Table of Contents
The short answer
Do the outside of a villa in this order: garden first, then the walls, then the driveway and paving, then the glass, with the pool and the furniture at the end. Each job throws dirt onto the one after it. Hedge cutting covers the paving in clippings and dust. Washing a wall sends dirty water down onto the driveway. Washing the driveway puts a fine spray on the ground-floor windows. Work in that order and nothing has to be cleaned twice.
Before any of it, walk round the house with a phone and photograph what you find. Most of this work is priced from photos, and twenty minutes of looking saves a wasted visit. The walk-round list comes first below, then each job in turn: what it involves, what it cannot fix and what to have ready.
At IHR Dream Cleaning the glass, facade and paving work sits in the specialist cleaning group, and the garden and the pool are booked as separate maintenance services. Window cleaning is priced by the hour like any home clean, so three hours by one cleaner is AED 90 with your own products. Facade cleaning, pressure washing, garden work and pool service are priced from photos or a free inspection, and the price is agreed before anyone starts.
What a summer leaves on the outside of a villa
For months the outside of the house is seen through closed windows. Nobody sits on the terrace, the doors stay shut, and the garden is watered and otherwise left alone. When the evenings cool and the doors open again, this is what most villas find.
- A dust film baked onto walls, sills and ledges. Fine dust settles after every windy day, and humidity and morning dew turn it into a thin crust that a hose only smears.
- White spots on low glass and on the bottom metre of the walls. Sprinklers throw tap water at them every day, the sun dries it in minutes and the minerals stay behind.
- Drip marks under AC units and outlets, where condensate has run down the wall all summer.
- Dark patches on shaded paving. Where irrigation run-off keeps a corner damp and the sun never reaches it, the surface darkens and can turn slippery.
- Oil spots and tyre marks on the driveway, set harder by the heat.
- Sand packed into the sliding-door tracks, which makes the doors stiff.
- A garden that is overgrown or scorched, depending on how the irrigation coped.
- A pool that has worked hard. Heat, dust and heavy use are what turn water cloudy and leave a line at the waterline.
Why the cooler months are the time to do it
There are three reasons. Wet work dries at a sensible speed when the surfaces are not scorching, so glass can be finished without streaks and a treated stain gets the time it needs. People can work outside for a full day. And the outside is about to be used: guests in the garden, children in the pool, dinner on the terrace.
Do the heavy jobs at the start of the season, not in the week of the first gathering. Jobs priced from photos take longer to arrange, because the photos, the price and sometimes an inspection come first. Hourly visits can be booked up to 30 days ahead, so the glass and the final tidy can be fixed in the diary early.
The twenty-minute walk-round before you book anything
Start at the front gate and go round the house once, slowly, in daylight. Take a wide photo of each side of the house and a close one of anything on this list. A wide photo with a door or a person in it shows the scale, and scale is what a price depends on.
- Walls: which sides are dusty, where the drip marks and sprinkler stains are, and whether any paint is flaking, powdery or cracked. Cleaning removes dirt. It does not repair paint.
- Height: how many storeys each wall has, and which parts can be reached from the ground, a terrace or a balcony.
- Glass: count the windows and glass doors, note which have white spotting, and note any pane above the ground floor that can only be reached from outside.
- Paving: the material (interlocking blocks, concrete, stone or tile), the oil stains, the dark patches, any loose or rocking pieces, and low spots where water stands.
- Garden: the state of the lawn, hedges that have outgrown their line, dead plants, beds full of weeds, and any sprinkler that sprays a wall, a window or the driveway.
- Pool: the colour and clarity of the water, the band at the waterline, the skimmer baskets, and whether the pump sounds the way it normally does.
- Services: where the outdoor taps and power points are, and where the water will run to when a surface is washed.
- Access: the gate the team should use, where a vehicle can park, and anything fragile at the foot of a wall, such as planting or garden lights.
What the photos are for
Send the photos with a short description when you book. For this group of services we ask for the surface size, the height and the access, so that what can be reached safely is confirmed and the scope and price are agreed before the visit. Larger facade and garden jobs are looked at on site first, and the inspection is free in every area we serve.
Which measurements to add, and how to photograph a job so the first price is the final one, is covered in how to get an accurate quote.
The order of work, and why it matters
This is the logic a careful outdoor team follows. It holds if one company does everything in two days, and it holds if you spread the jobs over a fortnight.
- Start the pool early if it needs rescuing. Green or cloudy water needs treatment and then time for the water to respond, sometimes across more than one visit. Begin it first and let it work while everything else is done.
- Cut the garden back. Mowing, hedge trimming and clearing beds throw clippings, leaves and dust across the walls, the paving and the pool. Do it before anything is washed, and have the green waste taken away.
- Repair what is broken. A sprinkler that hits the wall, a dripping outdoor tap or a loose paving block should be put right before the cleaning, or the stain comes straight back.
- Clean the walls from the top down. Dirty water runs down a wall and onto whatever is below it.
- Wash the driveway, the paths and the terraces. They have collected everything from the steps above, and they are washed towards a drain or a gravel strip and away from the house.
- Clean the windows, glass doors, frames and tracks. Glass is the last of the wet jobs because every earlier one puts dust or spray on it.
- Finish the pool: skim, brush, vacuum and empty the baskets, now that nothing else is blowing into it.
- Wipe down the outdoor furniture and lights, put the cushions back and sweep the entrance.
| Job | Time on our service pages | How it is priced |
|---|---|---|
| Garden | 1–2 hours for routine upkeep; half a day or more for an overgrown garden | By garden size and scope |
| Facade and walls | 1–3 hours for one wall section; half a day to a day for a villa at reachable height | By size, height and access |
| Driveway and paving | 1–2 hours for a standard villa driveway | By area, staining and access |
| Windows and glass | 3–5 hours for a villa with many windows, with one or two cleaners | By the hour, per cleaner |
| Pool | 45–90 minutes for a routine visit; several hours for a reset | By size, condition and frequency |
One visit or several
Those times are for each job on its own. On a small villa with a short driveway and a tidy garden, the garden, the paving and the glass can fit into one day if they follow one another, so ask when you book whether they can be scheduled together. A large plot is better spread over two or three days in the same order. Pressure washing is often booked alongside facade cleaning or a villa deep clean, so that the exterior is refreshed in one visit.
Garden: cut back, clear and check the water
The garden goes first because it makes the most mess, and because its faults cause half the stains elsewhere. A garden maintenance visit covers lawn mowing and edging, hedge and shrub trimming, weeding and tidying the beds, and a check of the irrigation and the general health of the plants. The cuttings are cleared before the team leaves.
The irrigation check matters more than it sounds. Walk the garden with the gardener while each zone runs and look at where the water lands. A sprinkler head that has turned, or a dripper line that has split, is the reason one stretch of wall is stained and one window is spotted. Turning the head back stops the mark returning after the wall has been cleaned. A lawn that is patchy in one area is often the same story in reverse: the water is not reaching it.
Tell the team which plants must not be cut back, and where the irrigation controller and the outdoor taps are. If the garden was left all summer, say so. An overgrown garden is priced as a one-off tidy-up, which is a different job from routine upkeep, and a regular schedule can follow it. What to plant, feed and prune at each time of year is a subject of its own, set out in garden care in summer and in winter.
- Clear furniture and toys off the lawn before the team arrives.
- Open the side gate if there is one, so cuttings do not go through the house.
- Leave room to park near the entrance for the tools and the green waste.
Walls and facade: dust, drip marks and what cleaning cannot fix
A villa wall carries three kinds of dirt, and they do not come off the same way. Loose dust brushes or rinses off. The crust that dust forms with humidity needs washing with a cleaner that suits the surface, and time for it to work. Mineral marks from sprinklers and AC condensate are deposits bonded to the surface, and they need a treatment the finish can tolerate.
That last condition is the one that matters. Painted render, natural stone, cladding panels and glass each react differently to water pressure and to cleaning products. A product that lifts a watermark from a glazed tile can mark limestone, and pressure that suits bare concrete will strip weak paint. This is why facade cleaning starts by confirming the surface, and why stains are treated only where the surface allows it.
Our facade work covers the reachable parts of a villa or a low-rise building: ground-level and low-height walls, entrances and their surrounds. High walls and anything that would need rope access are outside it, and a position that cannot be reached safely is declined, not attempted. Where that line falls on an ordinary two-storey villa is explained in what a cleaning team can safely reach.
Look hard at the paint before you book a clean. If it comes off on your hand as a white powder, lifts at the edges or has fine cracks with dark lines along them, the coating has failed, and washing will leave it looking patchier, not better. How to tell which job a tired wall needs is in facade cleaning, pressure washing or repainting compared.
- Point out the stains that bother you most, so they are assessed first.
- Clear furniture and pots from the foot of the wall, and say if there is fragile planting below it.
- Confirm the gate, the parking and where the water point is.
Driveway, paths and terraces: what pressure washing does
Sweeping removes loose sand. It does not move the grey film that tyres and feet grind into the surface, and it does nothing for oil. Pressure washing is the job for driveways, parking areas, garden paths, pool surrounds and other paved ground.
Pressure alone is not the method. Oil soaks into the pores of the paving, so the stain is pre-treated first, given time, and only then washed. A very old stain often lightens a great deal without vanishing, and it is better to hear that before the visit than after it. The pressure is then set for the material. Interlocking blocks hold sand in their joints, and a careless wash blasts it out and leaves the blocks loose. Old or cracked tiles can lift. Painted surfaces can lose their paint. Tell the team about loose pieces or known damage so the pressure is adjusted.
Three practical things decide how the visit goes: an outdoor tap, a power point, and somewhere for the run-off to go, such as a drain or a gravel strip. Move the cars, planters and furniture off the area before the team arrives. The surface stays wet for a while afterwards, so plan to keep the cars on the street until it has dried.
Stains, sand in the joints and the surfaces that should never be blasted are dealt with fully in our guide to pressure washing a driveway or yard.
Windows, glass doors and tracks: the last wet job
By now the walls and the paving are clean and the glass is at its worst, which is exactly when it should be cleaned. A window cleaning visit covers the inside of every window, the glass doors and the mirrors, the frames, sills and tracks, and the outside of the glass wherever it can be reached safely from inside, from a balcony or from a step ladder. On a villa that normally means inside throughout, and outside on the ground floor and from the balconies.
The order inside the job matters too. Tracks and sills are vacuumed dry first, because sand and water make a paste that is harder to remove than either alone. Frames and handles are wiped next, so the edges do not dirty the glass again. Then the glass is washed, dried and checked against the light. We avoid working on glass in direct midday sun where we can, because the water dries before it can be taken off and leaves streaks.
White sprinkler spots are the villa problem. Fresh ones lift with the right product. Spots baked on over several summers can etch the surface, and an etched mark is damage to the glass, not dirt on it. Cleaning improves it and may not clear it. The method for a clean finish, and what must never touch tinted or coated glass, is in what professionals use on windows. Villas on the water have a second problem, salt, which has its own guide: why sea-facing glass gets dirty so fast.
Window cleaning is booked by the hour. Our service page puts a villa with many windows at three to five hours with one or two cleaners. With your own products, one cleaner for three hours is AED 90 and two cleaners for three hours each are AED 180. When we bring the products and equipment, the same two bookings are AED 105 and AED 210. Every figure includes VAT, and the full list is on the price page.
Outside shutters and louvres hold a season of dust. They should be dusted before the glass behind them is washed, or the first breeze puts the dust back. The safe way to handle each type is in how to clean blinds and shutters.
Pool and pool surround
A pool that was serviced all summer needs nothing special now except a look at the schedule. The usual pattern for a private pool here is weekly service through the summer and fortnightly in the cooler months, when cooler water slows the growth of algae. A pool service visit removes debris, scrubs the tiles and the waterline band, cleans or backwashes the filter, and checks and adjusts the water balance before the technician leaves.
A pool that was left is a different job. Green or cloudy water is normally an algae or water-balance problem, and it is put right by cleaning and correct dosing, not by draining the pool. That takes several hours, and sometimes a second visit while the water responds, which is why it is the first thing to start. Say when you book how long the pool has been out of use. The causes are explained in green or cloudy pool water, and the routine that prevents it in villa pool care.
Leave the chemistry to the technician. Pool chemicals are concentrated. They must never be mixed with each other or with household cleaners, and they should be stored closed, dry and out of children's reach. What an owner can usefully do between visits is skim the leaves, empty the skimmer baskets and keep the surround swept, so that less goes into the water.
The paving round the pool is washed with the driveway, not with the pool. Ask for it to be done before the pool's final clean, and for the run-off to be sent away from the water.
Terraces, outdoor furniture and the rooms guests walk through
The last layer is ordinary cleaning, and it belongs to an hourly visit. Outdoor tables and chairs carry the same dust film as the walls. Cushions that were stored need airing. The terrace floor wants sweeping and mopping once the heavy washing is finished, the counter of an outdoor kitchen wants degreasing, and the lights and fans on a covered terrace hold dust and insects.
An hourly visit is yours to direct, so these can go on the list. Say so when you book, so that enough hours are allowed. Our hours guide puts a regular clean of a four- or five-bedroom villa at 2 cleaners for 4 hours each, which is AED 240 with your own products. Allow extra time for the terrace and the furniture. The detail is on the villa cleaning page.
Inside, the same guests pass through the entrance hall and the majlis. A chandelier there has been collecting dust above closed windows all summer, and crystal shows it as soon as evening light comes through an open door. How one is cleaned without damage is in cleaning a crystal chandelier safely.
What changes with where the villa is
The list is the same everywhere. The weight of each item is not. Our area pages describe the homes in each community, and three patterns matter outdoors.
Villas on the desert edge
Close to open sand, fine dust arrives with every windy day. Window tracks, sills, door seals and the paving near the gate take the most time, and the outside can look months older after a single storm. Here it pays to wait for a clear spell before the big clean, and then to keep up with a short visit after each dusty day. What to do first when a storm has just passed is set out in cleaning a villa after a sandstorm.
Villas on the water
Sea air leaves a salt film on glass, frames, rails and walls, and it comes back within weeks. Salt is also hard on outdoor metal, so look at hinges, handles, light fittings and pool equipment during the walk-round. Glass moves up the list here, and it is cleaned through the season, not once at the start of it.
New communities with building work nearby
Where the plots around you are still being built, cement and plaster dust settle on walls and glass faster than the weather alone would bring them. Mention it when you book. More frequent cleaning may be worth it until the work finishes, because the same build-up returns sooner than usual. Cement dust is also abrasive, so glass should be wetted and rinsed before anything is wiped across it.
How the jobs are priced, booked and checked
Two pricing methods apply, and it helps to know which is which before you start.
Window cleaning, and the ordinary cleaning of terraces and furniture, is hourly. The price list is AED 55 for 1 hour, AED 65 for 2 hours, AED 30 an hour for 3–4 hours and AED 25 for each hour after that, per cleaner, with VAT included, and our materials add AED 5 an hour. You choose the hours online, see the price and pay by card once we confirm your booking.
Facade cleaning, pressure washing, garden work and pool service are priced from what you send: photos, sizes and a description, with a free inspection for the larger jobs. Once the price is confirmed you pay by card from My bookings on this website. Jobs of AED 1,000 or more take a 30% advance by that link, and the balance follows by link once the work is done.
What to check before each team leaves
Every one of these jobs ends with a look at the result while the people who did it are still there. Use it. A missed patch is a two-minute fix on the day and a second visit afterwards.
- Garden: walk it with the gardener, watch each irrigation zone run, and see that the cuttings have gone.
- Walls: look at each cleaned wall from the ground for an even finish, and check the edges, the window frames and the lower sections.
- Paving: check that the wash is even, that the water has drained, and that debris pushed onto neighbouring surfaces has been rinsed away.
- Glass: look at it from inside and outside in daylight. Streaks show most with the sun on them.
- Pool: ask to see the water test result and the pump and filter settings.
If something was missed
After a cleaning visit, tell us within 24 hours and a team comes back to re-clean the booked areas free of charge. Photos of what was missed help us brief the cleaners, although they are not a condition. For the garden, pool and other jobs priced from photos, raise it at the walk-through or as soon as you notice it, while the agreed scope is fresh.
Keeping it clean through the season
One big clean does not last until the summer. The outside stays presentable when each surface is on its own rhythm, and these are the usual ones for villas here.
| Surface | Usual rhythm | What shortens it |
|---|---|---|
| Windows and glass doors | Every one to three months | Sea air, building work nearby, sprinklers |
| Facade | Once or twice a year | Desert edge or seafront; dust storms and the humid months |
| Driveway, courtyard and paths | Once or twice a year | Sand, oil spots, bird droppings |
| Garden | Weekly or fortnightly while it is growing | Fast hedges, a large lawn |
| Pool | Weekly in summer, fortnightly in the cooler months | Heavy use, dust, overhanging trees |
Ten minutes a week between visits
None of this is a substitute for the jobs above. Each one stops a small mark turning into a stain before the next visit. For the indoor and seasonal jobs that sit alongside them, see a home maintenance calendar for Abu Dhabi.
- Sweep the entrance, the terrace and the strip of paving by the gate, where wind-blown sand collects.
- Vacuum the sliding-door tracks. In dusty months, every week or two keeps the doors running freely.
- Blot fresh oil drips from the driveway on the day they appear. A new drip is a wipe. An old one is a stain.
- Skim the pool and empty the baskets.
- Once a month, run each irrigation zone while you watch, and turn back any head that has started to hit glass or wall.
- Do not hose the windows and walk away. Tap water dried by the sun leaves the same white spots the sprinklers do. If you rinse glass, take the water off with a squeegee or a cloth.
Common questions
Can a pressure washer be used on the house walls and the windows as well?
On walls, only at a pressure the finish can take, which is why a facade is assessed as its own job and not treated as more driveway. Weak or chalky paint comes off under a jet. On glass, no. A jet can force water past the seals, lift the sealant round the frame and tear insect screens. Windows are washed by hand.
Will cleaning remove the white marks the sprinklers left on the wall?
In most cases yes, depending on the wall finish, and that is judged from photos or at the inspection. Fix the sprinkler first. A wall cleaned on Tuesday and sprayed again on Wednesday starts to mark within days, because the cause has not changed.
How far ahead of a gathering should the work be done?
Have the garden, walls and paving finished a week or more before, so that a delay or a second visit does not land on the day. Keep the glass, the furniture and the final sweep for the last two or three days, because dust settles again on anything cleaned too early. If the pool needs rescuing, start it before everything else.
Is the outside of the upstairs glass included?
Where it can be reached from a balcony or a terrace, yes. Upper-floor glass with nothing to stand on outside it is not part of a window-cleaning visit. Our materials include a step ladder, and tall ladders and scaffolding are not part of them. Describe that glass and send a photo when you book, and what can be done is confirmed before the day.
Does someone need to be at home?
Someone needs to open the gate, show where the taps and power points are, and look at the finished work before the team leaves. It does not have to be the owner. If a housekeeper or a driver will meet the team, tell us who, and tell them which jobs were agreed.
We rent the villa. Which of these jobs are ours and which are the landlord's?
The tenancy contract decides, so read its maintenance clause before paying for anything beyond cleaning. Washing glass and paving is cleaning. Repainting a wall, repairing irrigation or replacing pool equipment changes the property, and it is worth asking the landlord or the agent in writing first.
If only two jobs can be done this month, which two?
The driveway and the ground-floor glass. They are the first things a visitor sees, and they take the least time: a standard driveway is one to two hours of pressure washing, and ground-floor glass is a few hours of hourly work. The garden comes third, because an overgrown garden undoes the other two.
Start with the walk-round, then book in order
Take the photos, list the jobs and book them in the order above: pool rescue and garden first, walls and paving next, glass and furniture last.
The glass, facade and paving services are in our specialist cleaning group, where each page lists what is included and what to send for a price. We work every day from 8 AM – 8 PM. Window cleaning and hourly visits can be booked online with the price shown before you confirm. For the jobs priced from photos, book the service, send the photos and a description, and we confirm the scope and the price before any work starts.
Services in this article
All specialist cleaning guides
- High Windows, Facades and Chandeliers: What a Cleaning Team Can Safely Reach and What It CannotSpecialist cleaning · 17 min read
- Why Sea-Facing Windows and Balcony Glass Get Dirty So Fast, and How Often to Clean ThemSpecialist cleaning · 14 min read
- Streak-Free Windows: What Professionals Use and What to Avoid on Tinted or Coated GlassSpecialist cleaning · 17 min read
- How to Clean Blinds and Shutters Without Damaging ThemSpecialist cleaning · 23 min read
- Villa Exterior Looking Tired? Facade Cleaning, Pressure Washing or Repainting ComparedSpecialist cleaning · 22 min read
- Pressure Washing a Driveway or Yard: Oil Stains, Sand and Surfaces You Should Not BlastSpecialist cleaning · 19 min read
- How to Clean a Crystal Chandelier Safely, and When Not to TrySpecialist cleaning · 19 min read
