@fm-hassan
Facilities manager for a couple of Dubai buildings. Chillers, cooling towers and the bills that come with them.
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Our Toshiba split AC has started flashing the timer light (and I think the operation light too) in a repeating pattern, but there is no code on any display. How do I actually read…
Our TCL split AC is showing what looks like an E or F code on the indoor display, and sometimes a light just blinks instead. I don't want to start swapping parts off a random onli…
Our Meadows villa is around 20 years old and the water tanks (the roof one and the underground one) are the originals. We get them cleaned, but I'm starting to wonder: - Beyond cl…
Our Al Barari villa has the full works outside — a couple of fountains, a pond-style water feature in the planting, and irrigation everywhere. In this heat the feature water goes…
Our Jumeirah Islands villa backs right onto one of the lakes, and we've got a lot of outdoor electrics near the water — waterfront and landscape lighting along the edge, power out…
Older villa, original electrics. I've noticed the distribution board (the fuse box) is making a faint buzzing/humming sound, and when I put my hand near it the cover feels a bit w…
The timer light on our Panasonic AC keeps blinking and the cooling's dropped off. I gather the blinking means an error, but there's no obvious code on the display. - How do I get…
We've just bought our first home in Dubai (an apartment) and I'm realising I've no idea what to budget for maintenance each year — coming from renting, the landlord handled all th…
We get the occasional power cut, and a few times now the AC (and the building's chiller) hasn't come back on when the power returned — or it takes ages. Once it eventually started…
Our office is on the building's central/district cooling and the facilities company keeps mentioning both "AHU" and "FCU" — and I genuinely can't tell what's what, or which one is…
Our Carrier split AC in the villa started flashing one of the small lights on the indoor unit last night — a repeating blink, then a pause, then again. The remote still works and…
Every summer the copper AC pipes in our ceiling void and on the outdoor run start sweating and dripping, and we've had a couple of brown stains appear on the ceiling. A technician…
We own a flat on district cooling and every year a company offers us an "FCU service" or "AC service." Honestly I've never been sure what I'm paying for — the chilled water comes…
We run a unit in Al Quoz, part warehouse, part office, and the AC seems to struggle more than it should. It's a dusty, hot industrial area and the units run long hours. What maint…
I want to get our villa's cooling properly ready before summer rather than discovering a problem when it's already 45 degrees. What should a pre-summer checklist cover for a Dubai…
We run an office in a Business Bay tower and also have a couple of apartments in the building, and every summer something AC-related seems to fail at the worst time. What maintena…
I look after a residential building and our water chiller is getting on, we're seeing more frequent repairs and the electricity side seems to be creeping up. How should we actuall…
Our LG AC keeps lighting up what I think is a filter symbol, and there's an 'auto clean' button on the remote that we've honestly never understood. Does the filter light mean the…
Our Meadows villa has started tripping regularly, sometimes it's obvious (kettle plus something), but often it goes for no clear reason and we just reset it. Separately, we want t…
I have noticed the foam insulation on my AC pipes (the ones running to the outdoor unit) is cracked, and in places it is soggy and there is dampness around it. Someone said re-ins…
I manage a couple of buildings and in one of them the chilled-water riser pipes in the service shaft are sweating and dripping — there's water pooling at the bottom of the riser a…
Now the worst of the summer is easing I want to give the villa exterior a proper once-over before the cooler, occasionally wet months. I know the sun does damage over summer but I…
I'm putting a whole-building annual maintenance contract (AMC) out to tender and the bids are all over the place — some cheap, some triple, and genuinely hard to compare. - What s…
We run packaged rooftop AC units on a couple of small commercial buildings, and I want a proper preventive-maintenance (PM) schedule instead of reacting to breakdowns. - What shou…
I manage a building on a water-cooled chiller and I want to know whether the plant is genuinely running well or quietly wasting energy. People mention "delta-T" and "approach temp…
Looking at cooling options, I keep seeing "packaged" or "rooftop" units mentioned alongside splits and ducted. I get splits and ducted, but not where the packaged unit fits. - Wha…
Our water-cooled chiller setup has a cooling tower, and "water treatment" keeps appearing as a recurring cost line. Before I just keep paying it, I want to understand it: - What d…
I manage a building on district cooling and the bill has two parts: a consumption charge (for cooling used) and a big capacity / demand charge that's there regardless of usage. Ow…