Hobart Window Glass Maintenance Schedule: Make It Last

Printable schedule

The Hobart glass maintenance checklist, by frequency

Grouped by how often it needs doing, with the jobs you can do yourself marked DIY and the jobs worth paying for marked PRO. Tick as you go, print it and stick it inside a cupboard door, or reset it next season. Your ticks are saved on this device only.

After every storm or big westerly

DIY Walk the outside of the house and check every pane for new chips, star marks or cracks, starting with the western and north-western walls that take the wind off kunanyi.
DIY Push gently on any suspect pane from outside. Glass that moves in the rebate has lost its putty or its bead.
DIY Clear leaves, gum litter and shed bark out of sills, sliding tracks and the drainage weep holes at the bottom of aluminium frames.
DIY Check that flyscreens and security grilles are still clipped in. A loose screen is what breaks the glass in the next front.
DIY Photograph any new damage the same day. If a claim follows, that date matters more than the photo does.
PRO Book a reglaze for any cracked pane rather than watching it. Cracks travel fast once the frosts start.
PRO Get any pane that is loose in its frame refixed before the next front arrives, at $220 to $480 per pane.

Every season, four times a year

DIY Wash the outside glass and the frames with warm water and a mild detergent, then rinse. On the eastern shore and around Kingston Beach this is what stops salt pitting the aluminium.
DIY Clear every weep hole in the bottom of every aluminium frame with a skewer. Blocked weep holes are the most common cause of water sitting in a track and rotting the sill underneath.
DIY Vacuum the sliding tracks and wipe them out. Grit chews the rollers, the sash drops, and a dropped sash puts pressure straight into the glass.
DIY Check the shower screen bottom seal and sweep for splits, curling or missing sections.
DIY Run a finger along the silicone at the screen and the splashback, looking for gaps, lifting edges or mould that will not clean off.
DIY On the first properly cold morning of the season, walk the house and note which windows are running with condensation. That list is your real moisture map.
DIY Dry the sills of those windows and check whether the paint has split or the timber has darkened. Darkened timber is the early stage of rot.

Once a year

DIY Inspect every timber sash for putty that has gone chalky, cracked or dropped out, and for paint that has split along the putty line.
DIY Check every wet area mirror for black spotting creeping in from the edges, which is the silvering lifting.
DIY Test every window: does it open, close, lock and stay where you put it. Write down the ones that do not.
DIY Look at every double glazed unit against the light for the first haze, a tide mark or dust between the panes.
DIY Look for a small etched stamp in the corner of every door pane and bathroom pane. No stamp usually means plain glass in a place that now needs Grade A safety glass.
PRO Reputty and repaint any sash where the putty has begun to fail, at $220 to $480 a pane. Left another two winters this becomes joinery work.
PRO Replace shower screen bottom seals and sweeps at $80 to $180, and re-silicone anywhere the bead has failed at $180 to $350.
PRO Have any unidentified pane in a door, beside a door, in a bathroom or near floor level checked for compliance.

Every few years, and at end of life

PRO Strip and renew the shower screen silicone every 5 to 8 years, at $180 to $350.
PRO Replace double glazed units as they fog, at $450 to $900 each, rather than waiting for the whole house to go at once.
PRO Replace shower door hinges, pivots or rollers the moment the door drops, at $150 to $350, long before the screen itself is finished.
PRO Replace perished glazing rubbers and wedges in aluminium frames at $60 to $150 per window.
PRO Replace bathroom mirrors once the silvering has gone at the edges, at $120 to $300 per m².
PRO Upgrade any remaining plain glass in a high risk location to Grade A safety glass whenever that pane is next disturbed, at $350 to $750.

Never do these, they cost you the warranty

Never take a blade scraper to coated, toughened or mirrored glass. It leaves permanent tracks in the coating.
Never use abrasive pads, scouring cream or steel wool on any glass surface.
Never use ammonia based or strongly acidic cleaners near a double glazed unit edge seal or a mirror edge.
Never pressure wash window seals, glazing beads or the edge of an insulated unit.
Never paint over the edge seal of a double glazed unit, and never block the frame drainage while painting.
Never apply solar control film to a double glazed unit without checking the manufacturer position first. It traps heat and can crack the pane.
Never hang a towel rail, a basket or your own weight off a frameless shower door.

What actually attacks glass in Hobart

Every region wears out glass differently. A Darwin glazier worries about cyclonic wind loading and a Perth glazier worries about limescale. Here the list is specific, and it is worth knowing which of these applies to your house before you spend money on the wrong one.

Condensation, and it is not close

Hobart has the longest heating season of any Australian capital. Warm moist indoor air hits a single pane at close to outdoor temperature and dumps its moisture onto the glass, which then runs down onto the sill. That water is what rots timber sashes, lifts paint, grows mould in the reveal and eventually softens the putty. It is not a glass fault, it is physics, and it is the single largest maintenance cost on older Hobart housing. Ventilation and extraction come first; double glazing comes second, and it works because it lifts the inside surface temperature of the glass above the dew point.

Salt air on the water

Bellerive, Howrah, Sandy Bay and Kingston Beach carry a genuine marine load. Salt sits on aluminium frames and hardware, holds moisture against the metal and pits the anodising or the powder coat. Four rinses a year with plain water and a mild detergent is all it takes, and skipping it is how a frame gets to the point where the window has to be replaced rather than reglazed.

Wind, tree litter and impact

Strong westerlies funnel through the Derwent valley and off the mountain. The damage is rarely the wind itself, it is what the wind carries: gum branches, loose screens, garden furniture and unsecured building material. Keeping gutters and sills clear of gum litter, and keeping trees pruned back off the western elevations, prevents most of it.

Frost, thermal stress and summer UV

Hobart mornings drop below zero regularly through winter, and then the sun hits one part of a pane while the rest stays in shade. That temperature difference across a single pane is what makes a clean crack appear with no impact at all, most often behind a heavy curtain, behind a heater, or where a sticker or foil has been stuck on the glass. In summer, Tasmania records high UV levels, which is what degrades silicone beads, window films and the flexible seals in a shower screen faster than people expect.

Soft water and soap scum

Hobart mains water is soft by Australian standards, which is genuinely good news: there is much less limescale here than in Adelaide or Perth. The problem on a Hobart shower screen is soap scum and body oils, which build a film that then holds moisture against the glass. Given five to ten unsqueegeed years, the glass surface itself begins to etch, and etching cannot be cleaned off at any price. Detail on that is in shower screen glass maintenance.

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

Component	Service life in Hobart	What shortens it	2026 replacement cost
Annealed float glass in a sound frame	Indefinite	Impact and thermal stress cracking	$180 to $450 per pane
Toughened safety glass	Indefinite	Chips on an exposed edge, which are where spontaneous failures start	$350 to $750 per pane
Double glazed unit edge seal	15 to 25 years	Water sitting in the rebate, blocked weep holes, applied film, solvent cleaners	$450 to $900 per unit
Linseed putty on a painted timber sash	15 to 30 years	Paint left to split, condensation running onto the putty line	$220 to $480 per pane
Glazing rubbers and wedges in aluminium frames	15 to 25 years	UV and salt, especially on the water	$60 to $150 per window
Shower screen silicone	5 to 8 years	Mould, harsh cleaners, a screen that never gets to dry out	$180 to $350
Shower door seals and sweeps	3 to 5 years	Normal use. These are consumables, not fittings	$80 to $180
Shower door hinges, pivots and rollers	8 to 15 years	Weight hung off the door, grit in the track	$150 to $350
Mirror silvering in a bathroom	8 to 15 years	Water sitting on the bottom edge, cleaner sprayed at the edges rather than the cloth	$120 to $300 per m²
Clear shower glass surface	5 to 10 years unsqueegeed, decades with	Soap scum left to sit, which etches the surface permanently	$180 to $350 to restore, $700 to $2,800 to replace

Indicative Hobart 2026 supplied-and-fitted prices. Full list in the pricing guide.

The cost of leaving it, in actual numbers

These are the four sequences we watch play out most often in Hobart houses. Every one of them starts with something that costs nothing or nearly nothing.

A squeegee against a shower screen. Thirty seconds after each shower keeps the glass clear indefinitely. Skip it and you get a professional restoration at $180 to $350 in year six, then a full replacement at $700 to $1,400 framed or $1,200 to $2,800 frameless once the surface has etched.
A split shower door seal. The seal is $80 to $180 fitted. Left alone, water runs behind the screen into the floor and the wall sheeting, and the resulting bathroom repair starts around $2,000 and can pass $8,000 once tiling and flooring are involved.
Chalky putty on a timber sash. Reglazing and reputtying is $220 to $480 a pane. Two more winters of water sitting in that rebate and you are splicing the sash at $600 to $1,400, or having a new one made to match at $1,500 to $3,500 on a heritage window. See heritage sash reglazing.
Blocked weep holes in an aluminium frame. Clearing them costs nothing and takes a skewer. Left blocked, water stands in the track, the frame corrodes from the inside out on a salt-affected site, and eventually the window is replaced at $700 to $1,600 rather than reglazed at $180 to $450.

The honest bit: maintenance not worth paying for

We sell glass and we still tell people this, because a customer who trusts the advice calls back for the job that is actually worth doing.

Do not buy an annual window service on a normal house. The yearly list above takes an hour with a torch and a screwdriver and finds everything a paid inspection would. Spend the money on the one thing you found instead. Where a paid check does earn its keep is a heritage home with fifteen or twenty timber sashes, a property you do not live in, or a shopfront where a failure is a trading day lost.

Do not buy anti-scum coatings expecting a permanent fix. A factory applied or professionally applied coating on shower glass genuinely helps and typically holds for a few years, but it is not a substitute for a squeegee and it will not restore glass that has already etched. If someone offers you a lifetime coating, ask what the warranty actually covers in writing.

Do not replace a whole double glazed window because one unit has fogged. In most frames the insulated unit can be replaced on its own at $450 to $900, keeping the frame, the hardware and the finish. Whole window replacement is a different price bracket. The symptoms are covered in signs of failed double glazing, and what a replacement unit involves is on our double glazing page.

Get a price

Get the PRO jobs on your checklist priced in one go

List what you ticked, send a photo of each one, and we come back with an itemised price for the lot plus an honest note on anything that can safely wait, usually within one business day.

Glass maintenance questions from Hobart homes

What is the single most useful thing I can do for glass in Hobart?

Deal with condensation. Wipe the inside of the glass on cold mornings, run the exhaust fans while you shower and cook, and open the house for ten minutes a day even in July. Water that sits on a sill soaks into the timber and rots the sash, and the reglaze that follows is $220 to $480 a pane against a wipe that costs nothing.

How long should a double glazed unit last in Hobart?

A well made insulated glass unit in a well drained frame should give 15 to 25 years before the edge seal fails and the unit fogs. It fails far earlier where water sits in the rebate because the weep holes are blocked, or where window film or a solvent based cleaner has attacked the seal. Replacement is $450 to $900 per unit.

Does Hobart water cause the white haze on shower glass?

Only partly. Hobart mains water is soft by Australian standards, so you see less limescale here than in Adelaide or Perth. The haze on most Hobart shower screens is soap scum and body oils first, and after several years of that sitting on the glass the surface starts to etch, which is permanent. A professional restoration at $180 to $350 only works before the etching sets in.

How often should shower screen silicone be redone?

Every 5 to 8 years, and sooner if it is lifting, splitting or growing mould that will not clean off. Stripping and re-siliconing a screen properly is $180 to $350. Skipping it lets water into the wall behind, and that repair starts around $2,000 and can pass $8,000 once the sheeting and the floor are involved.

What voids a glass or shower screen warranty?

The usual ones are abrasive pads and blade scrapers, ammonia based or strongly acidic cleaners, pressure washing the seals, applying window film to a double glazed unit, painting over the unit edge seal, blocking the frame drainage, and hanging weight off a frameless shower door. Any of those can also cost you the $450 to $900 the manufacturer would otherwise have covered.

Is a paid annual window and glass inspection worth it?

For most Hobart homes, no. The yearly list on this page takes about an hour with a torch and costs nothing, and it catches almost everything early. A paid check earns its keep on a heritage home with many timber sashes, on a property you do not live in, or on a commercial shopfront, where an hour of a glazier at $90 to $140 buys a written list of what is actually failing.

More reading: AS 1288 safety glass compliance · shower screens · mirrors · what to do when glass breaks · glass jobs before you sell · glass in a rental

Make your windows and glass last twice as long in Hobart