Fly Screens in Arabian Ranches

Arabian Ranches is one of the greenest communities in Dubai, and that is exactly why insects find it. A golf course winds through it, there are community lakes and pools, and every street is lined with irrigated lawns and planting. All that watered greenery, along with the still water of the lakes, gives mosquitoes the damp, calm conditions they breed in, and the warm months bring them out in number. On top of that the community sits on the edge of the open desert, which sends flies and other insects drifting in toward the gardens.

There is a health reason to keep them out as well as a comfort one. Mosquitoes are the carriers behind much of what the World Health Organization tracks, including the wide group of vector-borne disease and dengue. A fly screen means the big garden doors and the windows can stay open to the evening air while the mosquitoes and flies are stopped at the mesh, which is why so many villas in the community have them.

What sets a Ranches villa apart is the scale of its openings, and that decides the screen. The wide sliding door from the living room to the garden is the one used most, and it is best served by a retractable screen that draws across when wanted and rolls out of sight when not, or by a sliding screen on its own track. For a span too broad for either, a pleated screen draws flat across and folds away to the side.

Above the ground floor there is more to think about. Double-height and stairwell windows are made to their full height so nothing is left open at the top, and the bedroom terraces upstairs are screened the same way as the doors below. The main entrance takes a hinged or roller screen so it can stand open for the family. See our retractable and sliding door pages for more.

The community grew in stages, and the villas differ a little from one phase to the next. Arabian Ranches 1 holds the original streets, with classic Spanish and Arabian styled homes and mature gardens, among them Saheel, Hattan, Mirador, Alvorada, Al Reem, Palmera and Savannah. Arabian Ranches 2 brought Palma, Rosa, Lila, Yasmin and Azalea, a touch more contemporary and often with larger glazing. Arabian Ranches 3 is the newest, with Sun, Joy and Ruba among its modern villa lines.

The layout changes but the approach does not. Whichever phase your villa is in, we size up every opening on the day and suggest the screen type that fits each, then price the whole home as one. An older Al Reem villa and a new villa in Sun are handled with the same made-to-measure method.

Everything rests on the mesh, and the usual pick is a fine fibreglass net in grey or charcoal. Sight passes straight through it, air flows without resistance, and it turns away the day-to-day mosquitoes and flies. Each colour leaves the view open, charcoal offering a fraction more daytime cover from the road. Across most Ranches villas this standard net answers the need on its own.

A couple of upgrades crop up regularly here. Where a household keeps a cat or dog, and many in the community do, a sturdier pet-resistant net copes with the clawing far better. Set against the tiniest biting insects or fine desert dust, a denser weave seals more out. We cover the options when we measure, and the complete range appears on our mosquito mesh and insect screen pages.

The starting point is a free measurement at the villa. We book a time, come round, and measure up every opening you want covered, right to the millimetre, for a made-to-measure screen will only seal against a frame it matches. A Ranches home tends to carry plenty of openings, so we go through them room by room, fix the type that fits each, and price the whole thing then and there, owing nothing and signing nothing.

We then build the screens to your figures and head back to fit them, normally within four to eight working days. The whole lot mounts on strong double-sided tape, leaving no drilling and no mess behind, and a lone screen is up within minutes. A full villa over many openings fills a fitting day on its own, and you get firm dates at the booking so it all lands in your week.

Almost every screen of ours is fixed with strong double-sided tape in place of screws. Not a hole is sunk into wall, aluminium or uPVC, and lift a screen off and nothing is left to mark where it sat. The tape is made for this and grips through the Dubai heat, keeping a screen put exactly where it went, season after season.

On a villa like these, that clean approach is the point. Those frames belong to a premium Emaar finish, and an owner would sooner not see screws driven into them. Tape leaves the frames and the paintwork untouched, and should you swap a screen or sell up one day, it comes away with nothing left behind. The home keeps its finish and you keep your choices open.

Putting in new screens is only part of the service, because we keep them right afterwards as well. If a screen, one of ours or one fitted by someone else, picks up a hole in the mesh, a warped frame, a roller that has jammed or a weakened magnet, we will come and sort it. In most cases a repair or a re-mesh does the trick, for a good deal less than a new screen, and with the Ranches close the call is a brief one.

That free, no-fee call-out applies to a repair in the community just as it does to new work. WhatsApp through a photo of the problem and we will set out what it needs and the cost. More sits on our fly screen repair and mesh replacement pages.

Booking takes little effort, and the short distance keeps it brisk. The simplest first step is a WhatsApp note naming your sub-community and a rough idea of the windows and doors to be done. We then settle a measuring time around you, come to the villa, and carry on from there. With the Ranches a short drive from base, the two visits line up easily.

On cost, a fixed window screen opens at AED 300 and a door climbs to AED 700, the single and double window screens placed between, each figure pre-VAT and level with the rest of Dubai. There is no charge to measure and the price is locked before work begins, so the figure is plain from the off. Once you are set, every way to reach us is on our contact page.