A clouded white patch has appeared in the shopfront and nothing will take it off. It looks as though somebody frosted part of the pane on purpose. Where a blade has already been tried there will be scratches over the top of it too.
The damage is acid etched graffiti. A corrosive gel was put on the glass and left to eat into the surface, pitting it finely enough to scatter light instead of passing it. There is no coating on the pane to be cleaned away. The glass itself has been changed.
We take it back out where it stands, generally within the day, with nothing boarded and nothing on order, at a small share of what a replacement costs.
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In The Passages There Is Nowhere To Divert Anyone
Hampstead is laid out as a village rather than a district, and a significant part of its trade sits along passages barely wide enough for two people to pass. Flask Walk, Perrins Court, Holly Bush Vale and the yards off them carry shops, cafes and offices with no carriageway at all.
Most contractors handle a working area by routing pedestrians around it. Here there is no around. A passage two metres wide is the only way through, and setting up across it does not inconvenience people, it stops them.
That shapes the whole job, and it is worth knowing what a competent approach looks like before anybody quotes you.
The working area has to leave the passage usable. We set up along one side, keep the footprint tight enough that people can still get past without stepping round equipment, and accept that this makes the work slower than it would be on an open pavement. It is not a corner to cut.
Everything comes in by hand. There is no vehicle at the door on a passage frontage, and no point pretending otherwise. Kit is carried in and carried out.
Containment matters more than usual. Water running along a narrow passage with a stone or brick surface has nowhere to go and everyone walking through it. Our containment on these frontages is built to hold everything within the working area rather than merely to look tidy.
And it rules replacement out almost entirely. Carrying a shopfront pane along Flask Walk or up through Holly Bush Vale is not a realistic proposition, which is why premises in the passages frequently end up living with damage that a High Street business would have dealt with in a week.
Recent Acid Etched Graffiti Removal Projects
Hampstead Trades On Saturday, Not On Tuesday
The second thing about this place is that its commercial rhythm is not a commuter rhythm, and it changes what urgent means.
People come to Hampstead deliberately. They come at weekends, they come in good weather, and they come for the village rather than for a specific errand. Midweek is comparatively quiet, and Saturday is the day that matters to almost every independent trading here.
So the question we ask is not whether you want it dealt with immediately. It is whether it is right by Saturday.
That usually means attending midweek, when the High Street and the passages are at their quietest, rather than trying to squeeze the work into a weekend morning when your best trade is walking past. If damage appears on a Friday we will prioritise getting to it, because a frosted shopfront through a busy Saturday costs an independent here considerably more than the restoration does.
Where We Get Called Out Around Hampstead
Hampstead High Street. The main run and the bulk of our work, with independent retail, cafes and restaurants in small historic units, tightly packed and close to a narrow pavement.
Heath Street. The climb north from the junction, with shops and restaurants on a steep and busy route where frontages sit at differing levels.
Flask Walk and Perrins Court. The passages described above, where access and containment govern how anything gets done.
Rosslyn Hill. The approach from the south, with larger premises, professional offices and a heavier traffic flow past them.
Holly Bush Vale and the lanes off Holly Hill. Small premises reached on foot, quiet after dark and overlooked by very little.
South End Green. A separate small parade serving its own catchment, with independent shops and cafes at the foot of the hill.
Church Row and the residential streets. Consulting rooms, small practices and converted premises in protected stock, where damage frequently goes unnoticed because nobody customer facing is watching the front.
Protected Stock, Small Panes, Original Joinery
Hampstead holds one of the highest concentrations of protected building stock in London, and the commercial frontages are part of that rather than exempt from it.
Where a building carries a listing, altering it can require consent from the local authority, and works carried out without that consent are an offence rather than an administrative slip. On village stock the protection routinely takes in the shopfront, its joinery, the glazing bars and the opening as much as the elevation above.
The panes themselves are frequently small, set into painted timber and bedded in putty and beads. Two things follow. Replacing one means disturbing beads, putty and paintwork, so the true cost carries a decorator alongside a glazier and the frontage will not match until that elevation is redone. And in a small pane, any unevenness in a repair occupies a far greater proportion of the glass than it would in a large shop window, so the work has to be taken right out to the glazing bar rather than feathered into open glass.
Restoration disturbs none of it. The pane stays in its rebate, the putty is untouched, the joinery is left alone and no application arises.
Replacing It Or Restoring It
| Fitting a new pane | Restoring the existing pane | |
|---|---|---|
| Passage frontages | Carrying a pane along a two metre alley, if at all | Technician walks in with the kit |
| Protected shopfronts | Consent may be required for the alteration | Nothing altered, no application arises |
| Painted timber and small panes | Beads, putty and paintwork all disturbed | Rebate and joinery untouched |
| Trades needed | Glazier and decorator | One technician |
| Timescale | Weeks once consent and glazing are arranged | Usually a single midweek visit |
| Meanwhile | Boarded through a weekend that carries your trade | Nothing covered at any stage |
| Cost | Glass, joinery, decoration and lost Saturday trade | Up to 90 per cent less |
The cost comparison is worked through at glass replacement vs protection: the true cost, and the decision at should I replace or restore etched graffiti glass.
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Which Of The Three You Have
Three kinds of marking look alike at a glance, and telling them apart saves a wasted call.
Paint or marker sits above the glass. Dense colour, a crisp boundary, and a fingernail steps up onto it. Solvent removes it and the pane beneath is untouched.
Acid etching is within the glass. Clouded and pale yet still passing light, with a faint grittiness lying level with the surrounding surface. Where the gel crept before anyone got to it, the edge of the mark feathers out rather than stopping cleanly. From inside a lit shop it reads considerably more strongly than from the pavement.
Scratching has been cut in. Thin bright furrows made with a blade, a stone or a key, deep enough that a fingernail settles into them.
If you want to hold yours against an example, there are images at glass scratching vs acid etching, and the milky look specifically is dealt with at white frosty window graffiti. The reasons people do this are examined at why acid etching graffiti happens.
What To Do First
Anything still wet on the pane is an active chemical. Etching gel injures skin and eyes. Nobody handles it, and in a narrow passage that means keeping people back rather than assuming they will walk round it.
Keep blades and abrasive pads away from it. Scraping leaves permanent scoring in glass that would otherwise recover completely, and on a small pane that scoring occupies a much larger share of the window than it would on a large frontage.
No proprietary removers. They have nothing to act on, and on painted timber joinery they can create a second problem you did not have.
If residue is visible and it is safe, flush it with plenty of cold water, gloved and with eye protection, letting it run off rather than dragging a cloth across the glass.
Photograph it at once, dated, from outside and from inside. Note the day, because if it appeared midweek there is time to have it right before the weekend, and that changes how we schedule you.
Report it as criminal damage. The reference will be wanted before an insurer engages. There is a short guide to doing all of this in the right order at what to do when your shop window is vandalised.
How The Work Is Carried Out
Reading the pane. Whether we are looking at old or new glass, plain float, toughened, laminated, coated, mirrored or a double glazed unit, and how deep the burn has gone. In a village of this age the answer is often older than anyone expects.
A trial where it cannot be seen. The method is proved on a small section out of view before the whole pane is committed to.
Protecting the frontage. Beads, putty lines, paintwork, signwriting, gilding and frames are masked before a tool touches the glass. On a protected shopfront the joinery is the part that cannot simply be replaced. Containment is built to hold everything within the working area, which on a passage frontage matters as much as the finish does.
Through the abrasive grades. Each stage finer than the last, taking off a depth of glass no eye could measure, with the treated zone carried out to the glazing bar or well past the mark so nothing shows where it ends. Work the lettering alone and a dished patch is left, a shallow lens in the pane, bending whatever sits behind it. In a small village shopfront pane that distortion is proportionally far more visible than it would be in a large window.
Cerium oxide to finish. The last of the haze comes back under wet cerium oxide, judged by looking through the glass towards the light rather than at what reflects from it.
Assessed from inside the shop. A display window is looked through by everyone working behind it all day, so the finish is judged from within, against the light, before it is signed off.
A single pane is normally finished within three hours, though a passage frontage takes longer because the working area has to stay narrow. The removal is documented at acid etched graffiti techniques and removal methods, the finishing at how to polish shopfront glass to optical clarity, and the compound at how to use cerium oxide glass polish.
Where restoration will not work, that is said at the assessment. Acid that has gone unusually deep, a sealed unit whose seal had already failed, or a coating sitting where the abrasive must run each mean the pane genuinely needs replacing, and the opinion is given in writing before anything is agreed.
Work Completed In North London
- Acid etched graffiti removal in Hackney
- Emergency acid etched graffiti removal in Dalston
- Acid etched graffiti removal in Farringdon
- Acid etched graffiti removal on Bond Street
What We Restore Around Hampstead
- Float and older window glass in village shopfronts, small panes and upper storey glazing.
- Laminated shopfront glazing on refitted High Street and Rosslyn Hill units.
- Toughened glass in entrance doors, porch screens and balustrades.
- Passage frontages reached and worked entirely on foot.
- Double glazed units in replacement windows, dealt with from outside only.
- Mirrors and mirrored panels in cafes, salons and shop interiors.
- Obscured and patterned glass, including privacy glazing on consulting premises, matched rather than removed.
- Glass block in lightwells and rear elevations.
- Doorsteps, window ledges and stall risers in polished granite or polished marble.
- Polished and brushed metal on door furniture, name plates, letter plates and railings.
Nothing with a finished surface escapes the same gel. On a village frontage the brass name plate and the letter plate are hit alongside the window, and we clear the lot in a single attendance. Where there is gilded or hand painted lettering on the glass, tell us before we attend so it is protected rather than discovered.
Who We Work For In Hampstead
Independent retail, cafes and restaurants. The bulk of our work here, scheduled midweek so the frontage is right for the weekend.
Passage and courtyard businesses. Premises with no vehicle access, worked on foot with the route kept open throughout.
Consulting rooms and small practices. Privacy glazing matched rather than polished away, and attendance timed around appointments.
Managing agents and landlords of village stock. Protected frontages and communal entrances, with documentation suitable for listed building records and service charge recovery.
Galleries and showrooms. Display glazing returned to full clarity, assessed from inside against the lighting.
Who Carries The Cost
The lease determines it. The repairing covenant will tell you whether the shopfront falls inside your demise, which along the High Street and Heath Street it generally does. A communal entrance, the fanlight over it and the stair window serving anything above normally belong to the landlord and are recovered through the service charge. On village stock subdivided over many years the boundary is rarely obvious, so read the demise plan as well as the wording.
Insurance is worth a moment's arithmetic before anybody notifies a broker. Malicious damage sits within most commercial policies, but the excess decides whether a claim is worth making, and restoring one small pane will very often cost less than that excess. Where a whole frontage is affected the position changes. Either way, you are given the dated images taken from both sides along with a written account of what was done.
Reducing The Chance Of A Repeat
Restoring the pane deals with the damage in front of you. It deters nobody, and the passages and lanes here are unobserved for most of the night.
Anti-graffiti film works by being the thing that gets destroyed. It is bonded over the outer face, takes whatever comes next, and is lifted off and replaced for a small share of a second restoration, with no visible difference to the window. On protected stock two caveats apply and we would rather raise them than not. The film is cut to each pane rather than run across a frontage as a sheet, and because it changes the surface of a controlled shopfront it is worth confirming with the local authority before fitting where a building is listed.
We have written it all up on the anti-acid etched graffiti protection page, which covers the way it does its job, how many years it should give you, what you would pay to have it fitted and whether the glass looks any different afterwards. Shop windows have a page of their own at protecting retail displays from glass vandalism.
Areas We Cover Next To Hampstead
- Belsize Park
- Frognal
- West Hampstead
- Swiss Cottage
- Golders Green
- Childs Hill
- Highgate
- Gospel Oak
- Kentish Town
- Primrose Hill
The whole service, with our process video and the full question set, is on the main acid etched graffiti removal page.
Hampstead Acid Etched Graffiti Removal: Frequently Asked Questions
Can the pane be saved or do we need new glass?
Saved, almost without exception. The acid has damaged a sliver of the surface measured in fractions of a millimetre, and the work removes that sliver across the affected area and brings the pane back to clear. Replacement only arises with an exceptionally deep burn, a unit whose seal had already gone, or a coating sitting directly under the abrasive.
We are in one of the passages. Can you even get to us?
Yes, on foot, which is the whole point. Everything is carried in, the working area is set along one side so the passage stays usable, and nobody is blocked. Bringing a replacement pane along the same route is a different matter, and usually not a realistic one.
Will you block the passage while you work?
No. Keeping it passable is a condition of how we set up rather than a courtesy, and it is the reason a passage frontage takes us longer than the same job on the High Street.
When would you come?
Midweek wherever possible, so the frontage is right for the weekend. Saturday is the day that matters here, and working through your best trade to fix a window makes no sense for either of us.
It happened on a Friday. Can you get to it before Saturday?
We prioritise exactly that. A clouded shopfront through a busy Saturday costs an independent here a good deal more than the restoration does.
Our building is listed. Does that change the decision?
It argues for restoring. Consent can be required to alter a listed building and on village stock the protection frequently covers the shopfront, the joinery and the opening rather than just the elevation. Restoration alters none of it.
Our panes are small. Does that make the repair harder?
It makes it less forgiving. Any unevenness takes up a far greater share of a small pane than of a large window, which is why the work is carried out to the glazing bar rather than faded into the middle of the glass.
Our shopfront is painted timber.
That is a strong argument against replacing. New glass means lifting beads, cutting out putty and making good the paint, so you are engaging two trades and still looking at a mismatch until the elevation is redecorated.
Do we have to close or board up?
Neither. Nothing is taken out of the frame, so the frontage stays intact and you keep trading.
Will the repair be visible?
It should not be. We take the work either to the glazing bar or a long way beyond the damage and thin it out, so there is no edge anywhere. Where it goes wrong is somebody treating only the tag, leaving a shallow dish in the glass that bends everything seen through it.
There is scratching as well as etching.
Both together, in one attendance. Etching and scoring answer to the same progression of abrasives and the same final polish, with depth the only real limit.
We have gold leaf lettering on the glass.
Tell us before we attend so it is masked and protected. Where the damage runs into the lettering itself we will be straight with you about what can and cannot be saved.
What about the brass name plate and the railings?
Hit as often as the glass on a village frontage, and both recoverable. Metalwork and stone are dealt with in the same visit.
What does it cost?
Against a replacement, which on this kind of frontage means glass, joinery, decoration and the trade lost while boarded, restoration comes in up to 90 per cent below. What moves the figure is how much of the pane is damaged, how far the acid went, what the glass is, how we reach it, and whether film follows. You get it in writing first. No lazy contractors. No hidden fees.
Should we claim on insurance?
Compare our figure with the excess before notifying anyone. One small pane will very often fall beneath it, in which case a claim pays nothing and still shows at renewal.
How do we get it priced?
Send a photograph from outside and one from inside with the lights on, and tell us whether you are on the High Street or in one of the passages. The photographs price the glass, and the location tells us how long we will need and when we can realistically come.
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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