Plastic Access Panels

An access panel is a removable cover over a hole cut into a wall or ceiling, so that whatever sits behind it stays reachable without breaking the surface open again. A plastic one is the plainest version of that idea. A frame lines the opening, a door closes it, and the whole thing is moulded rather than pressed and folded from steel, which is why it costs what it costs. Single panels in this range are priced by size.

What it is not is a rated product. Nothing here carries a fire rating, an acoustic rating, a smoke seal or an airtight seal, and it must not be treated as though it does. If the wall or ceiling you are cutting into forms part of a fire compartment, a plastic panel is the wrong product, and careful fitting does not change that. Compartment walls, protected corridors, stair enclosures and separating floors between dwellings all need a tested panel, and those sit in our fire rated access panels range.

Take the rest of this page as a description of the jobs a plastic panel does well, with the rating question already settled.

The natural home for one of these is a domestic or light commercial access point that somebody may open once a year, if that. A stopcock buried behind kitchen units. An isolator valve in a boxed-in service run. A rodding eye. The trap and supply pipework behind a bath panel. A junction box in a converted loft where the cable run has to stay inspectable. In every one of those the panel is doing a single job, keeping an opening tidy and openable, and the budget is better spent elsewhere on the job.

Volume is the other reason people land here. On a refurbishment where the same small opening repeats plot after plot, the gap in unit price between a plastic cover and a rated panel, multiplied across forty dwellings, is real money, and a rated panel would have been over specified in all forty.

Overhead openings deserve a moment of thought before you order, because a panel in a ceiling has to hold its own door up rather than simply close against a frame in a wall. If your opening is overhead and you are not certain the panel suits the position, ask us before you buy rather than after.

There are two ways to buy. Singles, priced by size. Or a multipack of the same panel in fives, tens or fifteens, carrying a five, ten or fifteen per cent discount against buying the equivalent number one at a time.

The discount is the only thing that changes. A multipack is not a different or a better panel, it is the same product bought in a quantity that earns a lower unit price, so the decision comes down to how many openings you have and whether you are content to hold the spares.

Choose your pack in the size that repeats most across the job, and cover the odd openings with singles. If you are buying at quantity across more than one range, our discounted multipacks section gathers every pack line together.

Step up when any one of the following is true.

• The opening breaks a compartment line. This is not a judgement call. If the drawing or the fire strategy says the wall or ceiling is rated, the panel closing the hole in it has to be rated too.
• The panel is somewhere the public can reach it. Communal areas, corridors, plant spaces and commercial lettings all see knocks and interference that a steel door shrugs off and a moulded cover does not.
• Somebody opens it regularly. Anything on a maintenance round, a meter reading route or a weekly check will see far more cycles than a cover fitted over a stopcock years ago and never touched since.
• The finish matters. Where the panel has to disappear into a plastered or tiled surface, a plasterboard faced or tiled door does that and a plastic cover does not.

Our metal door access panels range is the usual next step, and 150 x 150 access panels is a sensible place to start browsing, since small openings are what plastic panels are most often bought to cover.