Window cleaning on the Route de l'Ourika, Marrakech

The building stock of the valley does not share the geometry of the villas in town. What you find here are small-pane casements — a frame divided into six, eight or twelve panes by two-centimetre glazing bars — along with fanlights, glazed doors in joined frames and fixed lights of every size.

On a modern patio door, a 45-centimetre squeegee covers the glass in three passes. On a twelve-pane casement it fits nowhere. Every single pane needs its own wetting, its own cut with a narrow blade and, above all, its own corner dry-off: the joint between glass and glazing bar is where the water sits, and that is where the runs reappear the next morning if the work has been rushed.

That extra time does not end up on your bill. The counting rule is the same across the city: a window is the whole frame, however many glazed sections it holds.

• a window up to 2 m²: 75 MAD incl. VAT, both sides included when they can be reached, frame and runners included;
• a patio door up to 4 m²: 150 MAD incl. VAT — a large sliding door opening onto the terrace is counted this way;
• the minimum call-out charge: 400 MAD. A small house with five windows comes to 375 MAD of line items; a 25 MAD top-up brings the visit to 400 MAD.

A frame larger than these sizes is not turned down: the price starts from the standard size and the balance is checked on photographs. For the estimate, count your casements and your sliding doors, not your panes, and send a view of each elevation. How we count is set out on the glazing price grid.

Timber is the dominant material around openings in the valley, and it is the one that degrades fastest when it is washed badly. Three common mistakes, which we do not make:

• Soaking the frame. Painted timber absorbs through its weak points: arrises, screw heads, hairline cracks in the paint. Water left standing in a rebate will blister the paint within weeks. We work with a wrung-out sponge on timber, never with a jet, and we systematically dry rebates and drip sills.
• Using an alkaline detergent. It dulls matt paint, strips a wood stain and leaves pale haloes on oiled timber. On the glass, demineralised pure water is enough; the timber sees nothing but clean water.
• Scraping with a blade. On a small pane, the blade inevitably reaches the glazing bar. We lift deposits dry with plastic, or soften them first; never a metal blade against painted timber or coated glass.

The ironmongery — espagnolette bolts, casement fasteners, forged hinges — stays where it is and stays dry: no oil, no product. Nothing is taken apart, neither a casement nor a fitting.

A moucharabieh or a turned-timber screen is not a window and is not part of the service; if it hides a pane so that the glass cannot be reached, that pane has to be made accessible before we arrive. What we handle and what we leave to your joiner is spelled out on our frames and joinery page.

Streak-free washing relies on demineralised water, produced on site by filtering the mains supply. On the Route de l'Ourika, that supply is not the town's: it is often a borehole, a well or a storage tank, with two differences that matter.

Hardness. Borehole water in the valley generally carries more minerals than mains water. A heavier mineral load exhausts the filtration resin faster: on a large house, we may need to allow for an extra cartridge. That is our problem, not yours — but it is the reason we ask where the water comes from before we set off.

Flow and pressure. A gravity-fed tank does not push hard enough to feed a telescopic pole. Yet it is the pole, held from the ground, that reaches glass set between 3 and 5 metres, at 25% on top of the base price and with feasibility confirmed on your photos.

Without enough pressure, that glass cannot be done on the planned day. Above 5 metres the question does not arise: we have neither a cherry picker nor ropes.

So before setting the date we check: the source of the water, whether a booster pump is fitted, and whether electricity is available — some properties run on a generator. Without water or electricity on site, we cannot do the job.

These questions are settled before the van is loaded, because out here a return trip is measured in hours rather than minutes. The full logistics of a visit along this road are covered on the Route de l'Ourika page. Why pure water works at all is explained on the parent window-cleaning page.

Three kinds of soiling belong to this road in particular, and they are not dealt with at the same point in the year.

Red dust. This is a staining deposit, not merely a powder. Thrown up by rain and by vehicles on the tracks, it marks the bottom third of the glazing, the sills and the light-coloured frames above all.

On glass it rinses away. On light painted timber or an earth render it leaves a tint that no amount of window cleaning will correct: we say so beforehand, and we do not charge for a treatment that will achieve nothing.

Midges and insects, from spring to autumn, peaking around water and olive groves. They harden in the sun: we wet them, let them soften, then lift them with a plastic blade.

Resin and plant debris from olive and fig trees, sticky and very localised, calling for dwell time rather than mechanical force.

What follows for the schedule: on this road, one visit after the first autumn rains and a second at the end of spring cover most of it. Each visit costs the same per window; waiting saves nothing, quite the reverse.

A house that has let a whole season of red dust and insects build up falls under very dirty glass, +20% on the base price: eight windows and two patio doors, 600 + 300 = 900 MAD, become 1,080 MAD incl. VAT.

If the casements have just come out of a building site — plaster, laitance, protective adhesive left to bake in the sun — the supplement is the one for paint, adhesive, cement or encrusted limescale: +40%.

Six windows, 450 MAD of line items, come to 630 MAD incl. VAT, with a written reservation: depending on the surface, some marks may remain. The method is described on glass that has just left a building site.