7 min read
Homes in Dubai do not break at random. They break in a pattern, and the pattern repeats every year. Sun cooks the outside. Dust clogs everything that pulls air. Hard water leaves white crust in every pipe and every kettle.
Once you know the pattern you can get ahead of it. This is a checklist you can actually follow, month by month, without owning any tools.
March and April, before the heat arrives
This is the most important month on the list. Everything you do now saves you in August.
Get the AC serviced. All of it, not just the unit in the bedroom that is making a noise. A service means the filters and the coil get washed, the drain pipe gets cleared, the gas is checked and the wiring is looked at.
Book it in March if you can. In June every company in the city is busy and you will wait days.
- Wash or replace every AC filter
- Get the coil cleaned properly, not just wiped
- Clear the drain pipe before it blocks and drips on your floor
- Ask the technician to check the gas level and say if it is low
- Test that every room actually gets cold, not just the one you sit in
Why the drain pipe matters more than people think
An AC pulls water out of the air. That water has to go somewhere, and it goes down a small pipe. In Dubai that pipe fills with dust and slime, and then the water backs up.
You will see it as a wet patch on the wall under the unit, or water dripping onto the floor. People think the AC is leaking. It is not. The drain is blocked, and clearing it takes ten minutes.
Left alone, that water gets into the ceiling and the wall. Then it is a paint job and a plaster job instead of a ten minute job.
May to September, through the summer
Once the heat is here, the job is watching rather than fixing.
Listen to the AC. A new noise is the machine telling you something before it stops. A rattle is usually a loose panel. A squeal is often the fan. A click that repeats is electrical and worth a call.
Feel the air. If it is cooling less than it did last month, do not wait. That almost always means gas is low, and gas does not get used up on its own. If it is low, it is leaking somewhere. Topping it up without finding the leak buys you about one year.
Check for water. Under the indoor unit, under the sink, around the water heater. Water in the wrong place is always cheaper to fix on the day you notice it.
Water tanks and pumps, twice a year
If you live in a villa, this one is yours and nobody else will do it.
Your tank collects dust and sediment. Over a year it builds a layer at the bottom. That is what people are tasting when they say the water is off. A tank clean takes a few hours and should happen twice a year in Dubai.
The pump is the other half. If water pressure drops in one tap, it is usually that tap. If it drops everywhere, look at the pump.
The kitchen and bathroom list, every three months
These are the small jobs that turn into big ones if you leave them.
- Pour hot water down slow drains before they block completely
- Look under the sink with a torch for damp, not just for puddles
- Check the seal around the bath and shower for gaps or black marks
- Run the water heater hot and listen for banging, which means sediment
- Test that the toilet stops filling after it flushes
Hard water, and what it quietly does
Dubai water is hard. That means it carries minerals, and those minerals stay behind as white crust.
You see it on taps and shower heads first. You do not see it inside the water heater, where the same crust builds up on the element. A heater full of sediment takes longer to heat, uses more power, and eventually bangs when it runs.
Flushing a water heater once a year is a small job that adds years to it. Almost nobody does it.
November to February, the cool months
This is when you do the jobs that are miserable in summer.
Paint. Fix the cracks that opened up when everything expanded in the heat. Deal with the outside of a villa, the walls, the gate, the boundary wall. Get the balcony cleaned properly.
It is also the right time to book anything that means the AC is off for a few hours, because you can survive that in January.
After the rain
It rains a handful of days a year, and those days find every weak spot.
Walk around a day or two later and look for damp patches on walls and ceilings, especially near windows and on the top floor of a villa. A stain that appears after rain is water getting in from outside. Painting over it hides the mark and changes nothing, because the water will come back next time.
Check the balcony drain as well. A blocked balcony drain in a rare heavy shower is how water ends up inside a flat.
The yearly list, all in one visit
You do not need to do these one at a time. Most of them can happen in a single visit if you write them down first.
A sensible yearly booking looks like this: AC service in March and again in September, tank clean twice, water heater flushed once, and a walk around with somebody who will point at things you stopped seeing.
If you are looking after more than one property, this is where a yearly contract earns its money, because somebody else remembers the dates. Any decent company that covers every trade will put the whole list on a calendar and just turn up.
What is not worth doing
A short list, because saving money matters too.
You do not need the AC serviced four times a year. Twice is right for Dubai. You do not need to replace a unit because it is old, if it still cools properly and does not leak. You do not need to fix a door that sticks in July, because it will often free itself in November when everything shrinks again.
Anyone who tells you otherwise on the phone, before seeing the thing, is guessing.
Want somebody to look at it?
Tell us what is happening and we will say what is likely involved and how soon we can come. If the honest answer is that it can wait, we will say that too.
