In Little Rock the recurring film is honeydew and tannin dripping from dense mature canopy, with mildew on shaded elevations through humid summers.
Central Arkansas Water publishes no hardness figure, because Arkansas reports carry no secondary table at all; what films the glass here is honeydew and tannin from the dense old canopy, and mildew on shaded walls in humid summers. June to September gives the steadiest weather, though summer humidity feeds the mildew. A Heights house under heavy oak with divided lights is a different job from a Chenal house of the same size; a single-story exterior runs $240 to $430.
There is no published hardness figure for this system and the reason is structural — Arkansas reports carry no secondary or aesthetic table at all, so no utility in the state reports one in its annual report. Rather than substitute a number, the honest working position is that a protected, heavily forested reservoir supply of this type characteristically runs low in dissolved mineral and higher in organic carbon. Treat film rather than scale as the recurring residue here, and confirm with a local test if a specific building genuinely needs the number.
| Hardness | not published Central Arkansas Water publishes no hardness figure in its 2025 Annual Drinking Water Quality Report (PWS 465, hosted by the Arkansas Department of Health) or its own 2024 combined water quality report (carkw.com). |
|---|---|
| Disinfectant | free chlorine |
| Source and treatment | Surface water, per the EPA SDWIS federal record · Rapid mix, flocculation, sedimentation and rapid sand filtration, chlorine dioxide, pre and post chlorination and fluoridation, with a polyphosphate corrosion inhibitor · No softening step. |
Not in the report: pH, alkalinity, corrosion index, iron, manganese, sodium, chloride and total dissolved solids.
SOURCE · Central Arkansas Water 2025 Annual Drinking Water Quality Report (PWS 465), hosted by the Arkansas Department of Health at the address the utility gives customers · How we source these numbers
Canopy drives the residential cycle and it runs almost year-round rather than in a season — spring pollen, summer honeydew from aphids in the oaks, autumn leaf tannin, and organic film in between. Shaded elevations under mature trees need roughly twice the frequency of the sunny side of the same house. The western suburbs, with younger and thinner planting, run on a far gentler schedule. Ice events punctuate winter and leave road treatment on lower elevations that lifts easily if it is not left for months.
ARKANSAS SEASON BY SEASON →Little Rock drinks from two protected upland reservoirs rather than the river it stands on — Lake Maumelle for about 65 percent of demand and Lake Winona for the rest, both able to feed a regulating reservoir in the city and piped to the Jack H. Wilson and Ozark Point plants. No hardness figure is published, and that is the Arkansas reporting template rather than this utility. The work is shaped instead by canopy, humidity and a historic core deep enough that identifying the era of a sash is a working skill.
The city's water comes from two protected upland reservoirs rather than from the river it sits on, which surprises people who assume the Arkansas River is the source.
Lake Maumelle in west Pulaski County is the larger of the two at roughly 13.9 square miles and supplies about 65 percent of daily systemwide demand; Lake Winona in Saline County, in the Ouachita foothills, covers about 1.9 square miles and provides the remaining 35 percent.
Both lakes can feed Jackson Reservoir, a regulating reservoir inside Little Rock, and water is delivered by pipeline to two treatment plants — Jack H. Wilson and Ozark Point — both located in the city.
The Lake Maumelle watershed is around 80 percent forested, which is the reason the supply is as clean as it is and also the reason watershed protection and timber harvesting are live local issues rather than abstract ones.
No hardness figure appears in the report, and that is a statewide format issue rather than anything particular to this utility — the Arkansas reporting template carries no secondary or aesthetic table for one to sit in.
Protected forested reservoir supply of this kind is characteristically low in dissolved mineral and higher in organic carbon, which shifts the residue problem from scale toward film. That is a reasonable working expectation rather than a published fact, and it should be treated as such.
Canopy is the defining residential variable. Hillcrest and the Heights sit under mature oak and elm dense enough that honeydew, leaf tannin and organic drip keep working on shaded glass long after the obvious debris is gone.
Humidity through a long southern summer keeps north elevations damp, and mildew on frames and in glazing channels is a more common complaint here than mineral spotting.
Ice rather than snow is the winter disruption, and it arrives suddenly enough to strand a crew mid-route. The hillside streets in Hillcrest and the Heights become unusable before the flat western suburbs do.
The historic building stock is unusually deep for a city this size, and the Quapaw Quarter holds enough genuinely early glass that era identification is a working skill rather than a nicety.
Canopy and era together set the residential price far more than square footage does — a Heights house under heavy oak with divided lights is a different job from a Chenal house with the same glass area. Downtown and Capitol work prices on access arrangements and security scheduling rather than on difficulty. The western corridor prices on route density and is the efficient end of the market. Nothing in the price relates to water treatment.
Modern glass in the western suburbs is an easy homeowner job and the supply gives no trouble. The historic core is where it changes: the Quapaw Quarter and the older parts of Hillcrest hold glass old enough that a scraper will take the surface off it, and putty old enough to crumble under pressure. Honeydew is the other thing that defeats a casual approach — it is sticky, it re-wets, and it needs a detergent and dwell time rather than more force.
OPEN COST ESTIMATOR →2025 annual mean at the Parr monitor, Pike AVE at River Road, 7.8 km north-east of the city (EPA site 05-119-0007).
Largest air release: W&W|AFCO Steel, 1423 E Sixth ST (fabricated metals), inside the city limits, 7,866 lb in 2024.
Central Arkansas Water, which supplies Little Rock, lets water drawn through a customer's service line be used only on that premises and for the purposes of its customer class, and forbids letting any of it be taken through the service for use on another property. A crew filling a pure-water tank at one client's spigot should spend that water on that client's windows.
Central Arkansas Water, terms and conditions of water service policy · checked September 2026
It is unlawful to discharge nonstormwater to Little Rock's municipal separate storm sewer system, apart from listed flows, such as water line flushing, that the city, the EPA or the state has not flagged as significant pollution sources.
Little Rock Code §29-45: discharge of nonstormwater to the city's municipal separate storm sewer system · checked September 2026
In Little Rock's historic district, no building or structure, down to stone walls, fences, light fixtures, steps and paving, may be erected, altered, restored, moved or demolished until an application for a certificate of appropriateness covering the exterior changes has been submitted.
Little Rock Code §23-115: certificate of appropriateness required · checked September 2026
Loblolly, shortleaf, and Arkansas pine produce the dominant statewide spring contaminant. Heavier pulse than the deciduous tree-pollen wave that defines the Northeast. Wet-only handling. No scraping, no dry-brushing. Same pattern Elly Giordano documents for Alabama and Mississippi.
Statewide tornado activity heavy. Wind-driven debris pattern, hail-impact residue, occasional structural-residue from damaged adjacent properties. Recurring post-event cleaning surge through the spring season.
Mississippi Embayment alluvial-aquifer water with sub-micron suspended-particulate fraction. Iron content moderate-to-high on some distribution-system segments. Extended citric pre-treatment (3-5 minutes) plus citric-rinse finish required on most Delta-corridor stock.
There is no published hardness figure for this system and the reason is structural — Arkansas reports carry no secondary or aesthetic table at all, so no utility in the state reports one in its annual report.
Residential window cleaning in Little Rock typically runs $8–13 per pane or $240–430 for a standard single-story exterior. Canopy and era together set the residential price far more than square footage does — a Heights house under heavy oak with divided lights is a different job from a Chenal house with the same glass area.
Little Rock's drier, frost-free months are June to September, by NOAA's 1991–2020 normals for the Little Rock Airport Adams Field station, where March brings the most rain. The calendar on this page marks June (after the March 21 bloom and after smoke season). Frost nights usually run from November 10 to March 21. Normal highs reach 90°F in July and August.
Central Arkansas Water publishes neither hardness nor dissolved solids, so rinse one pane and let it dry in sun; a white ring means switch to pure water. Treatment starts with rapid mix, flocculation, sedimentation and rapid sand filtration.
In Little Rock the dominant residue patterns include honeydew and tannin drip under dense mature canopy and mildew on shaded elevations through humid summers. Canopy drives the residential cycle and it runs almost year-round rather than in a season — spring pollen, summer honeydew from aphids in the oaks, autumn leaf tannin, and organic film in between.
Modern glass in the western suburbs is an easy homeowner job and the supply gives no trouble. The historic core is where it changes: the Quapaw Quarter and the older parts of Hillcrest hold glass old enough that a scraper will take the surface off it, and putty old enough to crumble under pressure.
The historic residential core, holding the city's oldest surviving houses across antebellum, Victorian and early 20th-century stock. Original glass in quantity, ornate sash, and the slowest careful work in the metro. River Market District and Hillcrest have their own housing stock and glazing as well.
Just over the Arkansas line