Window cleaning in Annakhil, Marrakech

Annakhil villas were built on planted plots, and the planting is thirty years older than the windows. Bougainvillea trained along the facades, olive trees with low branches reaching first-floor level, avenues of palms, masonry pergolas, laurel hedges clipped against the walls: in one villa out of two, a quarter of the openings cannot be reached with the normal approach.

This is not an abstract difficulty. For a first-floor window screened by a branch, three solutions exist, and two of them are bad:

• a ladder propped in the flower bed: unstable on loose ground, and something we do not do;
• the pole pushed sideways between branches: you wash blind, leave dry patches, and knock the glazing;
• clearing the way, then washing at the right angle: that is what we do, and it takes preparation.

Before confirming, then, we do not only look at how many panes the villa has. On the three to five photos you send us — overall views, the foot of each facade, access — we note for each opening the standing-back distance available on the ground, the nature of the ground at the foot of the wall (paved, gravel, planted earth) and what is in the way.

That is what sets an Annakhil villa apart from a villa of the same size on a bare plot: a window costs the same, but some openings come out of the estimate or need the pole. The full method is on our window-cleaning page for Marrakech.

We do not prune and we do not trim: that is not our trade, and a badly cut olive tree does not grow back cleanly. What we do is tell you precisely what needs to move, and when, so the visit fits inside the time we quote.

The list, sent once the visit is confirmed:

1. Low branches in front of the openings being treated — clearing roughly a metre in front of the glazing plane is enough in most cases. It is a gardener's job, done beforehand, not on the day.
2. Garden furniture, planters and heavy pots set at the foot of the patio doors: we need to stand the pole plumb, on stable, clear ground.
3. Awnings and shade sails folded away, so they do not catch the rinse water and do not block the squeegee angle.
4. The garden hose and the irrigation timer switched off on the morning of the visit: rinsing a window and then spraying it with mains water three hours later undoes the work.
5. Household pets kept indoors during the outdoor phase, for everyone's safety.

One separate point, common on planted ground floors: window grilles. If they let a hand and a squeegee through, working around the bars adds 20% to the base. If they stop the glass being cleaned, they have to be made accessible before our visit; otherwise those panes are not washed.

What we take care of ourselves: protecting the beds beneath the windows, moving small furniture, and cleaning tracks and runners clogged with soil and palm debris, included in the price of the window or patio door — see frame and track treatment.

When the villa is being renovated and the windows have just come out of building work, with paint, adhesive or cement on them, the preparation is different and the base takes 40% more: that is covered on end-of-build glass cleaning.

Our height rule comes down to three tiers and one condition. Up to 3 metres from the ground: base price. From 3 to 5 metres: water-fed telescopic pole, 25% on top of the base, feasibility confirmed on your photos — the supplement does not guarantee feasibility. Above 5 metres: we do not do it. And the condition, which counts as much as the figures: everything is done from the ground.

In Annakhil, it is the condition that most often gets in the way. An upstairs window washed from the garden readily falls into the 3-to-5-metre band; but if the rear facade backs onto a 2-metre-wide planted bed, there is no footing on the ground, and the pole cannot be set.

When the sash opens and both sides can be reached from the bedroom, the question does not arise. Otherwise, we would rather say so from the photos than on the day: an opening that cannot be reached does not appear in the estimate, and you do not pay for that line.

What we do not do, and will not arrange either: no cherry picker, no rope access work. EPUREVA has neither, hires neither, and does not subcontract either.

When a pane is above 5 metres or stays out of reach from the ground, we do not take it on: it comes out of the estimate, and it is stated before confirming. A contractor who says yes anyway, over the phone, is the one whose appointment does not get kept afterwards.

Working with pure water has a direct advantage in a planted garden: no detergent. The demineralised water fed through the pole runs down over the beds, the lawn and the pool without leaving anything behind, and dries without a mark on the glass because it no longer carries mineral salts.

That is what makes this method compatible with a lived-in, planted villa, where a conventional wash means rinsing and protecting everything. The full method is described on our water-fed pole work.

An Annakhil window does not get dirty the way a city-centre one does. It picks up neither traffic dust nor exhaust grime: it picks up its own garden, and always in the same order.

• The bottom third takes the brunt: soil splashed up by the sprinklers, sand from the paths, pool splash, animal marks. It is the zone that gets dirty again first.
• Tracks and sills collect soil, palm debris and seeds. A clogged track redeposits onto the glass with every slide: that is why we treat them as standard, at no extra charge.
• Pollen, from spring into early summer, forms a yellow film that will not wipe off dry — it sticks, and it has to be wetted to come off.
• The upper section barely moves, except during the chergui.

The practical consequence: on many Annakhil villas, the right pace is not "the whole house, twice a year". It is the living-room patio doors and low windows every two months, the full set of glazing twice a year.

The short visit is worked out like any other: 2 patio doors and 2 windows come to 2 × 150 + 2 × 75 = 450 MAD incl. VAT, above the minimum call-out charge; with a single window, 375 MAD, the top-up brings the visit to 400 MAD.

This pace does not lower the price of each pane: it stops the villa arriving very dirty at the full visit, with the 20% set for that case, and it stops the tracks filling with what would later have to be scraped out.

The order of treatment matters too: outdoor areas and terraces are done before the windows, never the other way round — this sequencing logic is developed on the Annakhil district page.