Reclaimed water irrigation and your windows

What reclaimed water is

Treated wastewater that's clean enough for irrigation but not for drinking, delivered through a separate purple-pipe system. Port St. Lucie and Tradition use it widely for lawns and community landscaping. It's a sensible use of water, and it's harder on glass than potable water because of the dissolved minerals it carries.

What it does to windows

Every sprinkler cycle that reaches a window leaves a thin mineral layer when it dries. Over weeks the layers build into white spotting, worst on the lower half of glass facing a lawn or a landscape bed. Left for a year or more, the minerals can begin to etch the glass.

Removing it

A mineral-removal restoration compound worked into the glass, then rinsed and squeegeed, pane by pane. We test one window first and tell you honestly what to expect. Light and moderate spotting comes off fully; heavy spotting may have etched and can be improved but not fully reversed.

Preventing it

Walk the yard while the sprinklers run and note every head that hits glass. Have those heads turned or swapped for low-angle nozzles. Then keep the exterior glass on a schedule (quarterly for sprinkler-exposed homes) so new deposits never get time to bond.