This range is an intersection rather than a category of its own. Every panel on it pairs a beaded frame with the FlipFix fitting method, and the two are solving different problems.
The bead is about the finished surface. Instead of a flange sitting on top of the wall, the frame carries a perforated bead around its edge, the sort of profile a plasterer already works to elsewhere on the job. Once it is taped and skimmed, the frame is inside the surface and the door is the only part still reading as a panel. The wider beaded access panels range covers that frame across every fixing method.
The FlipFix side is about the fixing. Rather than screwing back into studs or noggins, the panel is offered into the aperture and clamped against the rear face of the board, which turns a two person job into a one person one. The full FlipFix access panels range shows the same system in other frame types, and our guide to fitting a FlipFix panel is ten minutes well spent before the first one goes in.
Sequence is the thing to get right here, because two trades are involved and they arrive at different points in the programme.
Stage one is mechanical. The opening is cut to suit the panel, the frame is offered in, and the clamps are wound up until the frame pulls tight against the board. Take the aperture size and the clamp setting from the instructions supplied with the panel rather than from habit, because overtightening drags the board instead of gripping it, and a hole cut too generously leaves the clamp nothing to bite on. Our installation instructions hold the current guides.
Stage two belongs to the finishing trade. The bead is taped and skimmed in with the surrounding surface in the ordinary way. After that the panel is a door in a wall rather than a fitting on a wall.
Two consequences. Get these panels in before the skim, not after, since working a beaded frame into a finished wall means opening the finish back up again. And on the rated versions, check the supplied instructions for any sealing wanted around the frame, because that step is part of how the arrangement is meant to perform and not a cosmetic afterthought.
The same frame and the same fixing run through several door materials and ratings.
The line that leads this range. A board faced door skimmed at the same time as the frame gives the flattest result available, because door and wall take the same finish. Standard and one hour rated versions are both listed, alongside the wider plasterboard access panels.
A finished metal face rather than a skimmed one, chosen where the panel gets opened often or the surface has to take knocks and cleaning. Standard, one hour and two hour versions are listed in this frame.
Sixty minutes is offered in both door materials. One hundred and twenty minutes is offered in the metal door line. Any rating depends on correct fitting and on the construction the panel sits in, so read the documentation for the product you have chosen. The 1hr fire rated access panels page covers that in more depth.
There is a one hour circular plasterboard panel on a beaded frame, for openings where a round cut suits the ceiling or the service running through it better than a square one.
Where no stock size works, the made to measure plasterboard FlipFix panel is built to your dimensions. Have the opening size and the wall build up in front of you before configuring it.
The decision most people are really making on this page is board face or metal face, and it is a decision about life after handover rather than about the installation.
Pick a board faced door when the panel should not be noticed. It takes the same skim and the same paint as the wall around it, and in a hallway ceiling or a living space that is the whole point. It is less content with heavy repeat use, and damage to the face is a plastering job rather than a wipe.
Pick a metal faced door when the panel is a working part of the building. Risers, service cupboards, plant spaces and anywhere with a maintenance visit in the diary suit a face that can be opened, wiped and shut without ceremony. It reads as a panel, and in those places nobody minds.
Across both, the popular specifications are also sold ten to a pack at a discount, listed with the other FlipFix multipacks. Packs pay off where a job repeats one detail floor after floor. Where the schedule mixes sizes, order singly. If you are pricing a schedule and want it checked before it goes out, send it over for a quote.
