Maintaining & cleaning your glass pool fence

Many of our pool fencing customers consider the additional cleaning required for glass pool fencing when it comes time to decide between aluminium and glass fencing.

Frameless and semi-frameless glass fencing looks amazing once installed and cleaning a glass pool fence is a relatively pain free process. In this article we will run through our recommendations for maintaining and cleaning your glass pool fence.

Note: The advice given below is general in nature and is recommended for products sold by Absolute Glass Pty Ltd. Cleaning agents may be detrimental to inferior quality products that are not sold by us.

Cleaning the glass & stainless components

Firstly, give the glass a quick hose to remove any light blemishes. We recommend mixing up a bucket of warm water combined with some dishwashing detergent. You can use any type of soft bristled brush or even a car washing sponge to apply the detergent mix but we recommend using a soft bristled broom to improve your reach and make the cleaning process easier. If you have tough marks such as bird droppings you may need to use a sponge to remove those.

Use your soft bristled brush and detergent mix to also clean the spigots or fence posts at the same time.

Once you’ve cleaned the surface simply hose off the residue. We recommend hosing off before the detergent mix dries up to avoid streaking.

We find that the above process is enough to keep your glass panels nice and clean. As an additional step you could use window cleaner and paper towel on the glass to create an even greater shine, but this requires alot more effort than simply hosing and brushing.

Renewing the shine on stainless steel spigots, fence posts and accessories

The cleaning process above with help keep your stainless components clean but we do recommend re-coating your stainless components every couple of years with a surface protection barrier. Our recommendation is NanoCoat Metal 2 in 1. Not only does the NanoCoat product clean and polish the product but it creates an invisible, non-stick long lasting protective barrier to keep your stainless components looking like new.

Good quality stainless will never rust although it is still possible to get surface dirt and grime that has a rust like appearance. This should simply wipe off when applying the NanoCoat product.

Inspecting your fence for movement and function

From time to time pool fencing panels can become loose or misaligned. There are a number of reasons for this ranging from poor installation and components, to movement created by weather, trees and branches (or people) and general settling/movement of the mounting surface.

Adjusting the gate

The gate panel and panels in the immediate vicinity most commonly may require adjusting. The force created when the pool gate shuts tends to place pressure on the panels and spigots / fence posts.

If your pool gate is no longer closing properly then it is of utmost importance to fix it immediately. A gate that doesn’t close can be more dangerous as a drowning risk than having no pool fence at all as the fence may present a false sense of security to visitors.

The latch and hinge mechanisms generally have the ability for slight adjustment and in some cases this may be all that is required. The adjustment will usually be made with a screwdriver or alan key depending on the type of latch and hinge set up your fence has.

Adjusting glass panels

If you have a frameless glass pool fence with friction spigots then your glass panels will be more likely to become loose over time. Friction spigots hold the glass in place with a grub screw that tightens a plate against the glass, clamping it in place. The grub screw can usually be tightened with an alan key or screwdriver. If you have premium compression spigots then it is unlikely you will need to tighten anything as the glass is physically fixed to the spigot with a bolt passing through a hole in the glass. This is a far superior glass panel mounting system.

If your glass panel has become misaligned then it is possible that the spigot may have shifted. If the misalignment is minor then you may be able to adjust your spigots to fix the issue, otherwise it may be time to call in a professional to inspect whether the spigot or post’s mounting surface is causing the problem. It may be necessary to re-fix the spigot or fence post in place.

If the actual spigot or fence post is wiggling or moving at the base then this will almost definitely require re-installation of that particular spigot / fence post. Do not put off fixing this issue as excessive movement can also cause the glass to shatter in some instances.