You have opened up and there is a cloudy white shape sitting in the window. It looks like somebody frosted one patch of the glass and left the rest alone. Nothing shifts it, and whoever tried a blade on it has now left scratches across the top.
What you have is acid etched graffiti. A corrosive gel was smeared on the pane and left to work its way in, and it has eaten the surface of the glass. There is no layer sitting on top waiting to be wiped off, which is exactly why nothing has worked.
We take it out of the glass where it stands. Usually the same day, with no boarding, nothing on order, and at a fraction of what new glass costs.
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
You Already Believe In Sacrificial Protection
Here is something true of Notting Hill and almost nowhere else in London. The businesses here have an established, annual, well rehearsed habit of covering their glass.
Every August, in the run up to Carnival, frontages along Portobello Road, Ladbroke Grove, Westbourne Park Road and the surrounding streets get boarded. Ply goes up, screws go in, and for a couple of days nobody's window is exposed. Afterwards the boards come off, the screw holes get filled, and everyone gets on with the year.
Nobody in this area needs persuading that protecting glass is sensible. You already do it. The only argument worth making is that the two days you protect are not the days you are most likely to be etched.
Acid etching is quiet, quick and unremarkable to watch. It does not need a crowd, it needs a moment. The frontages we are called to here have generally been marked on an ordinary Tuesday night in February, not during the one weekend everything was covered in plywood.
Which leads somewhere useful. Sacrificial anti-graffiti film is the same idea as your Carnival boards, running all year, optically clear, and invisible to your customers. The next attack ruins the film rather than the pane, and swapping the film takes minutes at a small share of restoring the glass again. For a business that already accepts the principle of a sacrificial layer, it is a short step rather than a new idea.
Recent Acid Etched Graffiti Removal Projects
When The Boards Come Off
The other Carnival related point is timing, and it is worth planning for rather than discovering.
Damage that happened before the boards went up gets found when they come down, by which time it has had a fortnight or more to weather. Damage that happened while the boards were on is usually to the glass the boards never reached, the fanlight, the transom above the shutter line, the stair window, the panel beside the door.
So the days after Carnival are worth treating as an inspection, not just a reinstatement. Look at the glass the ply did not cover, look from inside with the lights on, and photograph anything you find before the memory of when it appeared fades. We take a run of calls across this area every year in that week, and the jobs that go smoothly are the ones where somebody wrote down what they saw.
Where We Get Called Out Around Notting Hill
Portobello Road. The antiques and market run, with display windows holding genuinely valuable stock and shopfronts that sit tight to a pavement crowded for most of the week.
Golborne Road. Independent shops, cafes and the market end, quieter and considerably less overlooked once the traders have gone.
Westbourne Grove and Ledbury Road. Higher value independent retail and galleries, where presentation standards leave no tolerance for a hazy window.
Notting Hill Gate. The busier retail and office frontages at the southern end, with larger modern panes and a constant flow past them.
Kensington Park Road and Elgin Crescent. Restaurants, bars and shops in stucco fronted terraces, with glazing set into painted timber joinery rather than a modern shopfront.
All Saints Road and Talbot Road. Smaller premises on residential streets, where damage often goes unreported for days because nobody customer facing is watching the front.
Ladbroke Grove and the Westway side. Mixed commercial frontage on a busy through route, more exposed after dark than the garden square streets.
Painted Timber, Not Aluminium
A practical difference between here and most commercial districts. The shopfronts on the stucco terraces are largely timber, painted, and often original or built to match. The glass sits in putty and beads rather than in a modern gasketed frame.
That matters for two reasons. Replacing a pane means disturbing the beads, the putty and the paintwork, so the true cost includes a decorator as well as a glazier, and the finish afterwards rarely matches the rest of the frontage until the whole of it is redecorated. And a good deal of this stock sits in conservation areas where the shopfront, its joinery and the opening may all be protected. Altering a listed building can require consent, and doing the work without it is an offence rather than a technicality.
Restoration leaves every bit of that alone. Putty undisturbed, beads untouched, paint unmarked, nothing removed from the opening and nothing to apply for.
New Glass Against Restored Glass
| Replacing the pane | Restoring the pane | |
|---|---|---|
| Painted timber shopfronts | Beads, putty and paintwork all disturbed | Joinery and paint untouched |
| Trades needed | Glazier and decorator | One technician |
| Conservation area stock | Consent may be required | Nothing altered, nothing to apply for |
| How soon | Days to weeks once measured and ordered | Usually the same day |
| Meanwhile | Boarded, on a street people come to photograph | Nothing covered at any point |
| Display stock behind the glass | Window emptied for the fitting | Display stays where it is |
| Cost | Glass, joinery, decoration and lost trade | Up to 90 per cent less |
The full cost picture is at glass replacement vs protection: the true cost, and the choice between the two at should I replace or restore etched graffiti glass.
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
Which One Have You Got
Three things look alike from the pavement and each needs something different.
Paint or marker. Sits on top, solid colour, hard edge, and your fingernail climbs onto it. The right solvent lifts it off and the glass underneath is fine.
Acid etching. In the glass. Pale and milky but you can still see through it, and your fingernail finds a faint chalkiness level with the surface rather than standing above it. The edge trails away where the gel ran. Put the lights on inside and it becomes far more obvious than from the street.
Scratching. Cut in. Thin, bright, straight lines from a blade or a key, and your fingernail drops into them.
There are photographs to compare yours against at glass scratching vs acid etching, and the milky look is explained at white frosty window graffiti. On why it keeps happening, see why acid etching graffiti happens.
What To Do Before You Touch It
Anything wet on the glass is a chemical. The gel burns skin and eyes. Keep staff and customers off it, and if you share a frontage or a doorway, tell whoever else uses it.
No blades, no scouring pads. A scraper leaves permanent lines in glass that would have come back perfectly, and wiping at wet gel carries it onto panes that were untouched.
No graffiti remover. There is nothing for it to dissolve, and on painted timber you risk damaging the frame as well.
Cold water, and plenty of it, if residue is visible and it is safe to do so, gloved and with eye protection, running it off rather than rubbing it in.
Photograph it straight away, dated, inside and out. Note when you last know the glass was clean, because that window of time is the first thing your insurer and the police will ask about.
Report it as criminal damage. The reference number is normally needed before an insurer will take it further. What to do and in what order is covered at what to do when your shop window is vandalised.
How The Restoration Works
Working out what the glass is. Old or modern, float, toughened, laminated, coated, mirrored or a sealed unit, and how deep the acid has gone. On the stucco terrace shopfronts the glass is often older than people assume.
A trial patch somewhere nobody looks. We prove the method on a small area first, then commit to the pane.
Masking the joinery. Beads, putty lines, paintwork, signage and any gold leaf or hand lettering get protected before a tool touches the glass. On a painted timber frontage the joinery is the part that cannot easily be put back, so it is treated accordingly. Slurry stays contained and off the cill and the stonework.
Down through the abrasive grades. Each stage finer than the last, taking off a depth of glass you could not measure, and the treated area carried well out past the mark so it fades instead of stopping at a line. Polish only the tag and you leave a dished patch, a shallow lens in the pane, bending everything behind it. In a shop window full of stock that distortion is the first thing anyone notices.
Cerium oxide at the end. The last of the haze comes out under wet cerium oxide, judged by looking through the glass towards the light rather than at the reflection.
Checked from inside the shop. A display window is looked through as much as it is looked at, so the finish is assessed from behind the stock, against the light, before we call it done.
One pane is usually finished inside three hours. There is a full account of the removal at acid etched graffiti techniques and removal methods, and of the finishing stage at how to polish shopfront glass to optical clarity. If you are thinking of attempting it, read DIY vs professional acid etched graffiti removal first.
We will also tell you when restoration will not work. Acid that has gone unusually deep, a sealed unit whose seal had already failed, or a coating sitting in the path of the work each mean the pane genuinely needs replacing, and you get that in writing at assessment rather than partway through.
Work We Have Done In West London
- Acid etched graffiti removal in Richmond
- Acid etched graffiti removal in Mortlake
- Acid etched graffiti removal on Bond Street
- Acid etched glass graffiti removal in Victoria
What We Restore Around Notting Hill
- Float and older window glass in painted timber shopfronts and terrace frontages.
- Laminated shopfront glazing on the Notting Hill Gate and Westbourne Grove frontages.
- Toughened glass in entrance doors, porches, screens and shelters.
- Fanlights, transoms and over door glazing that boarding never covers.
- Sealed units in later windows, worked from the outer face with the cavity left closed.
- Mirrors and mirrored panels in restaurants, bars and shop interiors.
- Frosted, etched and decorative glass, where an existing pattern has to be put back rather than taken off.
- Glass block in basement lightwells and rear elevations.
- Steps, cills and stall risers in polished granite or polished marble.
- Polished metal on door furniture, letter plates, railings and shutter housings.
The gel goes after anything with a worked surface, and on a terrace frontage the railings and the letter plate get marked as often as the window. It all gets dealt with on one visit.
Who We Work For Around Here
Antiques dealers and Portobello traders. Display windows with valuable stock behind them, restored without emptying the window or covering the frontage.
Independent retail and galleries. Westbourne Grove and Ledbury Road standards, where a hazy pane is a commercial problem the same week it appears.
Restaurants, cafes and bars. Worked around service rather than around us.
Managing agents and landlords. Terrace frontages with flats above, where the communal door, the fanlight and the stair window belong to the landlord and go through the service charge.
Multi site operators across west London. One contact, consistent reporting, one invoice.
Who Pays For It
Start with the lease, because that is where the answer lives. The repairing covenant tells you whether the shopfront sits inside your demise, which on the Portobello Road and Golborne Road frontages it usually does. The communal door, the fanlight above it and the stair window serving the flats normally do not, and those fall to the landlord and are recovered through the service charge. On a converted terrace the boundary is often not where people assume, so read the demise plan alongside the wording.
On insurance, set our figure beside your excess before you notify anybody. One pane restored will often come in under it, and a claim that pays nothing still shows up at renewal. Once the fanlight and the communal glazing are counted as well the total usually justifies claiming. Whichever route you take, the dated photographs from both faces and the written description of works come with the job.
Protecting It Properly
Clearing the glass deals with what has happened. It does nothing about the next time, and on these streets there usually is a next time.
Anti-graffiti film is the year round version of what you already do every August. It bonds to the outer face, takes the damage in place of the pane, and peels off and gets replaced in minutes at a small share of another restoration. It is optically clear, so your display looks exactly as it does now and nobody will know it is there. On a painted timber frontage it is cut to each pane rather than applied as a sheet, and on a listed or conservation area shopfront the specification is worth agreeing with whoever oversees the building before it goes on.
Worth fitting to the fanlight and the transom glazing as well as the display, because that is the glass your Carnival boards never cover and the glass nobody checks.
The detail is on our anti-acid etched graffiti protection page, covering how the film works, how long it lasts, what it costs and whether it changes how a window looks. Shop displays specifically are covered at protecting retail displays from glass vandalism.
Areas We Cover Next To Notting Hill
- North Kensington
- Holland Park
- Kensington
- Bayswater
- Paddington
- Maida Vale
- Queens Park
- Kensal Green
- Shepherds Bush
- White City
The whole service, with our process video and the full question set, is on the main acid etched graffiti removal page.
Notting Hill Acid Etched Graffiti Removal: Frequently Asked Questions
Can it be taken out or do I need a new pane?
Taken out, nearly every time. Only a very thin skin of the glass has been attacked, and the work removes that skin evenly and polishes the clarity back. New glass is needed only where the acid has gone unusually deep, the unit had already failed, or a coating sits directly in the way.
Our shopfront is painted timber. Does that make it harder?
Not for restoration, and it is a strong argument against replacement. A new pane means disturbing the beads, the putty and the paint, which brings in a decorator as well as a glazier and rarely matches until the whole frontage is redecorated. We mask the joinery and work on the glass alone.
We board up for Carnival anyway. Is film not the same thing?
It is the same idea running all year. Your boards protect you for two days. Most of the damage we are called to here happened on an ordinary night months away from August, when nothing was covering the glass. Film takes the attack in place of the pane and is swapped out in minutes.
When do people usually find this damage?
Often in the week the boards come down, by which time it has weathered for a fortnight. It is worth treating that week as an inspection, and worth looking specifically at the fanlight and the transom glazing, which the boards never reach.
Do we have to close or empty the window?
Neither. The pane stays in the frame throughout and the display stays where it is. A glazier fitting a new pane would need the window cleared.
Our building is in a conservation area. Does that change anything?
It argues for restoring rather than replacing. Consent can be needed to alter a listed building, and the shopfront, its joinery and the opening are often protected as much as the elevation. Restoration changes none of it.
Will the repair be visible?
It should not be. The work is carried well past the mark and faded out, so there is no edge to catch the eye. What goes wrong is polishing the tag alone, which leaves a shallow lens in the pane that distorts everything behind it.
There is scratching as well as etching.
Same visit, same sequence. Both respond to graded abrasion and polishing. Depth is the limit, and a very deep cut occasionally cannot be recovered.
What about the railings and the letter plate?
Marked as often as the glass on a terrace frontage, and all recoverable. Polished metal, stone steps and cills are dealt with alongside the window.
Can you treat toughened, laminated and sealed units?
All three. Because the gel lands on the outer face, a sealed unit is never opened. The method changes with the glass type, which is why we identify the pane first.
We have hand painted or gold leaf lettering on the glass.
Tell us before we attend. Signwriting of that kind is protected and worked around, and where damage runs into the lettering itself we will be straight with you about what can and cannot be saved.
How much does it cost?
Price a replacement properly, the glass, the joinery, the decoration and the trade lost while boarded, and restoration comes in up to 90 per cent under. Our figure moves with the area affected, how deep it goes, what the pane is, the access, and whether film follows. Confirmed in writing before we start. No lazy contractors. No hidden fees.
Should I claim on insurance?
Compare our figure with your excess first. One pane usually falls below it. Add the fanlight and the communal glazing and it usually does not.
It has been there since the summer. Too late?
Almost never. Old damage takes longer on the day because weathering settles into the etched surface, but the glass still comes back.
Can you look after several shops for us?
Yes. One contact across the sites, the same reporting format for each, and a single invoice.
How do I get a price?
Send a photograph of the window from outside and one from inside with the lights on. The inside shot usually shows the full extent, because etching is far more visible looking out than looking in.
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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