Perth's Coastal Curse: How Salt Spray is Silently Damaging Your Windows

If you live anywhere along Perth's beautiful coastline—from Cottesloe down to Rockingham and Mandurah—you know the trade-off. You get stunning sunsets and the refreshing sea breeze, but you also get its calling card: that persistent, hazy film of salt on your windows.

Many homeowners see this as a simple cleaning nuisance, but the truth is far more serious. That salt spray is a destructive force, and if left unchecked, it can cause permanent damage to your home. Here’s what you need to know.

What Exactly is That Hazy Film?

When the ocean wind sprays moisture onto your home, it's not just water. It’s a fine mist containing a cocktail of minerals, primarily sodium chloride (salt), magnesium, and calcium. As the water evaporates, these minerals crystallise and bond firmly to surfaces, especially glass.

Why Salt Spray is More Than Just an Ugly Nuisance

Beyond ruining your ocean view, this mineral buildup actively harms your property in several ways:

• Permanent Glass Etching: Salt is highly corrosive. Over time, these abrasive crystals can eat into the surface of your glass, causing irreversible cloudiness and hazing known as "etching." Once this happens, no amount of cleaning will restore the clarity; the glass itself is damaged.
• Damage to Frames and Seals: Salt doesn't stop at the glass. It causes pitting and corrosion on aluminium frames, dries out and cracks rubber window seals, and promotes rot in wooden sills. This can lead to costly repairs and compromised insulation.
• It Attracts More Dirt: The crystalline structure of salt residue is sticky, effectively acting like glue for dust, pollen, and other airborne pollutants. This is why coastal homes seem to get dirtier, faster.

Why DIY Methods Often Make It Worse

Tackling salt spray requires a specific approach. Common DIY methods can be ineffective or even harmful:

• Hosing It Down: This simply reactivates the salt, which recrystallizes as it dries, sometimes looking even worse.
• Aggressive Scrubbing: Using an abrasive scourer on salt crystals is like rubbing sandpaper on your windows. It's a guaranteed way to cause fine scratches across the entire pane of glass.

The Professional Solution for Coastal Homes

Effectively removing salt spray without causing damage requires a multi-step professional process:

1. Dissolving the Bond: We apply a specialised, pH-neutral solution designed to break down the mineral bonds of the salt crystals, safely lifting them from the glass.
2. Gentle Agitation: Using professional-grade, non-abrasive tools, we gently agitate the entire surface to ensure every bit of dissolved residue is loosened.
3. The Pure Water Rinse: We thoroughly rinse your windows with 100% purified, de-ionised water. This critical final step removes every trace of salt and solution, allowing the glass to dry perfectly clear and spot-free. This ultra-clean surface also stays cleaner for longer.