How does a post-construction clean actually run?

The rule fits in one sentence: you never wash a surface that is still going to receive dust. A five-micron cutting particle takes several minutes to settle in a room with no draught. Cleaning a worktop while a colleague dusts a duct two metres away means doing the worktop twice.

Hence an organisation in closed passes:

1. Pass 1 — top-down dust removal. All the dry matter is captured, from high to low, with no water.
2. Pass 2 — floors. Scraping bonded residue, mechanical action, rinsing, drying.
3. Pass 3 — washing. Contact points, sanitary ware, joinery, glazing.

Between two passes the room is closed and nobody crosses it with equipment again. On a property with several storeys, each pass works down floor by floor and does not come back up. That principle is what structures the full post-construction process, whatever the type of property.

A post-construction clean is not a clearance job. Three conditions decide whether the announced timescale will be met:

• The trades have finished. Touch-up paint after our visit dirties what has just been handed over, and a bead of silicone laid the day before is not yet cured.
• Rubble and packaging have gone. The team arrives at a property cleared of rubble and items to throw away: its time goes on the surfaces, not on carrying.
• Water and electricity are on. A rotary machine and a wet-and-dry vacuum need both: water and electricity must be available on the day of the job.

One detail matters more than it looks: the tile joints must have set. A cement joint sets in 24 to 48 hours but only dries fully at 7 days. Working before that means hollowing the joint during rinsing and watching the cement haze come back the following week.

It starts at the highest point in the room and ends at the skirting. Nothing is washed at this stage: water on plaster dust makes a slurry that sticks, and then takes twice as long to remove.

The order within a room:

1. Ceiling, cornices, recessed downlights, ducts and ventilation grilles.
2. Light fittings, curtain tracks, electrical boxes, switches and sockets.
3. High joinery, transoms, tops of doors, wardrobe rails.
4. Walls, corners, removal of installation labels and tape.
5. Units, insides of cupboards, drawers, shelves.
6. Skirtings, thresholds, then the floor.

Extraction is done with fine filtration, not with a broom. Sweeping puts most of what it moves back into suspension — the subject developed in our article on what a domestic vacuum cannot do on a building site.

This is the longest pass and the one that decides how the property looks at the end. It breaks down into four stages of its own.

Scraping bonded residue. Tile adhesive, overrun silicone, spilt plaster, expanding foam: each material has its own method and its own tool, detailed on lifting bonded residue. It is done before any water, never after.

Mechanical action. Low-speed rotary machine, in the region of 150 to 200 revolutions per minute, with the pad chosen for the surface. The product only softens the deposit: the machine is what removes it. This is cleaning: the floor surface stays intact.

Rinsing. The dirty water is vacuumed up with a wet-and-dry vacuum, then rinsed with renewed clean water until all foam has gone, then neutralised if the product used calls for it.

Drying. Controlled, before any further pass. A limestone floor left damp over a new joint comes back as a white bloom in the first sun.

The third pass is the one the buyer touches and looks at. It is carried out on an already-dry floor, working back towards the exit.

• Contact points: handles, levers, switch plates, shutter buttons, handrails, taps.
• Sanitary ware: pan, cistern, shower tray, basin, traps, and above all the plaster and cement residue that fell into the wastes during the build.
• Joinery: sliding tracks, window channels, drainage holes, weather seals. The track is the first place a site manager checks.
• Glazing: protective films and manufacturer's labels removed, then washed. Never in full sun: above roughly 25 °C on the glass, the solution dries before it can be squeegeed and leaves marks that stay visible.

Accessible windows are included in the per-square-metre price of a post-construction clean, as are bathrooms, WCs and stairs: there is no separate line. The work on the glass itself is detailed on window cleaning after building work.

The intervention does not end when the equipment is packed away, but when the checklist is signed. The inspection is done in raking light — a lamp held a few centimetres from the surface, the beam almost parallel to the floor: it is the only angle at which a residual bloom, a squeegee mark or a micro-scratch becomes visible.

The points picked up straight away, before the team leaves, are the ones that come back most often: window channels, under the doors, the corner behind the front door, the tops of skirtings, the seal at the edge of a worktop. How the inspection runs and what document is handed over are described on final touch-up and the closing inspection.

If a ticked item turns out not to be up to standard, EPUREVA comes back free of charge within 48 hours, on the point raised.

The price is based on the indoor floor area, all storeys added together: 20 MAD/m² incl. VAT on standard tiles, 30 MAD/m² incl. VAT on any other floor (marble, bejmat, tadelakt, polished concrete, stone, zellige, wood), with a minimum of 2,000 MAD incl. VAT for a studio, 3,000 MAD incl. VAT for an apartment or premises and 7,500 MAD incl. VAT for a villa or riad. Durations are indicative, for a team of 3, with a few small marks from the works:

• 40 m² studio, tiled, 2 windows, 1 bathroom: 40 × 20 = 800 MAD, raised to the 2,000 MAD incl. VAT minimum; 1 to 1.5 days.
• 100 m² apartment, tiled, 6 windows, 2 bathrooms: 2,000 MAD, raised to the 3,000 MAD incl. VAT minimum; 1.5 to 2 days.
• 250 m² villa including 150 m² of marble, one upper storey, 15 windows, 4 bathrooms and a 50 m² tiled terrace: 100 × 20 + 150 × 30 = 6,500 MAD, raised to the 7,500 MAD minimum, plus the terrace at 10 MAD/m² (500 MAD), making 8,000 MAD incl. VAT; 4.5 to 5 days.

A site with many marks costs +20% and takes longer; thick residue on almost every surface, +40%, assessed from photos; a furnished property, +15%. These figures are indicative: scope and price are confirmed after photos or a visit. The full schedule is on post-construction cleaning prices; for an estimate, describe your site and its handover date.