URGENT Jumeriah Village Triangle Residents!

Dear Veritas, hope you are well. I just wanted to say many thanks for your detailed, clear and well explained post regarding JVT 2 bed villa fresh air ceiling fans switch buttons and other issues. We called electricians etc more than once just to understand where is the switch on/off button of the fresh air vents downstairs but no one could figure it out for months. We finally turned it off after reading your post. Wish you all the best and be safe. Just a small addition regarding bathrooms fresh air fans for new JVT residents; it's section 7 switch button in the large grey box in the main entrance door corridor downstairs. <em>edited by Fns on 16/02/2014</em>

Hello peeps We have recently move to JVT and would like to know the name of a water tanker company/person who can come and fill up our swimming pool. We have been told that the cost is around AED600. Will be most grateful for any advice/information.

Hi Ladies, I lived in JVT in an arabic villa for 2 years, left about a year ago , so before the new 'fuel surcharges' I think. However, we had sprinkler system with 7 sections that in summer ran for 3 mins each section in morning, 1/2 mins midday, and 3/4 mins evening. And some extra watering by hose for some patches and pot plants. My A/C was on constantly during the day downstairs and landing and bedroom one all night. 2 of us showering every day, several washes a week, dishwasher etc Bills during summer, including housing fee were never more than 2700 ish. 1500 ish or less in winter. The ghost system you are refering to is actually a fresh air system. The unit is located in the maids room ceiling and the control box for the temperature is in a small grey box on the wall (the wall that is the garage wall if you like) in roof. The unit, as it suggests, supplies fresh air throughout the villa, regarless of whether the A/C is on or off, and creates almost like a pressurised atmosphere in the house, hence the 'wirring' (sometimes even whistling sound like at home countries when it's blowing a hooley outside!!) sound and the doors sucking shut . This system sucks in air constantly (if on) from the slats that you can see down the side of what I call the alley leading from the garage door side of gardn, above the maids room window. Firstly, if you want to keep it on, you need to get an engineer to check what level the temp box is set at. We had the same problem as one of the ladies on these JVT threads, that an ice block formed on the radiator grill (on the unit in the maids room roof) and flooded the maids room and utility. This was because the temp was set too low -10 degrees (!!) and in 50 degree summer, that was just too much for it to cope with and formed the ice . The temp should be set to 18-20 degrees. Secondly, if you are using the fresh air unit, then the filters have to cleaned AT LEAST once a month. These are not the easiest of filters to get out and quite big and again would be useful if one of the A/C chaps could show you how to do it and then you can do it yourselves. But if you imagine the amount of cr@p they are sucking in, on a building site, surrounded by sand, they get very clogged, very quickly, hence decreasing the efficiency of the unit, making it work harder, costing more money. Thirdly, if you want to turn it off, (which I recommend), it will affect your A/C slightly. With ours off, our A/C temps never dropped below 23 degrees which in summer was not enough, but I don't think our A/C units were working as well as they should have been. Turning off the fresh air unit saved us about 800 Dhs a month. And yes I think it is Section 3 big switch (might be Section 4 will have to check with hubby) in the upstairs box. There are actually 2 Section 3(4) switches, 1 is definitely in the upstaits box and forgive me, but I can't remember if the second is in there too or 1 is the box downstairs in the entrance but either way, both Section 3(or 4) switches need to be turned off. These should ONLY turn off the fresh air sytem, nothing else, so if it is, you need to check with a Nakheel A/C chap. They 'should' know which switches to turn off. With reqards A/C get someone to check the units on the roof, ie all the coils, for gas leaks, they are a bit prone to this. Even you can do it, with a bottle full of water and some farly liquid in it, pour it over the coils and if there's any bubbling - you've got a leak. A/C blowing out hot air means the gas has run out. I believe that DEWA has had some charge increases since we last paid it, but I think there has to be something wrong with these bills people are getting. Maybe you need to get together and go as group to DEWA. I would also write to the papers as a group. Some of the bills people are getting are what I used to pay in the UK for a 4 bed detached house with gas and elect for a whole YEAR!! And an extra for Ange74 that she mentioned on another thread :) The water tank is under the garage floor and is pretty big. Even with a sprinkler tank it shouldn't affect your water supply drastically. I used to find that the water didn't run quite as well when the garden tank was filling up as no doubt it was never built to cope with dealing with 2 demands for water at once!! But it should not run out! We actually did have that problem when we first moved in over 2 years ago, we were on water delivery twice a day, and quite often the water tanker didn't turn up, so if the garden had been watered, yes we ran completely out of water in the house. But those days are gone now :) And, from another thread, there is also issues with the toilets. We had to have our upstairs toilets taken out and 'redone' as the outflow pipe was higher than u bend/water pool (!! muppets). We should have done this in the downstairs loo too but just couldn't put up with more hassle (we had a lot of snagging issues). The flush pressure is not good and as far as the downstairs loo is concerned, there is also an issue with the gradient of the flow channel from the toilet to the manhole which is also in the 'alley' and then to the second manhole in the garage. Those of you who live in the villas will know that the downstairs toilet is on the opposite side of the house to the manhole in the alley. The gradient between these two is only about 6 inches covering, what, 40/50 feet?? So, when you go to the 'loo' (if you get my drift) in the downstairs loo, the flush is, a) not powerful enough and b) not enough water is released, to get the contents adequately from toilet to manhole!!!! It then needs to get from manhole 1 (in alley) to manhole 2 in garage (right hand side looking out of garage) and ideally beyond that!! Again gradient from manhole 1 to manhole 2 is about another 6-10 inches. So solution to avoid your house smelling like a sewerage works and prevent manholes from getting blocked up, is to use the loo showers as an 'extra' flush when you've been 'to the loo'. At least these have a nice bit of pressure. Simply use the shower for 30 seconds-1minute and that should do the job, or al least flush it to where it should get to!!! :) And one more thing, just keep an eye on the towel 'hooks' that are in the master bathroom on the wall by the loo. I noticed one day that water was dripping from the right hand side one (when looking at them). When these had been put up 'they' had drilled through the downflow pipe from one of the units which is directly above these 'hooks' in the roof!!!!???!!! So we had to have it removed, the tiles taken off, the wall drilled out, pipe section replaced and all filled in again! I did not have that hook put back up!! Sorry for long post but have been there, bought the T shirt and come out the other end, so hope it is of some help to you all. V

2. We recently figured out that there is no maintenance charges in JVT and so the bills can be relatively high compared to other properties. We used to live in an apartment in uptown mirdif before moving to JVT and we used to pay a max of AED 350/month for DEWA but that's because we paid AED 18,000/year in maintenance charges. Hi Metness, how have you figured out that there is no maintenance charges in JVT? Why would no maintenance fees mean higher DEWA? DEWA is water and elect (and housing and other little gov't related charges). Maintenance is rubbish collection, landscaping etc which is up to Nakheel.

Any update on this ? Do you turn off "section 3 " or Y4, R4 and B4 ? Did it make a differece in the bills? TIA

Rouny, could you confirm which district you are in please?

which villas are you referring to regarding the ghost system etc? we switched off our Y4, R4 and B4 switches and that tripped the entire 2nd floor. we then switched off section 3 and that tripped the entire 1st floor. we're stumped. tia

I actually just got word from Nakheel that we will be getting handover of our townhouse in JVT next month. Other than the ridiculous DEWA bills how are you ladies liking it over there so far? Is there any sense of a community? Kids playing? We're currently renting in the Springs and I'm worried we'll be moving into a ghost town Unfortunately the community areas arent finished, there are no parks/swimming pools etc that you may be used to in the springs. Some children do play in the street but some drivers have little care, In honestly the gardens are big enough, so hopefully your little ones can make friends and then have play dates etc. If you are on FB there is a JVT group set up - most recently there has been a neighbourhood day that was set up by some people in District 8 - From my understanding its going to be a regular thing to bring the community together HTH

2. Make sure you turn off section 3 of the box upstairs immediately if it’s on - this is something that aids the AC (as the AC by itself can't cope with the summer heat ). Section 3 might be on without you noticing it and it won't be turned off when you turn off the AC unless you go upstairs and turn it off manually. We knew about this as we moved in back in Jan and the place was freezing with no AC on and when we called Nakheel they send someone over who explained the mysteries of ‘section 3’ Metness, Out of interest and from what you have said the section 3 should be turned on during the summer as well as the 'full' ac? Thx in advance :)

2. We recently figured out that there is no maintenance charges in JVT and so the bills can be relatively high compared to other properties. We used to live in an apartment in uptown mirdif before moving to JVT and we used to pay a max of AED 350/month for DEWA but that's because we paid AED 18,000/year in maintenance charges. Hi Metness, how have you figured out that there is no maintenance charges in JVT?