---|---|
| Single-story, modern panes, ground level | Do it yourself |
| Single-story with tracks and screens you never touch | Once a year professional, DIY in between |
| Two-story, any amount of upper glass | Hire it out |
| Cloudy panes that will not come clean | Hire it out, this is mineral scale |
| Divided lights, French panes or storm windows | Hire it out |
| Selling the house | Hire it out, it is the cheapest staging there is |
Swipe the table sideways →
Two fields and a person from Perfect Shine calls you back, usually within the hour.
Get a free quoteCall (208) 954-4864Twice a year suits most Treasure Valley homes: once in spring, once in autumn. Once a year is enough if you are not fussy or the house is sheltered. Homes on busy roads, near open farm ground, or with sprinklers hitting the glass want more.
It should be an option, and at Perfect Shine the $9 per pane price covers both sides. Some companies price exterior-only cheaper. Exterior-only is a reasonable choice if you are happy doing the insides yourself, and it is the more common purchase in autumn.
Usually, if it has not been left for years. Fresh and moderate mineral scale comes off with an acidic restoration pass. Scale left long enough physically etches the glass, and etched glass cannot be cleaned back to clear by anyone. That is why it is worth dealing with early, particularly in Meridian where the water is hardest.
A typical single-story Treasure Valley home with 20 to 25 panes takes roughly two to three hours inside and out. Divided lights, storm windows and hard water restoration add substantially to that.
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