Window cleaning in Targa, Marrakech

This is the point almost nobody looks at, and it explains why glazing that has been "done" turns grey again within days in a Targa villa.

An insect screen is a fine mesh sitting directly in the draught. It catches everything that was on its way in: street dust, pollen, chergui sand, fibres, insects. After a few months the mesh is loaded.

It then takes no more than a gust of wind or a burst from a sprinkler for that load to settle back onto the glass that has just been washed, inside face as well as out.

Our rule is simple: nothing is taken apart. We do not remove a clipped or screwed insect screen, any more than a shutter or a casement. This is not reluctance: an aged fixing breaks, and what breaks in your home is not mended with a squeegee.

The practical consequence is in your hands. If you want the result to last, take down and rinse your fixed screens the day before: the glass they covered becomes reachable on both sides again, and it is washed at the window price, with no extra line.

A clean mesh also lets more light through — the feeling of "brighter glass" afterwards often comes as much from the mesh as from the glazing.

We do not repair a torn mesh and we do not replace a distorted frame: we flag it, with the exact location, and you decide. The line between what belongs to cleaning and what belongs to a joiner is described on frames, sills and joinery.

An insect screen in a Targa villa comes in three forms, and each one changes what we can reach:

• the sliding screen on a track, very common on patio doors: it slides across the way you slide it every day, and the glass is clear. The window track, the real black spot, loaded with sand, is one of the tracks included in the price;
• the roller screen: it is let back gently into its casing, never pulled out fully nor released sharply — the spring and the guide bar lose their setting;
• the fixed screen, clipped or screwed into the frame: it stays in place. The face it covers is only washed if you have taken it down before we arrive.

None of this changes the rate: 75 MAD incl. VAT a window, 150 MAD incl. VAT a patio door. What changes is the surface we can actually reach. That is why, along with the number of windows and patio doors, we ask for three to five photographs — overall views, close-ups, access — before confirming: every fitted window is identified on a photo, not discovered on the morning.

The estate villas of Targa have forged bars on their elevations, balcony balustrades and worked grilles in front of the ground-floor windows. They raise two separate questions.

Access. Closely spaced bars rule out the wide squeegee and force us to work with a narrow blade, bar by bar, or from the inside where the casement opens fully. There are only two cases:

• the bars leave the glass reachable: working around them adds 20% on the base price of the estimate, minimum top-up included. Four windows come to 300 MAD of line items, raised to 400 MAD by the minimum; the supplement adds 80 MAD, making 480 MAD incl. VAT. Ten windows and three patio doors, 750 + 450 = 1,200 MAD, come to 1,440 MAD incl. VAT;
• the bars stop the glass being cleaned: we do not come until it has been made reachable. We do not take a grille down.

Run-off. Painted or varnished iron holds dust in its angles and weld points, as do sills, string courses and balcony soffits. At the first sprinkler run, it comes down in vertical streaks onto clean glass.

Ironwork is not glass and is not part of the service: we work around it, and we always finish by rinsing the glass, so that nothing runs onto a finished pane. We will not sand back a rust spot and we will not repaint anything.

Reachable roller shutters, on the other hand, are included — with or without a shutter, the window price stays the same, and the shutter stays in place. The method is described on shutters, blinds and their tracks.

In Targa, what families ask for first is not a technique: it is a price known before the visit and the certainty that nothing leaves their home.

On glass work those two points are easy to hold to, because the unit of count is legible:

• the window up to 2 m² — 75 MAD incl. VAT, whole frame, both sides where reachable, tracks and sill included;
• the patio door up to 4 m², including the large sliding door from the living room to the terrace — 150 MAD incl. VAT;
• the minimum call-out charge — 400 MAD; below that amount, a top-up is added.

You count your windows and patio doors, the estimate is shown in dirhams incl. VAT, and the price is confirmed after photographs or a visit. No supplement is committed without your agreement. There is no "frames", "tracks" or "shutters" line: they are in the price. There is no "insect screens" line either, since we do not take them down.

Everything is done at your home, within the day, with nothing taken away. This principle applies to all of our work in the district and is developed on the Targa page. The full calculation for the service is published on how each glazing unit is priced, and the overview on window cleaning across the city.

If the windows have just come out of building work, with plaster or paint on the glass, the +40% supplement applies on the base price, and some marks may remain depending on the surface: see glass spattered with plaster and paint.