A section of the glazing has turned cloudy and nothing anyone has tried will clean it off. That one area reads as frosted while the panes around it stay perfectly clear. Where a blade has been taken to it since, scoring has been added on top of the original mark.
This is acid etched graffiti. A corrosive gel has been held against the glass long enough to bite in, leaving behind a surface broken at a scale fine enough to disperse light instead of transmitting it. Nothing was deposited, so nothing washes away. The pane itself has been harmed.
We work on the panes in position, usually finishing within the day, with nothing boarded over and no glass on order, at a small fraction of what reglazing would run to.
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Steel Windows Change The Arithmetic Completely
Hackney Wick is a warehouse district, and the windows in those buildings are not shopfront glazing by any stretch. They are original industrial steel frames: slim sections holding dozens of small panes, sometimes running the height of a wall and the length of a bay.
That single fact changes almost everything about how this damage should be dealt with, and in the building owner's favour.
The panes are small, so the work is quick and cheap per pane. Restoration is priced on the area to be treated, and a Crittall-type light is a fraction of the size of a shop window. Damage spread across several small panes in one frame is usually a shorter job than a single large pane elsewhere would be.
Replacement is the expensive route here, not the cheap one. Taking a pane out of a steel frame means cutting out old putty, disturbing the section and reglazing to match, which is specialist work rather than routine glazing. On original frames it is slow, and on a run of matched lights a single new pane frequently reads differently from its neighbours.
The frames are part of the building's value. The industrial glazing is a good deal of why these buildings let the way they do, and a good deal of why some of them are protected. Interfering with it to fix a problem that can be polished out is the wrong trade.
And the steel gets marked too. The same gel that clouds a pane will attack a painted or galvanised section, so on a warehouse window we are frequently treating both. It makes sense to look at the whole frame rather than the pane you first noticed.
If somebody has quoted you to reglaze a steel window because of acid damage, get a second view. On this stock the restoration case is stronger than anywhere else we work.
Recent Acid Etched Graffiti Removal Projects
One Frontage, Thirty Tenants, Nobody's Job
The second Hackney Wick particular is who is actually responsible, and it is genuinely unclear more often than not.
A typical building here holds a great many small operations behind a single entrance. Studios, makers, small production companies, a taproom on the ground floor. Each takes a modest amount of space on a modest agreement, and none of them has a facilities function, a maintenance budget or any particular reason to think the external fabric is their problem.
So damage on the shared frontage sits. Everybody sees it, everybody assumes somebody else has reported it, and frequently nobody has.
The position is usually simpler than it looks.
Shared fabric belongs to whoever holds the building. The entrance, the external walls, the windows lighting a common area and the frames themselves are the landlord's or the operator's, not a studio tenant's. If you rent a space in one of these buildings, reporting it is your part and paying for it is almost certainly not.
What actually unblocks it is a figure. Send us a photograph and we will give a written itemised price, which a tenant can hand to the building operator. A defined number produces a decision far faster than a description of the problem does, because it turns an open question into a small one.
And it is worth quoting the building, not the pane. Where several windows across an elevation are marked, one attendance covers them and the mobilisation is charged once. On a building with a single operator and many tenants, that is the sensible unit to work in.
Where We Get Called Out Around Hackney Wick
Wallis Road and Queen's Yard. Warehouse frontages, studio buildings and ground floor hospitality, and a good part of our work here.
Fish Island and the Roach Road streets. Converted industrial stock with original steel glazing, mixed studio and workshop use, very quiet at night.
Stour Road and White Post Lane. Larger buildings and newer development side by side, with entrances directly on the street.
The canal frontages. Elevations facing the water, reached on foot, where damage frequently goes unseen from the road side entirely.
The station approaches. Concentrated flow at peak and very little between times, with the nearest frontages taking the most exposure.
The park edge and the newer blocks. Ground floor commercial units beneath recent residential development, with specified modern glazing.
Taprooms and ground floor venues. Premises trading in the evening and at weekends, closed and unattended for much of the working week.
Why Canal Elevations Get Found Late
A short point, but it accounts for a lot of the long-standing damage we see here.
Many of these buildings present one face to the street and another to the water, and the two are inspected completely differently. Somebody walks past the street elevation every day. Nobody in the building looks at the canal elevation at all, because there is no reason to walk round.
Damage on a water-facing window is therefore routinely found weeks after the fact, by which time weathering has driven grit into the etched surface and the job is longer than it needed to be. It is worth walking the towpath side of your own building occasionally. Two minutes, and it catches things nothing else will.
Replacing Or Restoring
| Reglazing a steel window | Restoring the existing panes | |
|---|---|---|
| The work involved | Cutting out putty and disturbing the section | Panes polished in place, frame untouched |
| Cost per pane | Specialist reglazing on original frames | Small panes, priced on area, quick to treat |
| Matching a run of lights | New glass reads differently from its neighbours | Every original pane retained |
| The steel itself | Dealt with separately, if at all | Frame sections treated alongside the glass |
| Protected industrial fabric | Consent may be required | Nothing altered, nothing to apply for |
| Timescale | Weeks once a specialist is engaged | Usually a single visit |
| Cost | Glazing, frame work and making good | Up to 90 per cent less |
The cost comparison is set out at glass replacement vs protection: the true cost, and the decision at should I replace or restore etched graffiti glass.
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Etching, Scratching Or Paint
They look alike at a distance and each takes a different route.
Paint or marker is a deposit on the pane. Opaque, hard edged, and a fingernail climbs onto it. Solvent removes it and the glass beneath is unaffected.
Acid etching is in the pane. Milky and pale while light still comes through, with a slight coarseness level with the surface rather than standing on it. No hard edge exists, because the gel kept creeping until something arrested it. From inside a lit studio it shows up far more than from the street.
Scratching is mechanical damage. Narrow glittering grooves cut by a blade, a stone or a key, which a fingernail catches in straight away.
Side by side photographs sit at glass scratching vs acid etching, with a closer look at the whitened surface in white frosty window graffiti. Why anybody does it is taken up at why acid etching graffiti happens.
The First Hour
Wet residue is still corrosive. The gel harms skin and eyes, so nobody handles it, and in a shared building that means telling the other occupiers rather than assuming the message travels.
Nothing sharp and nothing abrasive. Scraping puts scoring into a pane that was fully recoverable, and running a cloth over wet gel takes the damage across to panes that had escaped it. In a steel frame that matters more than usual, because the panes are close together.
Nothing on the steelwork either. Wire wool and abrasive pads on a painted or galvanised section leave their own marks on top of the etching and make the frame harder to bring back.
Wash it down with cold water if residue can be seen and it is safe to get to, gloved and with eye protection, allowing it to run away rather than dragging it about the pane.
Photograph the whole frame, dated, not just the affected light. On a multi-pane window the damage frequently runs across several panes and onto the sections between them, and a single close-up misses most of it.
Report it as criminal damage. The reference will be wanted before an insurer engages. The steps for reporting it are at what to do when your shop window is vandalised.
How The Restoration Is Done
Reading the window. The glass first, whether original or later, plain float, toughened, laminated, wired, coated or a sealed unit, and how far the acid has gone. Then the frame: painted steel, galvanised or aluminium, and what condition it is in.
A concealed trial. The method is proved on one pane out of view before the rest of the frame is committed to.
Masking and containment. Putty lines, sections, paintwork and any signage are protected, with care taken between closely spaced panes. Slurry is contained and kept off the ground beneath.
Through the abrasive grades. Each stage finer than the last, taking off a thickness of glass the eye cannot register, and carrying the treated zone across the full pane so it fades rather than ending at a line. On small lights that is straightforward. Treat only the tag and a shallow lens is left in the pane, which in a grid of matched lights stands out immediately because the panes either side are flat.
Cerium oxide to finish. Residual cloudiness is worked out wet with cerium oxide, judged with light travelling through the pane towards us.
The steel taken back evenly. Sections are worked across their whole face rather than locally, so the frame reads as one surface afterwards rather than showing a treated patch.
Checked from inside. A studio window is looked through all day from within, so the finish is assessed from the room against the light before anything is signed off.
A day generally covers several small lights within one frame. We have written up the grinding in acid etched graffiti techniques and removal methods, the clarity work in how to polish shopfront glass to optical clarity, and the polish itself in how to use cerium oxide glass polish.
Should the pane be beyond saving, you hear it at the assessment. A burn that has reached exceptional depth, a unit whose seal had failed beforehand, or a coating sitting across the surface we must abrade each mean the pane genuinely needs replacing, and we say so in writing before anything is committed.
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What We Restore Around Hackney Wick
- Original steel framed industrial windows, pane by pane, with the sections treated alongside.
- Float and older window glass in warehouse lights, studio windows and upper storey glazing.
- Laminated ground floor glazing on taprooms, venues and newer commercial units.
- Toughened glass used in doorsets, glazed partitions, stair guarding and street furniture.
- Canal facing elevations reached on foot from the towpath side.
- Sealed units in the newer blocks, treated on the outer leaf alone.
- Mirrors and mirrored panels in bars, studios and shared interiors.
- Obscured and patterned glass, rebuilt to the finish it carried rather than cleared.
- Glass block in industrial elevations, stair cores and service walls.
- Painted, galvanised and polished metal on window sections, entrance doors, intercom panels and handrails, with polished granite and polished marble thresholds where present.
Any worked surface is vulnerable to the same product, and on a steel window the frame takes it as readily as the glass. Both are dealt with on one visit.
Who We Work For In Hackney Wick
Building operators and landlords of warehouse stock. Whole elevations quoted together, with one attendance rather than a series of call outs.
Studio and workspace providers. Shared frontages and common area glazing, with a written figure suitable for passing to whoever holds the budget.
Taprooms, venues and ground floor hospitality. Worked around trading rather than around us.
Individual studio tenants. Told plainly what is theirs and what is not, before anybody pays for anything.
Managing agents of the newer blocks. Ground floor commercial glazing and communal entrances, quoted for service charge recovery.
Who Carries The Cost
In a shared warehouse building the external fabric sits with the landlord or the operator. The entrance, the external walls, the windows lighting common areas and the frames themselves are not a studio tenant's responsibility, whatever the informal arrangements around the building might suggest.
Where a tenant does hold a demise that includes their own windows, the position changes, and it is worth reading the agreement rather than assuming either way. On the short and informal agreements common here that is frequently a five minute question with a clear answer.
On insurance, set our figure beside the excess before notifying anybody. Restoring a few small panes will very commonly cost less than the excess itself, in which case a claim achieves nothing and still counts at renewal. A whole elevation of marked windows usually justifies claiming. Dated photographs of the full frame and a written works description come with the job either way.
Guarding Against The Next One
Restoring the glass deals with what has happened and nothing further. It deters nobody, and a district of large quiet buildings with long blank elevations offers plenty of opportunity after dark.
Anti-graffiti film is bonded to the outside face so the next attack lands on the film instead of the pane, and lifting it off and fitting a fresh one is quick work at a fraction of another restoration.
On multi-pane steel windows it is a poorer fit than usual, and worth saying so. Film has to be cut and fitted pane by pane, which on a grid of dozens of small lights becomes expensive and fiddly, and it does nothing at all for the steel sections between them. For warehouse glazing the more realistic protections are lighting on the blind elevations, a camera covering the approach, and prompt treatment before weathering sets the damage in.
Where a building has large accessible modern glazing at ground floor, the film argument is a good deal stronger, and we will say which of your elevations is which rather than quoting the whole building the same way.
Everything on the subject is at anti-acid etched graffiti protection, which runs through why the approach is effective, how frequently it needs replacing, the cost of having it fitted and whether the glass ends up looking different.
Areas We Cover Next To Hackney Wick
The whole service, with our process video and the full question set, is on the main acid etched graffiti removal page.
Hackney Wick Acid Etched Graffiti Removal: Frequently Asked Questions
Our windows are original steel frames. Can they be treated?
Yes, and they are among the best candidates we deal with. The panes are small, so the work is quick and cheap per pane, and nothing has to come out of the frame. Reglazing a steel window is specialist work and a far bigger undertaking than polishing the glass.
The damage runs across several panes.
That is normal on a multi-pane window and it does not make it a large job. Each light is treated in turn, the attendance is charged once, and a frame with damage across several small panes is frequently shorter work than a single shop window.
The steel sections are marked as well.
They usually are, because the same gel attacks painted and galvanised metal. We treat the sections alongside the glass, working across the whole face so the frame reads evenly rather than showing a patch.
Should we clean the steelwork ourselves in the meantime?
Please do not use wire wool or an abrasive pad on it. That adds its own marks on top of the etching and makes the frame harder to bring back. Photograph it and leave it.
I rent a studio here. Is the frontage my responsibility?
Almost certainly not. The entrance, the external walls, the common area windows and the frames belong to whoever holds the building. Reporting it is your part; paying for it is not.
Nobody in the building will deal with it.
Ask us for a written itemised figure and pass that to the operator. A defined number produces a decision much faster than a description of the problem, because it turns an open-ended liability into a small defined one.
Our canal elevation has been damaged for weeks.
That is the commonest long-standing damage we see here, because nobody in the building has a reason to walk round to the water side. It still restores; weathering just makes it a longer job. Walking the towpath side occasionally is worth the two minutes.
Can it be restored or does it need replacing?
Restored, in nearly every case. The acid reaches only a fraction of a millimetre in, and the work removes that fraction evenly and brings the clarity back. Only an exceptionally deep burn, an already failed seal, or a coating in the path of the work forces a replacement.
Our building is protected as industrial heritage.
Then restoration is the straightforward route. Consent can be required to alter a listed building, and on this stock the glazing and the frames are frequently part of what is protected. Nothing is altered by restoring them.
Do we need to board anything up?
No. No pane leaves its frame at any stage, so the elevation stays whole and the building carries on as normal.
Will the treated panes look different from the rest?
They should not. Each affected light is carried across its full width rather than treated in a patch, which is what keeps it flat. Treating the tag alone leaves a shallow lens, and in a grid of matched lights that shows immediately because the panes either side are flat.
There is scratching as well as etching.
One attendance deals with both, as an etch and a score answer to the identical abrasive sequence and closing polish. Only the depth limits what can be achieved.
Is protective film worth fitting on steel windows?
Usually not, and we would rather tell you that. It has to be cut pane by pane, which on dozens of small lights becomes expensive, and it does nothing for the steel between them. On large modern ground floor glazing the argument is much stronger, and we will tell you which of your elevations is which.
What does it cost?
Considerably less than reglazing, and the figure comes in writing first. It depends on how many panes are affected, how much of each, the depth, whether the frame needs treating and how we reach it. No lazy contractors. No hidden fees.
Should we claim on insurance?
Compare our figure with the excess first. A few small panes usually fall beneath it. A whole elevation of marked windows usually does not.
How do we get a price?
Photograph the whole frame rather than the damaged light on its own, and one shot from inside with the lights on. The full-frame view is what tells us how many panes are involved and whether the sections need treating too.
Do you need graffiti removed from your property? Get a fast, hassle-free quote today! Click here to get a professional graffiti removal quote or call us today on: 020 8050 5997
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