Central Texas glass runs on a calendar no other market shares. The dirtiest season is winter, when cedar pollen off the Edwards Plateau films every pane. Live oaks drop their leaves in spring and glue the debris down with honeydew. Summer bakes sprinkler minerals onto hot glass for months with no rain to rinse it. And east of I-35, every storm throws blackland clay at the bottom of your windows. None of that is what standard window-cleaning advice is written for.
This is our Central Texas knowledge base: what actually dirties and damages windows here, how to identify which mechanism you are looking at, and what actually fixes it. Sonlight opened its Austin operation in 2026 after nearly five decades in Colorado.
Nearly every window complaint we get in the Austin metro traces to one of five mechanisms. Each has a distinct visual signature, and each needs a different fix. Find yours below — you can diagnose most of these from your own driveway.
How to recognize it
An amber-green film on glass and screens that appears in the middle of winter, heaviest on south- and west-facing elevations after dry, windy cold fronts.
Why it happens
From December through February the Ashe junipers of the Edwards Plateau release pollen in visible bursts — the infamous cedar fever — with counts among the highest recorded for any plant in North America. It embeds in screen mesh, packs into tracks, and films every pane downwind.
What actually fixes it
Screens come off the frame and get hand-washed; hosing a loaded screen in place drives pollen into the track. Tracks are detailed dry before any water. Mid-winter is the highest-value cleaning window of the Central Texas year, not the off-season.
How to recognize it
Sticky film on glass under tree canopy, catkin strings on sills, and gutters full of leaves in March — months before any northern checklist says to look.
Why it happens
Live oaks shed a year of leaves in about three weeks each late winter, follow with catkin pollen, and host aphids whose honeydew — sugar, not sap — mists down and glues everything to whatever sits below. It feeds sooty mold if it sits through a humid spell.
What actually fixes it
A genuine wet-mop-and-squeegee pass; dry wiping smears it. Gutters get cleared on the spring schedule the trees actually keep. Under-canopy homes need this service more often than the metro average, and we say so up front.
How to recognize it
Round or teardrop spots in a spray pattern at sprinkler height, worst on unshaded west-facing glass, turning chalky-white as they layer.
Why it happens
Much of the metro drinks limestone water — Edwards and Trinity aquifer groundwater in the suburbs runs two to three times harder than Austin's lake supply — and summer irrigation mists it onto 100-degree glass daily, where it bakes to mineral in minutes with no rain for months to rinse it.
What actually fixes it
Restoration once it has layered into scale — washing will not touch it — then adjust or flag the sprinkler head so it stops rebuilding. Paying for restoration annually while the head still hits the window is money spent on the wrong problem.
How to recognize it
A dark freckled band across the bottom 12-24 inches of ground-floor windows east of I-35, appearing after each spring storm and baked on by the same evening.
Why it happens
East of the Balcones fault the metro sits on Blackland Prairie — deep expansive clay. May storms hit bare or landscaped clay and throw it onto brick skirts and lower panes, and the afternoon sun cures it in place. West of the fault the same mechanism throws pale caliche instead.
What actually fixes it
Bottom-of-pane detail as a standard part of every storm-season clean, plus downspout checks — a short downspout dumping at the slab feeds the splash zone and, on this clay, moves the soil your foundation sits on.
How to recognize it
A haze on new-build glass that ordinary washing will not lift, or a recurring grit film on homes beside active lots — in one of the fastest-building metros in America.
Why it happens
Stucco, mortar, and gypsum fines drift onto glass during construction and cure there. On finished homes near active sections, every dry windy day re-delivers the neighbor lot's dust.
What actually fixes it
A dedicated post-construction clean — cured fines lifted with proper technique, never dry-wiped, which grinds them across the surface, and never attacked with a razor by guesswork, which scratches tempered glass permanently.
Our service area runs from Georgetown south to Kyle and from the Lake Travis corridor east to Manor. Each part of the metro has its own water, its own soil, and its own failure mode.
The city itself, split by geology: limestone hills and canopy neighborhoods west of MoPac, the fast-building Blackland corridor east of I-35, and the oldest glass in the metro between them — 1930s sash in Tarrytown and Hyde Park that gets hand work.
Round Rock, Pflugerville, Hutto, and Georgetown along the I-35 and 130 spines. The metro's hardest municipal water lives here — Edwards Aquifer blends that spot glass on a fast clock — alongside Georgetown's historic square and Sun City's tens of thousands of single-story homes.
Cedar Park and Leander at the edge of the juniper breaks — cedar season starts here — with Lake Travis surface water that runs kinder than the corridor's wells, and some of the fastest-built new sections in Texas.
Lakeway and Bee Cave: view-glass country. Two-story window walls aimed at the lake and the sunset, cedar at point-blank range, and access work most companies decline.
Dripping Springs and the ranch-road corridors, where the water question decides everything: Trinity wells that can etch scale in a season, beside rainwater-harvest homes whose supply is nearly mineral-free.
Buda, Kyle, and the Hays County growth spine — both Central Texas soils, Edwards-hard water, historic main streets, and master-plans still building eastward.
Manor and far east Austin on the open Blackland Prairie: prairie storms with a runway, working field dust, and the youngest housing stock in the metro.
Travis County · 489 ft
Moderately hard, roughly 5-7 grains per gallon citywide — kinder to glass than the well-fe…
Williamson County · 709 ft
Hard — the aquifer component is limestone groundwater, and glass-side spotting here outpac…
Williamson County · 951 ft
Moderately hard, in the same band as Austin proper — kinder than the aquifer-fed suburbs e…
Williamson County · 997 ft
Moderately hard, on par with Cedar Park and Austin — summer sprinkler overspray still spot…
Williamson County · 754 ft
Hard on the aquifer-blend zones and moderately hard on the lake supply — glass-side spotti…
Travis County · 715 ft
Moderately hard to hard depending on supplier — city river water is kinder, Manville's gro…
Williamson County · 653 ft
Hard — the groundwater component carries the limestone signature, and summer sprinkler ove…
Travis County · 909 ft
Moderately hard on the lake supply; well-served properties run harder and spot faster — th…
Hays County · 1,234 ft
Very hard on Trinity wells (varies well to well), near-zero on rainwater systems, moderate…
Hays County · 646 ft
Hard — the aquifer component carries real limestone mineral, and summer sprinkler overspra…
Hays County · 673 ft
Hard-leaning — the aquifer component carries limestone mineral, and summer sprinkler overs…
Travis County · 551 ft
Hard — Manville's groundwater carries real mineral, and unshaded new-subdivision glass sho…
Both, and we are specific about the difference. Sonlight has been family-owned in Colorado since 1978 with more than 41,000 jobs completed there. We opened our Austin operation in 2026 and run routes across the metro from Georgetown to Kyle and Lakeway to Manor. The 512 number on this page is a real Austin line answered by the same dispatch team as Colorado. We would rather say that plainly than imply a Texas history we have not earned yet.
Cedar. From December through February, Ashe juniper pollen off the Edwards Plateau films glass and loads screens with counts among the highest recorded for any plant in North America. Central Texas runs opposite to the national cleaning calendar: mid-winter is the season the glass actually needs the work.
Late March or April — after the live oaks finish shedding. Live oaks drop their leaves in spring, not fall, so gutters here load in March and then get tested by the May storms. A fall check still helps under mixed canopy, but the spring clean is the one this metro cannot skip.
Sprinkler overspray baked on by the summer sun, almost always. On the metro's limestone water — especially the aquifer-fed suburbs — irrigation mist dries onto hot glass in minutes and layers daily. Once chalky, it is scale: mineral restoration removes it, and adjusting the sprinkler head keeps it gone. We do both.
It depends on your address more than most metros. Austin proper runs moderately hard Highland Lakes water. Round Rock, Georgetown, Hutto, Buda, and Kyle carry Edwards Aquifer limestone blends that run genuinely hard. Dripping Springs' Trinity wells can be the hardest water in the region — while its rainwater-harvest homes are the softest. Two customers eleven miles apart genuinely need different treatment, and we read which one you are before choosing an approach.
Twice a year is the floor: late winter after cedar season, and fall after the summer bake. Add a visit if you live under mature oak canopy, beside active construction, or behind a well-fed irrigation system — the three local accelerators.
Yes. A Central Texas summer can run months without rain while dust accumulates continuously, and a dirty array measurably underproduces exactly when the grid pays most for output. We clean panels with purified water and no abrasives, usually paired with the fall window service.
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