200 x 200 Access Panels

Two hundred millimetres square is a hand and forearm opening. It is the size you choose when there is one thing behind the wall or ceiling that occasionally needs looking at, isolating or reconnecting, and you would rather not put a large door into a finished room to reach it.

Typical uses at this size:

• Junction boxes and wiring joints that have to remain accessible after the finish goes on.
• Isolating valves, service valves and stopcock spurs on concealed pipework.
• Data, audio visual and speaker cabling behind a boxed run or a media wall.
• Small metering and control points inside a boxing, a bulkhead or a duct casing.

It is worth being honest about the limit. At 200 x 200 you are inspecting, isolating or making a connection, not working two handed at depth, and certainly not passing a person or a tool bag through. If the work behind the panel is likely to mean replacing a component rather than reading or turning one, step up to 300 x 300 access panels before the wall is closed. Enlarging an opening later costs far more than ordering the bigger panel now.

The range at 200 x 200 splits two ways: what the door is faced with, and how the frame meets the surface around it. Both are settled before the plasterer or the decorator arrives, so they are worth two minutes at ordering stage.

If the wall or ceiling the panel goes into forms part of a fire compartment, the panel has to hold the rating of the construction around it. Cutting an unrated hatch into a rated partition undoes the partition. That is as true at 200 x 200 as it is at full door size, and a small inspection hatch is exactly where the point gets forgotten, because it looks too minor to matter.

Rated options at this size cover both door types. There are one hour metal door and one hour plasterboard faced versions, and a two hour metal door version with a beaded frame. Check the rating and the orientation on the individual product page, because the duration a panel achieves in a wall is not automatically the duration it achieves in a ceiling.

Rated panels are built differently from the standard range, so treat the decision as one made early rather than a late substitution on price. If you are working to a fire strategy or a written specification, start from the wider fire rated access panels range, where integrity and insulation are explained properly.

Sizes in this section describe the panel, not the hole. The opening is cut slightly larger than the stated size so the frame seats without being forced, and the allowance is not identical across every range and frame type. Take it from the specification on the product you are actually ordering rather than from a rule of thumb, then cut once.

Before you mark out, check what sits directly behind the line. A 200 x 200 opening is small enough to land awkwardly on a stud, a noggin or a ceiling batten, and moving it 100mm along the wall at marking out stage costs nothing. Make sure the thing you are trying to reach ends up square in the middle of the aperture rather than at the edge of it. A valve handle in the corner of a small hatch is an unusable valve handle.

If you are fitting several panels across a house, a floor or a maintenance contract, look at the discounted multipacks before ordering singly. Where the service point is smaller still, 150 x 150 access panels may be the tidier answer.