Booking surveys for next week across Greater Manchester, Cheshire and Lancashire
Domestic air conditioning
One room or the whole house, fitted to a specification we survey and write down. Quiet wall units, pipework you cannot see from the road, and a price agreed before anything is ordered. It heats through winter too, usually for less than the boiler.
Types of system
Almost every home comes down to one of these. The survey decides which, based on your rooms, your ceilings, where the outdoor unit can go, and how much you want to see on the wall.
One room, one indoor unit
from £1,850
The standard domestic unit and the one most people picture. A slim indoor unit high on the wall, a condenser outside, and two copper pipes plus a drain between them.
Two to five rooms, one outdoor unit
from £3,450
Several indoor units share a single condenser, so you get three or four cooled rooms with only one box outside. Every room still sets its own temperature.
Nothing on show but grilles
from £3,500
The indoor unit hides in a loft, bulkhead or ceiling void and feeds two or more rooms through short duct runs. All you see in the room is a slim grille.
Low level, like a radiator
from £2,150
Sits at skirting level under a window or in an alcove. Because it throws warm air out at floor level it is the better choice when the system will do a lot of heating.
A domestic air conditioning system is an air to air heat pump: it cools a room in summer and heats it in winter from the same unit. A single wall mounted system fitted in one room costs from £1,850 with no VAT to add, takes one day to install, and delivers around 4.5kWh of heat for every 1kWh of electricity it uses.
Sizing
Undersize it and the room never quite gets there on the hottest day. Oversize it and the unit short cycles, which is noisier, less efficient and harder on the compressor. Here is the starting point we work from, then the survey confirms it.
| Room | Floor area | Typical unit |
|---|---|---|
| Study, small bedroom, box room | up to 15 m² | 2.0 to 2.5 kW |
| Double bedroom, small lounge | 15 to 22 m² | 3.5 kW |
| Large lounge, kitchen diner | 22 to 32 m² | 5.0 kW |
| Open plan ground floor | 32 to 45 m² | 6.0 to 7.1 kW |
| Anything larger | 45 m² and up | two or more units |
We work out a room by room heat gain rather than guessing from floor area alone. It takes longer at survey and it is the reason systems we fit do not sit running flat out in August.
Price guide
Installed prices, not equipment only. Every figure below includes the units, the brackets, up to five metres of pipe run, the electrical connection, commissioning and the handover. Your quote confirms the number for your property.
Single wall mounted split
Multi split, one outdoor unit
Cassette, ducted, console
0% VAT
Since May 2023, energy saving materials fitted in homes carry no VAT, and HMRC treats most air conditioning units as air source heat pumps because they heat as well as cool. The relief applies when the same company supplies and installs the system, which is why buying a unit online and paying someone to fit it does not qualify.
From 1 April 2027 the rate is set to return to 5%. Commercial work is charged at the standard rate, although businesses can usually reclaim it and may be able to claim capital allowances on the equipment.
Source: HMRC VAT Notice 708/6, checked September 2026.
Tax treatment depends on your circumstances. We put the VAT position in writing on your quote, and your accountant should confirm anything you plan to reclaim.
Against the gas boiler
A boiler burns gas to make heat. A heat pump moves heat that is already outside, which is why it can deliver four and a half units of warmth for one unit of electricity. Change the figures below to your own house and your own tariff.
Over a heating season
£236 cheaper
That is 81% off what the same comfort costs you now
Like for like on exactly the same heat, gas costs £73 and the heat pump £55. The rest of the gap is the rooms you are not sitting in.
Get a fixed price for this roomEvery figure here is an estimate from a simple model, not a guarantee. Real bills move with the weather, the thermostat and how well the room holds heat. We will talk through your actual numbers at the survey.
Running costs and efficiency
Air conditioning does not make cold, it moves heat. That is why a unit drawing 600W of electricity can shift 2,500W of heat, and why it is usually cheaper to heat a room this way than with anything else electric.
Cooling a bedroom
7p to 16pper hour
A 2.5kW unit pulling roughly 0.3kW once the room is down to temperature, up to about 0.65kW while it is working hard. Most nights it spends far more time ticking over than flat out.
Heating that same room
5.6pper kWh of heat
With a seasonal heating efficiency of about 4.5, one unit of electricity gives you roughly four and a half units of heat. Gas in an 88% efficient boiler works out around 7.4p for the same heat.
Against a plug in heater
4x cheaperfor the same warmth
A 2kW fan heater or oil filled radiator gives you exactly 2kW of heat for 2kW of electricity. The heat pump in the same room gives you four times that for the same meter reading.
Figures assume 25p per kWh for electricity and 6.5p per kWh for gas. Swap in your own tariff and the ratios hold, even if the pennies move.
Using it for heating
Your air conditioning is an air to air heat pump, and in heating mode it behaves differently to a boiler. None of the below is a fault. Knowing it up front is the difference between a customer who is happy in February and one who is not.
The air to water heat pumps in the news feed radiators and hot water cylinders. Yours moves heat straight into the room through the indoor unit. It will not give you hot taps, and it will not replace your boiler unless every room has a unit.
There is less heat in the outside air at 2°C than at 10°C, so the system works harder for the same result. Below about 5°C expect longer warm up times, and on the coldest handful of days a second heat source earns its keep.
Frost builds on the outdoor coil in cold damp weather. Every so often the system reverses for a few minutes to melt it, and the indoor unit goes cool while that happens. It is the defrost cycle, it is normal, and there is no way to switch it off.
Melted frost has to go somewhere. We fit a drain kit and run it to a suitable outlet, but in a hard frost that drain can freeze and water can spill onto the ground below. Where that would be a slip hazard, we can fit heated trace tape at extra cost. It is worth deciding at survey rather than in January.
In a vaulted lounge or a warehouse, the warm air collects above your head while the floor stays cool. That is physics rather than the equipment. Destratification fans push it back down and cut the running time, and we will say so if your room needs one.
Plenty of quotes are sized on a rule of thumb because a full heat loss calculation costs money and takes time. We do a room by room calculation as part of the survey and show you the working, because it is the single biggest reason a system disappoints in use.
Common questions
A modern 2.5kW unit cooling a bedroom costs roughly 20p to 30p an hour at current rates. In heating mode it is usually cheaper per unit of heat than gas, because the system moves heat rather than burning fuel. We put the figures for your specific rooms in the quote.
For most houses in England, no. The permitted development rules were widened on 29 May 2025 and now cover systems that cool as well as heat. In outline, the outdoor unit can be up to 1.5 cubic metres, detached houses can have two units and everything else one, the old one metre boundary rule has gone, and the installation has to meet the MCS 020 noise standard of 42 dB(A) at the nearest neighbouring habitable room window.
There are limits. It cannot go on a pitched roof, it cannot sit on a wall above ground floor level where that wall faces a highway, and the system must not be for cooling only. Flats are tighter, conservation areas restrict where the unit can sit, and listed buildings and scheduled monuments have no permitted development rights at all.
We check every one of those at survey and tell you before you commit. Where an application is needed, we prepare it.
Source: Planning Portal, air source heat pumps, checked September 2026.
One core hole per indoor unit, drilled wet so the dust goes into a bucket rather than your carpet. Everything is sheeted, the pipework is boxed in neatly, and we hoover before we leave.
Yes, and it is an HMRC rule rather than a discount from us. Energy saving materials installed in homes are zero rated from 1 May 2023 until 31 March 2027, and HMRC's position is that most air conditioning units count as air source heat pumps because they heat as well as cool.
The catch is that the same business has to supply and install it. Buy a unit online and pay someone to fit it and the relief is lost. From April 2027 the rate is expected to go back to 5%. Commercial work is charged at the standard rate.
Source: HMRC VAT Notice 708/6, checked September 2026.
It will heat the rooms that have units in them, quickly and cheaply, down to around 5°C outside. Below that it takes longer to reach temperature and on the coldest few days of the year you will probably want your existing heating as well.
It will not give you hot water, and it only warms the rooms where there is an indoor unit. Anyone telling you a couple of wall units will replace a boiler is overselling it.
Indoor units on their lowest fan speed run from about 19 dB(A), which is quieter than a library and well under a fridge. On full boost they reach the high 30s or low 40s, which you notice but can talk over.
Outdoor units sit between the high 40s and low 50s at one metre. That is the figure that matters for neighbours, and the planning noise standard is measured at their window rather than at the unit, so distance, fences and positioning all count in your favour.
On a wall, on the ground on feet, on a flat roof, or on brackets in a lightwell. What it needs is free air: roughly 300mm of clear space behind it and a metre or so in front, nothing boxed in, and somewhere the condensate can drain away.
It also needs to be reachable for servicing, and ideally not directly under a bedroom window, yours or a neighbour's. Long pipe runs from the unit to the rooms are possible but they add cost, so the shortest sensible route usually wins.
As a rough guide, 2.5kW suits a room up to 15m², 3.5kW up to 22m² and 5kW up to 32m². Our size calculator will get you closer using the height, aspect and use of the room.
Those figures move a long way with south facing glass, loft conversions, high ceilings or a kitchen full of appliances. The survey works it out properly rather than rounding up and hoping, which is where oversized, short cycling systems come from.
Usually yes. A single wall unit normally runs on a dedicated circuit from the consumer unit through an isolator next to the outdoor unit. Multi splits and larger systems need a bigger circuit again.
That work is notifiable under Part P of the building regulations. It is arranged as part of the job and the certificate goes in your handover pack, so there is no separate electrician for you to find or pay separately.
Often, but there are two extra hurdles. Your lease usually requires the freeholder's or management company's consent to fix anything to the outside of the building, and the permitted development limits for flats are tighter than for houses.
Where a wall mounted condenser is a non starter, the options are a balcony mounted unit, a shared plant position agreed with the building manager, or a self contained system with no outdoor unit at all. We will tell you at survey which of those applies.
Free survey
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