Table of Contents
The short answer
An annual maintenance contract is a year of scheduled visits, sometimes with breakdown call-outs added, bought in one agreement. It is worth having when three things are true. You would have booked those visits anyway. The contract costs less than buying them one at a time, or includes something you would otherwise pay for. And its exclusions do not cover the very things most likely to go wrong.
As a rough guide, a contract tends to suit a villa with many AC units, a home with older equipment, a ground-floor property under constant pest pressure, and anyone who knows they will not remember to book. Paying per visit tends to suit an apartment with two or three newer units, a tenant on a one-year lease, and a home where the landlord or the building already maintains part of the system.
A pool is a separate case. It needs attention every week in summer, so it is on a schedule either way, and the real questions are what each visit includes and how long you are tied in.
IHR Dream Cleaning publishes prices for individual AC and pest control visits and quotes other maintenance work before it starts. We have not published an annual maintenance contract, so this guide compares the two ways of buying without selling either. If you want regular visits from us, ask when booking whether a regular arrangement is available for your home.
What an annual maintenance contract actually is
The words cover three quite different products, and most disappointment comes from buying one while expecting another.
| Type | What you get | What you still pay for |
|---|---|---|
| Scheduled service only | A fixed number of preventive visits in the year | Every breakdown and every part |
| Service plus call-outs | The visits, and labour when something fails | Parts, gas and anything on the exclusion list |
| Comprehensive | Visits, call-outs and some parts | Whatever the exclusion list names, often the costliest parts |
What the contract price is made of
Whatever the label, a contract price is made of four things: the visits themselves, an allowance for the call-outs the company expects you to make, its administration, and a margin for the risk it is carrying. If the contract carries little risk, because parts and gas are excluded, the fair comparison is simply its visits against the same visits bought singly. If it carries real risk, you are buying a kind of insurance, and insurance is worth most to the people likely to claim.
Ask which of the three types you are being offered before you look at the figure. The name on the brochure does not tell you. The exclusion list does.
The sum that decides it
You can work out whether a contract pays for your home in ten minutes, with a published price list and your own records.
- Count the visits you would really book in a year if you paid for each one. Not what a careful owner ought to book. What you would.
- Price those visits from a published list.
- Add what breakdowns cost you last year, if you had any. Use the invoices, not your memory.
- Write down the contract price for the same year.
- Take out of the contract's value anything it excludes that you would still have to pay for.
- Compare the two totals. Then ask what the difference is buying: priority, a single number to call, or not having to remember.
A worked example with our published prices
We recommend AC servicing every 6 to 12 months, and it is priced at AED 129 per unit. Take an apartment with three split units. Serviced once a year, that is AED 387. Serviced twice, before the summer and after it, it is six services and AED 774 for the year. A villa with eight units serviced twice a year comes to AED 2,064. A lighter split-unit clean is AED 99 per unit.
Those figures are the yardstick. A contract offered for the same home is good value on price if it comes in under the figure for the same number of services of the same depth, or if it costs more but includes call-outs you have real reason to expect. It is poor value if it costs more, excludes gas and parts, and counts a filter rinse as a service. Check what is done at each visit before you compare the totals.
The same sum works for pest control. Many homes book a preventive treatment every three to six months, which is two to four a year. For a studio at our starting price of AED 149, that is from AED 298 to AED 596 a year. Larger homes start higher, at AED 179 a treatment for one bedroom and from AED 299 for a villa, and each price is confirmed with the pest and the home before the visit. A flat on a high floor with no history of pests may need none of those visits, and then any contract is the dearer choice.
Air conditioning: where a contract helps and where it does not
An AC needs two kinds of attention. The first is predictable: cleaning the filters, the coil and the drain, and checking the gas pressure, the thermostat and the electrical connections, once or twice a year. The second is not. A capacitor, a fan motor, a control board or a compressor fails when it fails, more often in older units and in the hottest weeks. A contract can make the first kind more regular, and sometimes cheaper. Only some contracts touch the second kind at all.
What a service should include, and how it differs from a quick wash, is set out in AC cleaning, servicing and duct cleaning compared. Use it to judge what a contract's visits are worth.
The exclusions to read for
Gas is very often excluded or capped, and it deserves a question of its own. Refrigerant is sealed inside the system and is not used up, so a unit that needs topping up has a leak. A contract that tops it up every year without tracing the leak is not maintaining anything. The reasoning is in when an AC really needs gas.
Compressors, control boards and motors are usually charged as parts, and these are the costly failures. Duct cleaning is normally a separate job with its own price. Units past a stated age are sometimes left out altogether, which removes the very units most likely to need help. None of this makes a contract bad. It tells you which of the three types you are looking at.
Who each way of buying suits
The more units a home has and the older they are, the more a contract with call-outs has to offer. The fewer and newer they are, the more it is simply a pre-paid service.
| Your situation | Usually the better fit | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Villa with many units | Contract, or one visit for all units | More units, more chance one fails in a given year |
| Older units, out of warranty | Contract with call-outs | Breakdown labour is where the value is |
| Two or three newer splits | Pay per visit | The sum above rarely favours a contract |
| Units under manufacturer warranty | Pay per visit | Faults go to the manufacturer first |
| Lease ending within the year | Pay per visit | Nothing to cancel or transfer |
| Landlord or office with several sites | Contract | One record and one number to call |
In a tower, find out first what is yours
Where cooling is supplied centrally, the building or its cooling provider may maintain some or all of the equipment, and a private contract on top can duplicate work that is already being done. Your tenancy contract and the building management are the two places to ask. Who is responsible between landlord and tenant is a matter for that contract, and it differs from one tenancy to the next.
What our own AC visit covers, and how faults are diagnosed and quoted, is on the AC repair and servicing page. The published prices are compared in AC cleaning prices in Abu Dhabi.
Pest control: a schedule suits some homes and not others
Pest contracts are usually built on general treatments for crawling insects at fixed intervals, with free call-backs if activity returns between visits. The call-back is the valuable part. The scheduled treatment matters less than the promise to return.
What they usually leave out is the list of pests that cost the most to treat. Bed bugs, termites and rodents are commonly quoted separately, because each needs its own method and often more than one visit. A bed bug treatment, for instance, often needs a second visit 10 to 14 days after the first. So a general pest contract may not protect you from the three problems people fear most, and it is worth asking about each by name.
Pest pressure decides it
Ground-floor homes, villas with gardens and buildings with shared bin rooms see pests all year. For them a preventive treatment every three to six months is common, with the shorter interval for the most exposed, and commercial premises sometimes do better on a schedule than on a call each time something is seen. A flat on a high floor with covered drains and no history may go years between treatments. For that home a contract pays for visits it does not need.
In an apartment, ask what the building already does. Shared areas, bin rooms and service shafts are where an infestation usually starts, and treating your own flat on a contract while the source goes untreated buys short relief each time.
What moves the price of a single treatment is explained in pest control prices in Abu Dhabi, and what our visit includes is on the pest control page. If your home is under steady pressure, ask about a scheduled plan when you book.
Pools: the schedule is not optional, the commitment is
A pool differs from the other two because doing nothing is not one of the choices. In Abu Dhabi's heat and dust, water left untreated for even a few weeks turns cloudy, grows algae and stains at the waterline. Private pools here usually need weekly service in summer and fortnightly in the cooler months.
So the comparison is not a contract against occasional visits. It is a regular arrangement with a long commitment against a regular arrangement with a short one, or against doing the weekly work yourself and calling for help when something goes wrong.
A proper visit covers four things: skimming and debris removal, cleaning the tiles and the waterline, cleaning or backwashing the filter, and testing and balancing the water. Use that as the checklist for any offer, then ask these questions.
- Are the chemicals included in the visit price, or billed on top?
- How many visits a month in summer, and does the number drop in the cooler months together with the price?
- Is recovering a green pool included, or priced as a separate job?
- Who repairs the pump, the filter and the lights, and how is that charged?
- What happens while you travel for weeks in summer? A pool cannot be paused the way a cleaning visit can.
- How much notice ends the arrangement?
How our pool service is booked
Our pool service is quoted by the pool's size, its condition and how often it is booked. A one-off reset is available for a pool that has been neglected or unused, with the choice of setting up a regular schedule afterwards or not. A pool kept on a regular schedule needs less work at each visit than one seen irregularly, and skipping visits usually means the next one takes longer and costs more.
The details are on the pool cleaning and maintenance page, and the weekly routine is in villa pool care in an Abu Dhabi summer.
Contract and pay per visit, side by side
Neither way of buying is the right one for every home. The table shows what each gives up.
| Question | Annual contract | Pay per visit |
|---|---|---|
| Cost over a quiet year | Higher, if it priced in call-outs you did not make | Lower: you paid only for the visits |
| Cost over a bad year | Lower, if call-outs and parts were truly covered | Higher: each fault is its own bill |
| Getting it done | Booked for you | Depends on you remembering |
| Flexibility | Tied to one company for the term | Free to change, pause or stop |
| Moving out mid-year | Ask what is refunded or transferred | Nothing to unwind |
| Records | One agreement, one file | You keep each invoice yourself |
| Suits | Many units, older equipment, landlords, offices | Small homes, newer equipment, short tenancies |
Twelve questions to ask before you sign
Put these to any company offering a maintenance contract, and ask for the answers in the agreement and not only in conversation.
- What exactly is done at each visit? Ask for the checklist in writing.
- How many visits are included, and who books them, the company or you?
- Is breakdown labour included, and is there a limit on the number of call-outs?
- Is a response time for breakdowns written into the agreement, or only said?
- Which parts are included, and how are the others priced?
- For AC: is gas included, and what happens when a leak is found?
- For pest control: which pests are covered by name, and are call-backs between visits free?
- Are any units, rooms or outdoor areas excluded, for instance because of age or access?
- Is the whole year paid in advance, or visit by visit, and is VAT inside the figure?
- What happens if you move, sell or travel for the summer? Can it be paused, transferred or refunded in part?
- Does it renew automatically, and at what price?
- What record do you receive after each visit?
Two checks that apply with or without a contract
Ask for the company's trade licence number and which activities the licence covers, and see that they include the work you are buying. And insist on a written record after each visit: what was checked, what was found, what was used. A contract with no visit reports is a subscription, not maintenance.
A middle way: pay per visit, but on a calendar
Most of what a contract gives a careful household is regularity, and regularity can be had without one. Put the dates in your phone and book each visit as it comes due. The intervals below are the ones on our service pages.
| Job | Usual interval | Does it need an agreement? |
|---|---|---|
| AC servicing | Every 6 to 12 months | No: two reminders a year |
| Preventive pest control | Every 3 to 6 months, under pressure | Only where pressure is constant |
| Pool | Weekly in summer, fortnightly when cool | A regular arrangement, yes |
| Water tank | Every 6 to 12 months | No: one or two visits a year |
| Garden | Weekly or fortnightly while growing | A regular arrangement helps |
| Grease trap in a commercial kitchen | By kitchen volume, often monthly or more | A fixed schedule, yes |
Two examples at opposite ends
Tank cleaning shows the point well. One or two visits a year, each ending with an inspection report, is a schedule nobody needs a contract to keep. Water tank cleaning is quoted by the tank's size and access. A restaurant's grease trap is the opposite case. The interval is short, a missed visit can end with a blocked drain that stops the kitchen, and a fixed schedule is the sensible way to buy it.
The whole year, job by job and season by season, is laid out in our home maintenance calendar.
How IHR prices maintenance today
What we publish is simple. AC servicing and split-unit cleaning are priced per unit, at the figures used in the worked example. Pest control starts from AED 149 for a studio and goes up with the size of the home, to AED 229 for three bedrooms and from AED 299 for a villa. An AC repair visit starts from AED 99 for one technician's first hour and the diagnosis, with gas and parts quoted before the repair. Pool, tank and garden work is quoted from photos or a free inspection before it starts. Every price includes VAT, no call-out fee is added to it, and a same-day visit, a Friday or a public holiday costs the same as any other day. The per-unit and studio figures are on our price list, and the starting prices are on each service page.
We have not published an annual maintenance contract or a contract price, and nothing in this guide should be read as one. What our service pages do say is that pool and garden care are normally booked on a recurring schedule, that pest control can be scheduled for homes and businesses under steady pressure, and that faults are quoted only after inspection, with nothing replaced before you approve the figure. If you would like regular maintenance visits, ask when booking whether a regular arrangement is available for your home and what it would include.
Urgent jobs do not depend on having an agreement with us. Leaks, blocked drains, lockouts and cooling failures are given priority wherever the day's schedule allows, with no emergency surcharge. Quoted work is paid online by card from My bookings on this website once the price is confirmed, and a quoted job of AED 1,000 or more takes a 30% advance by that link.
Regular cleaning visits are a different matter and should not be confused with a maintenance contract. Those plans take a percentage off each visit and involve no contract and no payment ahead.
Common questions
Is an AC service contract worth it for an apartment?
On price alone, usually not for two or three newer split units: the sum above gives a small yearly figure that a contract has to beat. It can still be worth it if the units are old, if you want breakdown labour included, or if a landlord asks for a continuous record. Before any of that, check whether the building or the landlord already maintains the system.
Does a contract cover gas refills?
Often it does not, or it covers a limited amount. Ask, and ask the more useful question as well: what the company does when a unit is found low. The right answer is that it looks for the leak. Our own technicians explain any gas or parts requirement before you approve it.
My tenancy contract says I maintain the AC. Do I need a contract for that?
Read what the clause asks for. Some ask for regular servicing, and some name a maintenance contract. If it is servicing, a dated invoice for each service is your record, and it is worth asking the landlord in writing whether that is what they expect to see at the end of the tenancy. Keep every invoice either way.
Can a contract be cancelled part-way through the year?
Only as its terms allow, which is why the question belongs before the signature. A contract paid in full in advance is the hardest to unwind. One billed visit by visit leaves you free to stop. If you may move within the year, ask whether the contract can be transferred to your new address or to the next occupant.
Is quarterly pest control necessary?
Not for every home. It depends on pressure: the floor you live on, a garden, shared bin rooms, food businesses nearby and whether you have had pests before. A home with none of those can reasonably treat when there is a problem and not before. A home with several is one where a regular interval prevents more than it costs.
Can I look after the pool myself and call only when there is a problem?
Yes, if you really do test and balance the water every week and keep the filter clean. In summer a missed fortnight can be enough to turn the water, and recovering a neglected pool takes several hours, sometimes spread over more than one visit while the water responds to treatment. Store pool chemicals as their labels say and never mix them. What goes wrong and why is covered in green or cloudy pool water.
Is it better to have every AC unit serviced in one visit?
It is easier, and it gives the technician the whole picture. Villas and offices with several split units can book a single visit covering routine servicing on all of them, and servicing every unit in a villa is usually completed in half a day. The price is per unit either way. What you save is the arranging, and you get one dated record for the whole home.
Booking a single visit, or asking about regular ones
Book on the website or in the IHR Dream app. Choose the service, give the number of AC units, the size of the home or the size of the pool, and describe what you want done. For work that has to be seen first, the inspection is free. If you want the same service at regular intervals, say so in the booking and ask whether a regular arrangement is available for your home.
A visit can be moved or cancelled free of charge up to 6 hours before it starts. Everything we maintain and repair is listed on the maintenance and repairs page. When you have done the sum, book a visit.
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