How to Choose a Mosquito Net in Dubai

Where to start: what kind of opening is it?

Look at the window and answer three questions. How does it open: does the sash swing, slide sideways, or not open at all? How wide is it? And if it is a door, how many times a day do you walk through it?

Those three answers eliminate most of the options. A fixed window is closed by a framed screen and the conversation ends there. A sliding balcony door needs a system that runs on its own track. An opening wider than a metre and a half rules out spring-loaded roller screens, because the spring cannot pull a wide sheet evenly.

If you are not sure what construction you have, photograph the opening as a whole and then the opening mechanism close up. From those two pictures a surveyor can usually tell what he is dealing with.

How often will you actually use it?

This is the second most important question and the most underrated. A mechanism rated for a few openings a day dies on a kitchen door within a season.

For an opening in constant use you want a hinged screen with a closer, or pleated: both are built for frequent operation. For a window opened once a week almost anything works, and the sensible move is to take the cheapest.

Motorised screens are a separate case. People buy them not for comfort but because the opening cannot be reached by hand. Putting a motor on a kitchen door is paying for a service life you will burn through in two seasons.

Which mesh, and why that is a separate question

The type of screen and the type of mesh are chosen independently. The mechanism decides how the screen opens. The mesh decides what gets through it.

A standard 1.2 mm aperture holds mosquitoes. It lets small midges through, so if you live near water you need a finer weave. Sand has a fabric of its own, and it is not the same thing as anti-midge mesh.

One consideration that matters specifically in Dubai: the tighter the weave, the faster it clogs. Next to a construction site or in a desert district the finest mesh stops passing air within months. Sometimes the right answer is not the most protective fabric but the one that is easiest to lift out and wash.

What it costs and what moves the price

Starting points from our price list: windows from 200 AED, doors from 250, balconies from 300, terraces from 200, commercial from 250. In the calculator on this site the figure is worked out from the area of the opening at 320 AED per square metre.

The price depends on area, product type and options. A non-standard shape costs more than a rectangle, because a template and profile bending are added. A motorised screen costs more than a manual one by the price of the drive. Colour matching to the RAL palette is part of the order rather than a surcharge announced at the end.

The survey is free and it commits you to nothing. We do not quote before it, because guessing dimensions from a photograph is not honest, and a number invented now changes later anyway.

A screen is chosen for the opening, not from a picture in a catalogue: the mechanism answers for how it opens, the mesh for what gets through it.

Common mistakes when ordering

Ordering to your own measurements without a visit. A centimetre of error becomes the gap that lets in exactly what you were trying to keep out.

Buying one type for the whole house. In a villa the windows and the panoramic door need different things, and a single answer means overpaying in one place and putting up with the wrong thing in another.

Choosing the finest mesh as a precaution. In a dusty district that decision reveals itself a few months later.

Forgetting the closer on a door. A door people leave open makes the screen pointless.