Do you happen to know a man with a carpet knife and a tin of white paint who can fashion a hole in your ceiling at a very reasonable price?  

Before you take him up on his offer, it pays to know what those cut-outs above your head are supposed to be used for, so you can avoid paying out tenfold on redos and repairs.

Why do I need a ceiling cut in the first place?

Ceiling voids in Dubai need to be accessed for various types of home maintenance and inspection tasks, so it is not uncommon for your ceilings to bear the scars of a “quick fix” or two in the form of hopscotch-style square hatches above your head.

At We Will Fix It, we regularly face the need to make ceiling cuts for maintenance purposes in order to carry out AC coil cleaning work,  AC duct cleaning in Dubai and some other essential maintenance tasks involving components or systems mounted in or located above the ceiling.

In our book, if a job is worth doing, it is worth doing properly, so we only ever proceed with coil cleaning if we can access both sides of the coil. (The same applies to whatever repair or maintenance work we do.)

This optimises the cooling of your AC and will extend the time until the next clean is needed (usually every 18 months to 2 years). In our experience, around one in three Dubai homes require additional ceiling cuts, and we are seeing this more commonly with newer developments.

Once you know a ceiling cut is required, you have two options, you can hire a painting contractor who will carve a hatch and patch it with gypsum and a lick of paint, or you can get a fit-for-purpose access panel installed that will serve you every time your coil needs cleaning in the future.

Why pay more for a fit-for-purpose hatch?

• It won’t ruin the look of your home: After installation, a lower quality access point is generally painted up to a certain point directly surrounding the hatch, leading to what we refer to as the ‘Friesian cow’ effect, where contrasting shades of paint on your ceiling do not match up.
• It is up to the job: A proper access panel (the type that unlocks when gently pushed) is installed to ensure that it never puts pressure on the rest of your ceiling. Our technicians reinforce the entire load bearing area so that when the spring mechanism is pressed for entry, the rest of the ceiling is not prone to cracking. Finally, we always repaint the entire ceiling panel to ensure your access point is visually as seamless as possible.
• It can save you money in the future: Once installed, a high-quality access point is an investment for the future – bearing in mind your coil needs to be accessed for routine maintenance every 18 months to 2 years. A cheap installation is likely to fail to some degree long before that next service is due, and the cost of any damage could be (and often is) many times more than the original outlay for a proper high quality access panel.

In a nutshell

We understand that Dubai residents are sceptical about unnecessary spending (possibly now more than ever) and we are all for economising where appropriate. However servicing AC evaporator coils is fundamental as they are the part of your system that cools the air throughout the warmer seasons.  Hence ensuring they can be accessed properly should be considered a fundamental part of maintaining your home.

If you have questions relating to coil cleaning, hatch installation or general AC maintenance our friendly team is just a phone call away and we are always happy to help with no obligation.