Dubai Creek Harbour — taking handover of a new apartment, what should I check on the AC and FCU before the snagging window closes?

Good instinct to snag the AC before the window closes — in a Creek Harbour tower it's a fan-coil unit (FCU) fed by district cooling, not a split with its own condenser, so the checks are a bit different. Run through these:

• Condensate drainage first. The FCU's drain pan and condensate line are the number-one apartment problem here — if it's mis-pitched or partly blocked it overflows into the ceiling and stains the plaster weeks later. Ask for it to be run and checked, and look for any existing staining around the ceiling grilles.
• Cooling and the coil/filter. Make sure every room actually reaches temperature and holds it. Weak or slow cooling on a brand-new unit is often a dirty/blocked filter, a coil issue, or a chilled-water valve not opening fully.
• Noise. A quiet apartment shows up FCU rattles, fan-bearing hum or an airflow whistle — log anything audible now.
• Thermostat and controls. Check the thermostat responds, the modes work, and the BTU/consumption metering is set up.
• Airflow balance. Some rooms lagging while others over-cool is a balancing/controls issue worth flagging.

The reason to catch these at handover is simple: a drainage or FCU fault fixed on the snag list is the developer's cost; the same fault three months later is yours. If you'd rather have someone run the FCU-and-drainage check with you, that's the work a team covering Dubai Creek Harbour does — and if a ceiling leak does show up later, the dripping-FCU thread walks through stopping it.