Post-construction cleaning in Marrakech

A post-construction clean is not a domestic clean carried out more seriously. It is a technical operation: hardened material has to be lifted off brand-new surfaces without scratching them, without dulling them and without lifting anything that has just been laid.

The price per square metre includes, with no extra charge:

• floors and skirting boards, grouting haze included
• small marks from the works: spots of paint, adhesive, cement, render, plaster, squeezed-out silicone, factory labels
• bathrooms and toilets, including taps and shower trays
• accessible windows and patio doors, with their plaster and paint splashes
• staircases, treads, risers and handrails
• the kitchen, doors, handles, switches and sockets
• a finishing check, room by room, before the team leaves

Terraces are only included if you add them, at their own price per m². We bring the equipment and the products; water, electricity and access to the surfaces must be available on the day.

What it is not: a mop pushed across a floor still covered in cement haze. A floor washed without mechanical treatment stays veiled, and the veil comes back the first time it dries. That is the most common mistake, and the one that gets a handover postponed.

The detail by property type is covered on the dedicated pages: villa after building work, apartment, studio, riad in the medina, apartment block and new development, offices and retail units, hotel and after renovation.

The same order is applied on every site, from a studio to a development of several dozen units. It is not negotiable: each step prepares the next one, and a step skipped is paid for at the final inspection.

1. Estimate. Property type, interior floor area with all storeys added up, main floor type, any terraces, amount of marks, furniture. The summary goes out on WhatsApp.
2. Photos and confirmation. 3 to 5 photos: overall views, close-ups of the marks, access, particular surfaces. Scope and price are confirmed after photos or a visit; no extra is committed without your agreement.
3. Protection of new joinery, shower trays, sanitary ware and thresholds before any mechanical work begins.
4. Top-down dusting: ceilings, light fittings, grilles, walls, joinery, skirting boards, then floors. Always from the top down.
5. Treating the marks: hand scraping with a blade on glass and wall tiles, rotary machine on hard floors, brush or pad matched to the surface.
6. Rinsing and neutralising the floor, then controlled drying. A floor left damp against a new grout line comes back as a white mark.
7. Finishing check: glazing, contact points, grout lines, corners. Then the checklist is walked through point by point with you or with the site manager.

The checklist is signed by both parties at handover. It lists the items treated room by room. It is the checklist that defines what counts as compliant — not a general impression formed three days later. Its template is set out room by room in the site handover checklist we use on every job.

No cleaning company in Marrakech says what it works with. We do, because that is what separates real haze removal from surface make-up.

• Low-speed rotary machine with a set of pads and brushes: the only tool that lifts cement haze without attacking the glaze of the tile. Pad matched to the surface, never a single pad for every floor.
• Wet-and-dry site vacuum, fine filtration: cutting dust is collected, not moved from one room to the next.
• Steam cleaner for grout lines, wall tiles and contact points, with no product at all.
• Scrapers with fresh blades for glass and wall tiles: a worn blade scratches, and a scratch on a new patio door cannot be repaired.
• Pressure washer, kept for terraces added to the job, and never on a joint that is too recent.

This kit has limits, and we write them down: no cherry picker, no ropes, no dangerous access. The protocols are on our equipment and our method.

This is request number one after building work, and almost nobody calls it by its name. The whitish film left on new tiles is cement haze, also called grout haze: a cement deposit from the grouting, which settles into the microporosity of the tile.

It does not come off with water. It does not come off with household detergent. It comes off through measured mechanical action, with a product matched to the nature of the floor, then a full rinse. On porcelain stoneware, the treatment is straightforward. On marble or zellige, an acid product used at the wrong dilution burns the surface irreversibly.

Two frequent mistakes, seen on jobs we took over from another contractor:

• vinegar or hydrochloric acid poured neat onto a limestone floor, which dulls the stone permanently
• black soap spread on as a finish to give a shine, which leaves the floor greasy and covered in marks by the next morning

The detailed procedure is published here: removing cement haze from new tiles. Bonded residue removal is covered on scraping and residue.

A site in Marrakech is not treated like a site anywhere else, because the floors are not the same. Zellige is cleaned joint by joint and takes far longer than plain tiling over an equal surface. Tadelakt tolerates neither alkaline detergent nor a stiff brush. Bejmat laid tight holds cement in every joint.

That is why our price list has two rates, and only two:

• standard tiles: 20 MAD incl. VAT per m²
• any other floor — marble, bejmat or terracotta, tadelakt, polished concrete, natural stone, zellige, wood: 30 MAD incl. VAT per m²

Several floors in the same property? The square metres that are not standard tiles are counted at 30 MAD, the rest at 20 MAD. A floor you cannot identify is estimated at 30 MAD/m², then adjusted after photos.

Example: a 180 m² apartment with 60 m² of marble comes to 120 × 20 = 2,400 MAD, plus 60 × 30 = 1,800 MAD, so 4,200 MAD incl. VAT — above the apartment minimum, so no top-up.

The treatment is matched to the material: not every floor can be crystallised, and a post-construction clean includes neither sanding nor repairs. The detail is on traditional floors.

A site manager is not buying cleaning. He is buying the certainty that handover will happen on the planned date. The first complaint aimed at cleaning companies in Marrakech's Google reviews is neither price nor technique: it is the team that does not turn up, and the phone that stops being answered once the problem is reported.

What we put against that, in writing:

• a named contact for the whole duration of the programme, reachable directly on WhatsApp, not a switchboard
• written confirmation of the team and the slot the day before each visit
• a handover report signed by both parties at the end of each unit, with the checklist used
• a dated photo report sent before the site manager's inspection
• a consolidated invoice, itemised unit by unit, with EPUREVA's ICE number

Each unit is priced with the published grid, VAT included: an 85 m² unit in standard tiles comes to 85 × 20 = 1,700 MAD of floors, brought up to the 3,000 MAD apartment minimum.

Two conditions are not up for negotiation. We come in once every trade has finished: a unit where a trade is still working is not ready. And rubble and items to be thrown away must be removed before we arrive, because we do not clear out. The full offer is on apartment blocks and new developments.

Here the concern is different. It is not the schedule: it is that someone will damage a floor that has just been paid for dearly. A Google review left for a Marrakech company sums it up exactly — marble treated without water, black soap spread on as a finish, and a greasy floor covered in marks by the next morning.

Our answer comes down to three points you can check before signing:

1. We state the protocol before the intervention, in writing, naming the type of machine and pad used on your floor.
2. We test on a discreet reference area whenever the floor is old, previously treated or of uncertain origin.
3. The end-of-job checklist is signed on site. If a ticked item is not up to standard, we come back free of charge within 48 hours.

A property that is already furnished is not turned down: we protect the furniture and work around it, with a 15% supplement. The services that almost always accompany a villa handover: final touch-up, terraces, and the full reset after major refurbishment on after a heavy renovation.

Duration is calculated, not guessed. Our estimate works from the floor area, the number of windows and patio doors, bathrooms and storeys, the terraces and the square metres of floors other than standard tiles, for a team of 3. Orders of magnitude for an empty property with a few small marks:

• 35 m² studio, three windows, one bathroom: 1 to 1.5 days
• 120 m² apartment, ten windows, two bathrooms: 2 to 2.5 days
• 300 m² villa on two levels including 120 m² of marble, twenty windows and patio doors, four bathrooms: 5 to 5.5 days

Many marks multiply the base time by 1.35; thick residue on almost every surface, by 1.8. A furnished property adds 15%. We say so at the estimate rather than discovering it on site, because that is precisely where invoices start to swell. The date can be chosen from the day after your request and is confirmed with our team.

We work across Marrakech and its outskirts: Sidi Ghanem, Guéliz, the Palmeraie, Hivernage, Targa, Annakhil, Amelkis and the route de l'Ourika. The full map is on areas we cover.

A quotation that does not say what it excludes is a dispute booked in for handover day. Never included:

• clearing out: we do neither clear-outs nor rubble removal
• sanding and repairs — touching up paint, grout or silicone belongs to the trades, not to cleaning
• a further visit after further works: if a tradesman comes back after us, what he dirties is not redone
• the garden and the grounds, which do not count in the floor area
• terraces, until you have added them
• any glazing out of reach that would need a cherry picker, ropes or dangerous access

And three situations in which we do not come: works that will not be finished on the chosen date, rubble and items to be thrown away not removed, a property without water or electricity. In each case the work would be impossible or lost by the next day. The price detail is on post-construction prices and on our general prices page. Our completed jobs are presented in case studies.

• No work starts without a price confirmed in writing. The appointment is confirmed on WhatsApp once the price has been accepted. A verbal agreement triggers nothing.
• No extra without your agreement. Whatever changes between the estimate and the photos is announced to you before the date, not on the invoice.
• Free return visit within 48 hours. If an item on the checklist signed at handover is not up to standard, we come back without argument. The return visit covers the item raised.
• Postponement or cancellation to be notified 48 hours in advance, in both directions.
• One single number, before and after the invoice. This is where the Marrakech market fails most often, and the one commitment that costs nothing to write down and everything to keep.

For an immediate estimate, describe your site on request a quotation: property type, floor area, floor type, terraces, condition, target date. We reply seven days a week