A clouded patch has appeared in the shopfront and nothing takes it off. It looks as though somebody frosted part of the pane deliberately. If a blade has been used on it since, there will be scoring sitting over the original mark.
This is acid etched graffiti. Somebody has spread a corrosive gel across the pane and let it eat down into the glass, leaving the surface pitted so finely that it throws light about instead of letting it through. Nothing remains on top to clean off. The glass itself is what has changed.
We take it back out where it stands, generally within the same day, with nothing boarded and nothing on order, at a small share of what a replacement costs.
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Etched Glass Turns Up In Dilapidations, And It Is Priced As Replacement
Upper Street and the runs off it see more units change hands than almost any comparable stretch in London. Restaurants open, restaurants close, frontages are refitted, leases are assigned and surrendered. That turnover creates a problem with etched glass that nobody warns tenants about until it costs them.
Damage you did not cause becomes your liability. A repairing covenant does not care who etched the window. If the pane was clear at the start of the term and clouded at the end, putting it right is yours to answer for. A photographic schedule of condition taken on the day you took the unit is the only thing that changes that, and glass is precisely the item people forget to photograph properly.
A surveyor will price it as a new pane. This is the expensive part. When a schedule of dilapidations is drawn up, a clouded shopfront is almost always costed as replacement glazing, because that is the obvious remedy and the surveyor has no reason to assume another one exists. On a large Upper Street frontage that single line item can be substantial.
A restoration quotation is a negotiating document. If the damage is restorable, and it usually is, a written figure for restoring the pane gives you something concrete to put against that line. It is the same outcome, clear glass, at a fraction of the sum. We are asked for exactly this often enough here that it is worth saying plainly: if you are facing a dilapidations claim that includes glazing, get it assessed before you accept the figure.
And the same works in reverse. If you are a landlord or an agent, a restoration figure recovers the frontage without the argument, the delay or the cost of a replacement that a departing tenant will contest.
If you are taking a unit on this street, photograph every pane on day one, dated, inside and out. It takes ten minutes and it is the cheapest insurance in the building.
Recent Acid Etched Graffiti Removal Projects
One Terrace, Twenty Different Glazing Specifications
The other consequence of that turnover is that the glass along a single Islington terrace is rarely consistent.
Units here get refitted every few years. A Georgian terrace on Upper Street may carry original single glazing in one shopfront, a 1980s replacement next door, a modern laminated unit two doors along and a sealed unit with a coating on the corner. They look broadly alike from the pavement and they behave entirely differently under abrasive.
That matters for two reasons. Identifying the pane is genuinely necessary here rather than a formality, because assuming the neighbour's answer applies to yours is how a coating gets polished through. And where a landlord holds several units in a terrace and all have been marked in one night, they are not one job repeated, they are several different jobs on one visit, priced accordingly.
Where We Get Called Out Around Islington
Upper Street. The long restaurant, bar and retail spine, and the bulk of our work here, with frontages close to a pavement that stays busy from lunch until late.
Camden Passage. The antiques and boutique run, with small units, older frontages and display glass holding stock that makes a clouded pane a commercial problem the same day.
Essex Road. A long mixed commercial route with independent retail, food and services, quieter at night than Upper Street and considerably less overlooked.
Chapel Market and the Angel end. Market trading in front of fixed premises, where access has to be planned around the stalls rather than through them.
Cross Street and Theberton Street. Smaller premises on side streets, restaurants and offices in converted terraces, where damage often sits unreported for days.
Liverpool Road. Professional premises and converted houses, with entrance glazing and fanlights rather than shopfronts.
Islington Green and the theatre streets. Frontages facing open ground and the venues around them, busy in bursts and empty between them.
Georgian Terraces And Painted Joinery
Almost all the commercial stock here is Georgian or Victorian terrace, built as housing and converted, and the fabric reflects that.
Shopfronts sit in painted timber with the glass bedded in putty and beads. Replacing a pane disturbs beads, putty and paintwork, so the true cost carries a decorator alongside a glazier and the elevation looks patched until it is redecorated. Islington also holds extensive conservation area coverage, and where a building is listed, altering it can require consent, with works carried out without that consent being an offence rather than a procedural matter. The protection frequently covers the shopfront and the opening as much as the elevation above.
Restoration disturbs none of that. Glass, rebate, putty, joinery and paintwork are all left exactly as they were, so nothing needs applying for. On a dilapidations schedule it is worth spelling that out, since replacing glazing in protected fabric brings a consent risk with it that restoring the pane simply does not.
Replacing Or Restoring
| Fitting a new pane | Restoring the existing pane | |
|---|---|---|
| On a dilapidations schedule | The default assumption, and the expensive one | A written alternative at a fraction of the figure |
| Protected and conservation stock | Consent may be required for the alteration | Nothing altered, no application arises |
| Painted timber shopfronts | Beads, putty and paintwork disturbed | Joinery and paint untouched |
| Trades required | Glazier and decorator | One technician |
| Mixed glazing across a terrace | Each unit surveyed and ordered separately | Each pane identified and treated on one visit |
| Timescale | Days to weeks once measured and ordered | Usually the same day |
| Cost | Glass, joinery, decoration and lost 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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Telling The Three Apart
Three sorts of damage look similar from the pavement and each takes a different route.
Paint or marker sits on top of the pane. Opaque colour, a hard edge, and a fingernail rides up where it begins. Solvent removes it and the glass beneath is unharmed.
Acid etching is inside the pane. Milky and pale but still see through, with a faint chalkiness lying level with the surface rather than standing on it. The edge trails away where the gel ran before anybody wiped at it. With the interior lit it reads far more strongly than from outside.
Scratching is physical. Bright narrow grooves left by a blade, a stone or a key, and a fingernail catches in them rather than passing over.
There are images to compare yours against at glass scratching vs acid etching, and the milky appearance is explained at white frosty window graffiti. The scale of the problem across the capital is covered in the rise of acid-etch vandalism in London.
The First Hour
Anything still wet on the glass is a chemical. Etching gel burns skin and eyes. Keep staff and customers off it, and if you share a building tell the other occupiers rather than assuming somebody has.
Keep scrapers and abrasive pads away. A blade leaves permanent scoring in a pane that would have recovered cleanly, and wiping wet gel carries the damage onto glass that was untouched.
Leave graffiti removers alone. They are formulated to dissolve a coating and there is no coating here, while on painted joinery they can do damage of their own.
Wet residue should be flooded off with cold water where it is safe to do so, using gloves and eye protection, and allowed to drain rather than worked into the surface with a cloth.
Photograph it straight away, dated, from outside and inside. If you hold a schedule of condition from the start of your lease, pull it out now and check what it shows for that pane, because that comparison is what protects you later.
Report it as criminal damage. The reference will be wanted before an insurer engages. We have set out what to do and when at what to do when your shop window is vandalised.
How The Restoration Is Done
Identifying the pane. Age first, then whether it is plain float, toughened, laminated, coated, mirrored or a sealed unit, and how far the acid has reached. On an Islington terrace that answer genuinely changes from unit to unit, so it is established rather than assumed.
Depth reading, then a trial patch. Before committing to the pane we test the approach on a small area that nobody sees.
Masking and containment. Beads, putty lines, paintwork, frames, vinyl lettering, signwriting and shutter guides are protected. Slurry stays inside the working area and off the step and the pavement.
Down through the abrasive grades. We step through progressively finer abrasives, lifting an amount of glass far too small to see, and run the worked area a long way out from the mark so it disappears rather than stopping abruptly. Confine it to the tag and a shallow lens is left sunk into the pane, bending everything behind it. Behind a lit restaurant window that is visible from the opposite pavement.
Cerium oxide to finish. Whatever cloudiness is left is polished out wet with cerium oxide, checked with the light coming through the pane rather than off it.
Checked from both sides. From the pavement, from inside against the interior lighting, and at a low angle, because people walking a long terrace see your glass obliquely well before they see it square on.
Allow three hours for one pane. For anyone who wants the technical detail, we have covered the abrasive stage in acid etched graffiti techniques and removal methods, the finishing in how to polish shopfront glass to optical clarity, and the polish itself in how to use cerium oxide glass polish.
Where restoration will not work we say so at the assessment, and on a dilapidations job that written opinion matters as much as the price. A burn that has gone unusually far down, a unit whose seal had already failed, or a coating sitting where the abrasive must run each mean the pane genuinely needs replacing.
Work Completed In North London
- Emergency acid etched graffiti removal in Dalston
- Acid etched graffiti removal in Hackney
- Acid etched graffiti removal in Farringdon
- Acid etched graffiti removal from glass in Shoreditch
What We Restore Around Islington
- Float and older window glass in Georgian and Victorian terrace shopfronts.
- Laminated shopfront glazing on refitted restaurant and retail units.
- Toughened glass used in entrance doors, screens, stair guarding and shelters.
- Small unit display glazing in Camden Passage and the boutique runs.
- Sealed units in later frontages, restored from the outward face alone.
- Mirrors and mirrored panels in bars, restaurants and salon interiors.
- Obscured and patterned glass, where an original finish has to be recreated rather than removed.
- Glass block used in cellar heads, pavement lights and back elevations.
- Stall risers, thresholds and steps in polished granite or polished marble.
- Polished and brushed metal on door furniture, handrails, frames and shutter casings.
Nothing with a finished surface is safe from the same gel, and on a terrace the damage usually runs along rather than stopping at one unit. Where glass, stone and metal are all involved the whole frontage is cleared in one attendance.
Who We Work For In Islington
Restaurants, bars and cafes. The largest part of our work here, scheduled between service periods rather than before opening.
Tenants facing dilapidations. A written restoration figure to set against a replacement line in a schedule, with a clear statement of what is and is not recoverable.
Landlords, agents and building surveyors. Frontages recovered without the delay or the argument a replacement generates at lease end.
Camden Passage and boutique traders. Small display frontages where the window is effectively the shop.
Managing agents of converted terraces. Communal entrances, fanlights and stair glazing outside any occupier's demise.
Who Carries The Cost
The repairing covenant decides it, and on this stock it is worth reading rather than assuming. Your own shopfront normally falls inside the demise. The communal entrance, the fanlight above it and the stair window serving anything above generally do not, and those sit with the landlord and are recovered through the service charge.
At lease end the same covenant is what puts glazing on a dilapidations schedule, which is why the schedule of condition taken at the start matters so much. If you have one, check it. If you are taking a unit, make one.
Run the insurance arithmetic before a broker hears anything. Restoring a single pane usually costs less than the excess itself, so notifying gains you nothing and still marks the policy at renewal. Once several panes along a terrace are involved that reverses. The dated images from both sides and the written account of works are supplied whatever you decide, and on a dilapidations matter that paperwork is the part that earns its keep.
Reducing The Chance Of A Repeat
Restoring the pane deals with what has already happened. It discourages nobody, and a frontage on a strip that trades this late will be found again.
Anti-graffiti film is a layer fitted over the outer face so that it, rather than the glass, is destroyed next time. It comes off and is renewed quickly for a small part of a second restoration, and the window looks no different for having it. On a leased unit there is an additional point worth raising with your landlord or agent before fitting, which is whether applied film sits comfortably with your alterations covenant, and on listed stock whether it needs confirming with the local authority. Both are short conversations and both are better had first.
It is all documented at anti-acid etched graffiti protection, which takes in the way the film operates, the years you can expect from one, fitting costs and whether the pane looks altered afterwards. Shop and restaurant frontages are dealt with in protecting retail displays from glass vandalism.
Areas We Cover Next To Islington
The whole service, with our process video and the full question set, is on the main acid etched graffiti removal page.
Islington Acid Etched Graffiti Removal: Frequently Asked Questions
Can it be taken out or do we need a new pane?
Taken out, in all but a few cases. What has been attacked is a skin of the surface far thinner than anything visible, and the job removes that skin uniformly and restores the optical clarity. Only three situations force a new pane: an etch of exceptional depth, a unit already carrying a failed seal, or a coating occupying the surface the abrasive has to cross.
Our dilapidations schedule prices the shopfront as a replacement. Is that right?
It is the default assumption rather than the only remedy. If the pane is restorable, and it usually is, a written restoration figure gives you something concrete to put against that line. Get it assessed before accepting the number.
We inherited the damage from the previous tenant.
Unless your schedule of condition records it, the repairing covenant will generally still make it yours to answer for at lease end. Check what you have, and if you are taking a unit now, photograph every pane on day one, dated, inside and out.
We are the landlord. Why would we prefer restoration?
Because it recovers the frontage without the delay or the argument. A replacement figure on a schedule is the line most likely to be contested, and on protected stock it carries a consent risk that restoration does not.
Several units in our terrace were done in one night. Is that one job?
One visit, but not one job repeated. The glazing along an Islington terrace is rarely consistent, so each pane is identified and treated on its own terms. We price them individually and charge the attendance once.
How do we know what our glass actually is?
We establish it before quoting. Assuming your neighbour's answer applies to your unit is how a coating gets polished through, and on a street refitted this often that assumption is frequently wrong.
Do we have to close or board up?
Neither. Nothing is taken out of the frame, so the frontage stays whole and you keep trading.
Our shopfront is painted timber.
Then replacing a pane means lifting beads, cutting out putty and making good the paint, which brings in a decorator alongside a glazier and leaves the elevation patched until it is redone. We mask the joinery and work on the glass alone.
Our building is in a conservation area.
That weighs towards restoring. Consent can be needed to alter a listed building, and the protection often covers the shopfront and the opening as well as the elevation above. Restoration alters none of it.
Will the repair be visible?
It should not be. We work a long way outside the damaged area and taper the finish, leaving no detectable boundary. The failure case is a contractor who abrades only the tag, hollowing a shallow dish into the glass that distorts the view through it.
There is paint and scratching as well as etching.
Everything on one attendance. The paint comes away with solvent, and the etched and scored areas are both taken back by the graded abrasion and polish. Only the depth of the worst damage constrains the result.
What about the stall riser and the door furniture?
Marked as often as the display glass, and both recoverable. Stone and metalwork are handled alongside the window.
Can we fit protective film on a leased unit?
Usually, but raise it with your landlord or agent first. Applied film may engage your alterations covenant, and on listed stock it is worth confirming with the local authority before it goes on rather than after.
What does it cost?
Against a replacement, counting the glass, the joinery, the decoration and the trade lost while boarded, restoration comes in up to 90 per cent below. The figure depends on how much of the pane is damaged, how deep it goes, what the glass is, the access and whether film follows. It is confirmed in writing beforehand. No lazy contractors. No hidden fees.
Should we claim on insurance?
Compare our figure with the excess first. One pane usually falls beneath it. Several panes across a terrace usually do not.
How do we get it priced?
Two photographs will do, one taken from the street and one from within with the lights burning. Mention it if this relates to a lease ending or a dilapidations schedule, since in that case the written verdict on what can and cannot be restored is what you are really after.
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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