Double glazed window maintenance schedule, Cranbourne

The schedule

Print this, stick it inside the laundry cupboard, tick it off

Grouped by how often it needs doing, with the homeowner jobs and the glazier jobs kept apart so nobody ends up on a ladder with a scraper. Your ticks are saved on this device, so you can come back next season and see where you were. Use the print button for a clean page with the navigation stripped out.

After every storm or hot north wind (do it yourself)

Walk the outside and look at every pane for new cracks, chips or a nipped edge, especially on the west and north elevations.
Clear leaves, bark and gum nuts out of the sills and the bottom track before they turn to sludge.
Check the weep holes are flowing. Tip a cup of water into the sill and watch it come out the front.
After a strong southerly, hose the salt and dust film off the frames and glass with plain water.
Check that every sliding door and window still locks. Wind loading can move a door on its rollers.
Look for lifted or displaced glazing beads and rubbers after hail.
Photograph any new damage the same day, with the date on, in case it becomes an insurance claim.

Every season, roughly every 3 months (do it yourself)

Wash the frames with warm water and a mild detergent, then rinse. This is what most powder coat warranties actually require.
Vacuum the tracks, then wipe them out with a damp cloth. Sand in a track is what destroys rollers here.
Clear each weep hole with a plastic cable tie. Never poke a screwdriver or a wire into one.
Clean the glass with a squeegee and a drop of detergent. No scrapers, no abrasive pads, no ammonia heavy sprays.
Run every window and door through its full travel and lock it. Stiffness now is a $180 repair, seized later is a $450 one.
Dry lubricate rollers, stays and locks with a PTFE or dry film lube. Not silicone spray, not oil: both hold grit.
Run a finger around the internal gaskets, feeling for hardening, shrinkage at the corners or a rubber that has pulled out.
In winter, note which windows sweat and which do not. A single unit sweating among double glazed neighbours is a warning.
Check flyscreens are tight, and take them off to wash the frame behind them at least once a year.

Once a year (do it yourself, allow two hours)

Inspect every insulated unit in good light for mist, a tide mark or a rainbow film between the panes.
Press a blunt probe into the bottom corner of every timber sill. Soft timber means rot, and it never stops on its own.
Check the paint or oil on timber frames, especially west and south west facing openings that cop the weather.
Inspect the sealant bead where the frame meets the brickwork or cladding for splits and gaps.
Test every child restrictor and window lock, and replace anything that does not latch properly.
Clean the gutters and check the overflow path above your windows. Most window water damage starts at the gutter.
Cut back branches and shrubs so nothing rubs, drips sap or holds moisture against a frame.
Check hardware for white powdery corrosion, common on hardware exposed to the southerly.
Write the date on the schedule and keep the warranty documents with it.

Every 3 to 5 years (plan and budget for it)

Replace perished wedge gaskets and weather seals, at $180 to $400 per opening.
Replace sliding door rollers before they collapse, at $180 to $450 including realignment.
Renew the external perimeter sealant when it starts splitting, usually at 10 to 15 years.
Repaint or re-oil timber frames on a 5 to 8 year cycle, sooner on a west facing wall.
Replace tired friction stays and hinges at $120 to $280 per sash rather than waiting for a sash to drop.
Have a draught check done on the whole house. Sealing is $350 to $900 and it is the cheapest comfort money you will spend.

Leave these to a glazier, always

Anything above ground floor level or anything that needs a ladder. This is the whole reason we get called.
Removing or refitting a sealed unit. Doing it yourself normally voids the unit warranty on the spot.
Any attempt to defog, drill or drain a failed unit. The unit is remade, not repaired.
Glass in doors, side panels and low openings, which must be Grade A safety glass.
Rollers on a heavy stacker or bifold. The leaf weight is the reason these are a two person lift.
Structural sill and reveal repairs where the timber has gone soft under the glass.
Anything still under warranty. Call the installer first, because a DIY fix ends the cover.

Local conditions

What actually attacks windows in Cranbourne

Every region wears windows out differently, and a schedule copied from a Sydney harbour house or a Bendigo farmhouse gets the intervals wrong. Here is what is real for Cranbourne, Cranbourne East, Cranbourne North and the estates running down towards Clyde.

Diluted salt on the southerly. Western Port sits roughly 15km to the south east and the sea breeze carries a salt film inland. It is nothing like a beachfront exposure, but it shortens hardware life and is the reason a 3 month wash interval belongs here rather than a yearly one.
Sand and fine dust. This is sand belt country with a lot of new estate construction. Grit in a bottom track behaves like a file, and it is the number one killer of sliding door rollers in the area.
Eucalypt litter and sap. Gum leaves, bark and nuts block weep holes faster than anything else, and sap on glass turns hard and gets scraped off, which scratches the pane.
Reactive soil movement. Clay and clay-sand profiles across Casey shrink in a dry summer and swell after a wet winter. Houses move, and a door that scraped every February and was fine in July is telling you about the ground, not the door.
Winter fog, frost and condensation. The flat country around Cranbourne and Clyde holds cold air and sits at 4 to 7 degrees on winter mornings. Single glazing streams, and even good double glazing will sweat at the frame if the house has no ventilation.
Hot north wind days and UV. A 40 degree day with a hot wind on the west elevation puts real stress into glass, seals and sealant, and Australian UV finishes off any rubber that was already hard.
Hard water spotting. Bore water and tank water on a sprinkler that hits the windows leaves mineral deposits that etch the surface if they are left season after season.

The five minute Cranbourne test

Tip a cup of water into the bottom of each window frame. If it does not run out of the weep holes within a few seconds, that frame is holding water, and it has been doing it every time it rained. Two minutes with a cable tie now, or $600 to $2,000 of plaster and skirting repairs in a couple of years.

Service life

What each part should last, and what it costs when it does not

Component	Expected life here	What failure looks like	2026 replacement cost
Argon filled sealed unit	20 to 25 years, 10 year seal warranty	Mist, a tide mark or a rainbow film between the panes	$660 - $1,300 remade and fitted
Argon fill itself	Loses roughly 1 per cent a year in a sound unit	No visible sign. A slow drift in comfort, not a fault	Not replaceable on its own
Wedge gaskets and weather seals	8 to 12 years	Hard, shrunken at the corners, whistling, draughts	$180 - $400 per opening
External perimeter sealant	10 to 15 years	Splits, gaps at the brickwork, water tracking inside	$180 - $400 per opening
Sliding door rollers	7 to 12 years, less with grit in the track	Heavy to slide, grinding, the door drops and will not lock	$180 - $450 with realignment
Friction stays and hinges	10 to 15 years	Sash will not stay open, drops, or binds at one corner	$120 - $280 per sash
Locks and latches	10 to 15 years	Handle spins, key turns without engaging, seized barrel	$120 - $380 fitted
Powder coated aluminium frame	15 to 25 years of good finish with regular washing	Chalking, fading, white corrosion spots around fixings	Refinish rarely worth it, replace at $880 - $3,800
Timber frame, painted or oiled	30 to 50 years if recoated every 5 to 8 years	Soft bottom corners, flaking paint, glass moving in the rebate	$350 - $900 per sill repaired
Retrofit secondary glazing kit	Warranty 7 years, panels 10 to 15 years	Hazing, magnetic strip lifting, seal no longer sitting flat	$580 - $2,400 per opening

Ranges for the South East Melbourne climate in 2026. Coastal Western Port frontages and heavily shaded southern elevations sit at the shorter end.

Warranty

What quietly voids a manufacturer warranty

Nobody reads the warranty document until they need it, and by then the exclusions are the only part that matters. These are the ones that come up in real claims on double glazing in Victoria:

Tint or stick-on film on a sealed unit. Film changes how the glass absorbs heat and can drive thermal stress. Most glass warranties exclude a unit once film has been applied.
Pressure washing. A pressure washer drives water past the gaskets and can lift the perimeter sealant. Hose pressure only.
Sealing over the weep holes. People do this to stop draughts and it turns the frame into a bathtub. It is also an obvious cause when a claim gets inspected.
Abrasive cleaning. Scrapers, scouring pads and ammonia heavy sprays damage glass surfaces and powder coat, and the marks are permanent.
Silicone spray in the tracks. It grabs sand and turns the track into grinding paste. Dry PTFE lubricant only.
No cleaning at all. Powder coat warranties typically require washing at set intervals, commonly every 3 months in an area with salt or industrial exposure, and a claim can be refused where the frames have clearly never been washed.
Repairs by another trade. Someone else removing or refitting the unit, or a handyman resealing it with the wrong sealant, normally ends the cover.
Heavy blinds or furniture hard against the glass. A close fitting blind can trap heat against a tinted or laminated pane. Leave an air gap at the top and bottom.

What we would not spend your money on

We do not sell annual window servicing plans, because for a normal house the honest version of that service is a bucket, a vacuum and a cable tie. We would rather you do the seasonal list yourself and call us for the two or three jobs across a decade that genuinely need parts, a second person or a ladder. We also do not do window furnishings, tinting or film, and if someone offers you film on a double glazed unit as an energy upgrade, check your warranty before you agree to it.

If a unit has already fogged, no amount of maintenance brings it back, and the fix is on the fogged unit replacement page. For the broader picture on expected life, read how long double glazing lasts and the maintenance overview. If something has broken rather than worn out, the emergency triage table will tell you how urgent it is, and storm damage claims are covered on the storm damage claim page. Our coverage in your suburb is on the Cranbourne page, and rates are on the pricing page.

Questions we get about looking after glazing

How long should double glazed windows last in Cranbourne?

A well made argon filled unit should hold its seal for 20 to 25 years, and the sealed unit warranty is normally 10 years, with 10 years on the frame and 7 years on a retrofit kit. The parts that wear out sooner are the consumables: gaskets at 8 to 12 years, sliding door rollers at 7 to 12 years, and friction stays at 10 to 15 years. Fifteen minutes a season is what decides whether you get the top or the bottom of those ranges.

What is the single most expensive thing people neglect?

Blocked weep holes. The small slots in the bottom of an aluminium sill are how the frame drains, and once they silt up with sand, pollen and gum litter the water sits in the frame and finds the plaster. Clearing them takes a cable tie and 30 seconds per window. Not clearing them is $600 to $2,000 of plaster, skirting and paint repairs, plus a corroded sill.

Does salt air from Western Port really reach Cranbourne?

Yes, in a diluted form. On a strong southerly the air carries salt inland well past Cranbourne, and it settles as a film on frames and hardware along with the sand and dust this area is known for. It will not eat a frame the way a beachfront house sees, but it does shorten hardware life, and it is the reason a rinse and wash every 3 months matters here more than it does in the outer eastern suburbs.

What voids a double glazing warranty?

The common ones are applying tint or stick-on film to a sealed unit, pressure washing the frames and seals, sealing over the weep holes, using abrasive pads or ammonia heavy cleaners, using silicone sprays in the tracks, and letting another trade repair or refit the unit. Manufacturer powder coat warranties also require regular washing, usually every 3 months in an area like this, and they can be refused if the frames have never been cleaned.

What can I do myself and what needs a glazier?

Cleaning, clearing weep holes, dry lubricating tracks, checking seals and testing that everything opens and locks are all homeowner jobs and cost about $40 a year in materials. Replacing a sealed unit, resealing a frame, replacing rollers on a heavy stacker door, safety glass work and anything on a ladder or above the ground floor is a glazier job, at $95 to $140 an hour or a fixed price per opening.

Is a paid annual window servicing plan worth it?

For a normal house, no. Nearly everything on a yearly window service is a bucket of warm water, a vacuum, a cable tie and ten minutes. Pay for the jobs that need parts or a ladder: renewing perished gaskets at $180 to $400 an opening, new rollers at $180 to $450, and resealing the perimeter every 10 to 15 years. That is a few hundred dollars every few years, not an annual subscription.

Get a price

Book the jobs on the list that need a glazier

Send us what you found on the checklist and we come back with a fixed price per opening, usually within 1 business day.

How to make double glazed windows last twice as long in Cranbourne: the maintenance schedule