Home Air Conditioning Installation

From £1,800 for one room, £2,950 for two, £3,950 for three and £5,250 for four.

That’s a guide price rather than a quote. What your installation actually costs depends on your house, and the only honest way to find out is for somebody to come and look at it. So we do that for free, and you get a fixed written quotation before you commit to anything.

What’s included as standard

One indoor unit on the wall, one outdoor unit at ground level where we can reach it, the pipework between them, and one hole drilled through the wall to connect the two.

Cooling produces water, so the price also includes a pipe to carry it away downhill. Then the electrical connection, testing the system and setting it up, all your paperwork, and taking the rubbish away with us.

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Usually not, provided the unit heats as well as cools.

When you don’t need planning permission

Most home air conditioning in England is covered by permitted development, which simply means you don’t have to apply to the council at all. The rule that allows it is Class G of Part 14, Schedule 2 to the GPDO 2015, and it changed on 29 May 2025. A lot of what is still online describes the old version.

These are the conditions:

When you do need planning permission

• Listed buildings. Permitted development doesn’t apply, and you need listed building consent as well, which is a separate application.
• Flats. The rule does cover blocks of flats, but your lease or your freeholder usually won’t.
• Article 4 areas. Some councils switch permitted development off for a particular area, and yours may be one of them.
• Cooling-only systems. If it doesn’t heat as well, you need permission whatever else is true of your house.

We’ll tell you whether you need permission before we quote. Making the application is down to you.

Nearly all home air conditioning works the same way. One unit goes inside the room, one goes outside, and pipework joins them through the wall. That’s what “split” means: the machine is split in two. What changes between the options below is where the indoor part sits and how many rooms it serves.

Worth ruling one thing out. A portable air conditioner on wheels, venting hot air through a hose out of the window, is not the same as a fitted system. It’s noisier, less efficient, and it goes back in the cupboard every autumn.

Air conditioning without an outdoor unit

Yes, this exists. It’s called a through-wall monobloc, and everything that would normally sit outside is built into one unit inside the room, with two ducts through the wall instead.

One thing sellers tend to leave out: without an outdoor unit doesn’t mean without anything visible outside. You still get two round vents in the wall, roughly 16 to 20cm across.

The honest trade-offs:

• It’s louder in the room. The noisy part of the machine is now indoors with you. Expect around 29 to 33 dB on the quiet setting, against about 20 dB for a good wall-mounted unit.
• It’s less efficient, so it costs more to run.
• It’s not the cheap option. Installed, these run about £2,500 to £3,500.

It’s the right answer when you need one room done, there’s genuinely nowhere to put an outdoor unit, or the front of the building can’t be altered.

What size air conditioning unit does my room need?

Air conditioning is sized in kilowatts (kW), which is a measure of how much heat it can shift. Bigger room, bigger number. You’ll also see BTU, short for British Thermal Unit, which is an older way of measuring exactly the same thing. Shops tend to use it, so both are below.

Room size is only a starting point. The final figure also depends on how high your ceilings are, how much glass you have and which way it faces, how well insulated the room is, how many people use it, and what else in there gives off heat. We work it out properly at the survey.

The same unit that cools your bedroom in August heats it in January. It simply runs the same cycle in reverse.

What is an air-to-air heat pump?

An air-to-air heat pump is the proper name for what we fit. It heats and cools the air in the room.

An air source heat pump is a different product altogether. It heats the water for your radiators and taps, and does no cooling at all.

The two get mixed up constantly, including by search engines. If you want cooling, you want the first one.

Three things follow from it:

1. You get use out of it all year, rather than for one hot fortnight.
2. It’s why you usually don’t need planning permission. The rule that lets you skip the council application only covers units that heat as well as cool. A cooling-only unit would need permission.
3. Qualifying installations are zero-rated for VAT until 31 March 2027, after which the rate returns to 5%.

On efficiency: Building Regulations set a minimum cooling rating of 4.0, meaning the unit has to shift at least four units of heat out of the room for every one unit of electricity it uses. Every unit we fit carries an energy label showing both its cooling and its heating performance.

Our own engineers fit it. Not a subcontractor, not a partner firm, not a network. The person drilling through your wall is employed by us. It’s worth asking whoever else you’re speaking to, because many of the best-known names in home air conditioning hand the job to somebody else.

F-Gas certified, and you can check us. Anyone working on the sealed gas circuit inside an air conditioning system has to hold this by law. Ours is issued by REFCOM, whose register is public. Search AJK Services Ltd, or our postcode SP9 7QD, and you’ll find us. Don’t take our word for it.

35 years. That’s how long we’ve been designing, installing and maintaining air conditioning and refrigeration systems.

Daikin, Mitsubishi, Fujitsu and Samsung. We’re the main installers for all four in the South of England.

Not just a white box. Daikin also make discreet designer units, including leather-wrapped finishes. They cost more than a standard unit, so ask us about them at your survey.

We do the electrics too. Air conditioning normally needs its own dedicated circuit, which is work Building Regulations cover. We’re NICEIC registered and do it in-house, so there’s no waiting on a separate electrician and no argument about whose job it was.

A name and a direct line. Anthony Hyner-Anderson, our Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Contracts Manager.

One more thing, and it matters more than it sounds. Our engineers are vetted to work on MOD sites and NHS hospitals. They’re the same people who’ll fit your bedroom.

1. A free survey. We come and look at the rooms, work out what size unit each one needs, agree where everything goes, and check the planning position for your property.
2. A fixed written quotation. One price, in writing, listing what’s included and what isn’t. No obligation to go ahead.
3. The installation. For a single room, usually one day.
4. Testing, then a demonstration. We run the system up, check it works properly in both heating and cooling, and show you how to use the controls before we leave.
5. Your handover pack. All your paperwork, listed below.

How long does it take to get air conditioning installed?

A single wall-mounted unit typically takes six to seven hours, so one working day. Larger jobs take longer, and we tell you how long yours will take when we quote rather than guessing at a figure here.

Your warranty, and what you’re left with

Two separate things protect a new system, and most people don’t realise they’re separate.

The manufacturer’s parts warranty covers the equipment itself. On the brands we fit it typically runs from three to seven years depending on the model, and it usually depends on the unit being registered and serviced, which is why the registration goes in your handover pack.

Our own workmanship guarantee covers our work: the pipework, the brackets, the drainage, the electrical connection and the finish where we’ve worked.

Both are confirmed in writing in your quotation, before you commit to anything.

Your handover pack contains:

• Your Building Regulations compliance certificate
• Your electrical certificate
• The test record, showing what we checked and how the system performed
• Your warranty registration
• The user instructions

Keep it somewhere safe. If you ever sell the house, this is the paperwork that proves the work was done properly.

Because we survey in your home, you also have 14 days to cancel.

We’re based in Tidworth, Wiltshire, and we work within about an hour’s drive of it. That covers six counties: Wiltshire, Hampshire, West Berkshire, Dorset, Oxfordshire and Somerset.

So if you’re in Andover, Salisbury, Newbury, Swindon, Winchester or Southampton, you’re comfortably inside our area. If you’re not sure, [Contact us here].

How noisy is it? Can I have one in a bedroom?

Yes. A good wall-mounted unit runs at about 19 to 20 dB on its quiet setting, roughly the level of a very quiet room, rising to about 40 dB on full. The outdoor unit is typically 46 to 52 dB. The World Health Organization recommends a bedroom stays below 30 dB at night, and the unit we install sits comfortably within that.

How much does air con cost to run?

Multiply the unit’s electricity use by your rate. A 2.5 kW unit draws about 0.65 kW, so at 26.32p per kWh (the Ofgem cap for October to December 2026) that’s roughly 17p an hour.

One thing worth knowing: a 2.5 kW unit doesn’t use 2.5 kW of electricity an hour. That figure is how much cooling it produces, not how much power it draws.

Is it legal to install air conditioning in the UK?

Yes. But anyone working on the gas inside the system has to hold F-Gas certification by law, and that means two things: a certificate held by the company, and a separate qualification held by the individual engineer. We hold both.

Can I fit an air conditioner myself, or buy a pre-charged “easy-fit” unit?

No. Connecting the pipework counts as installation under F-Gas law whether or not you add any gas yourself, and pre-charged units and quick-connect fittings aren’t an exception to that. Some retailers won’t even dispatch a split system without proof that an F-Gas engineer is booked.

It matters later, too. We won’t work on a system that someone has fitted themselves.

Can it go in a loft conversion or a conservatory?

Yes, both are common. Loft rooms often suit a floor-standing unit, because of the sloping ceiling. It sits low on the wall and looks more like a traditional radiator than an air conditioner. A conservatory needs more cooling than its floor area suggests, because of all the glass.

Will it work in an older house?

Yes. Solid stone, flint and rubble walls take longer to drill and need the right method, but they’re not a problem. If your house is listed you’ll need consent first, and we’ll tell you that at the survey rather than after.

How many rooms can one air conditioning system cool?

Up to four. One outdoor unit can run up to four indoor units, and each one has its own controls. There’s one limit worth knowing, because almost nobody mentions it: they all have to be on the same mode. Everything heats, or everything cools. You can’t warm the bedroom while cooling the living room.

Do you service it after installation?

Yes. Cleaning the filters is a job you can do yourself. A professional service once a year keeps it running efficiently and is often a condition of the warranty, though it’s not a legal requirement for a small home system.

A free, no-obligation survey, then a fixed written quotation before you decide anything.

One thing worth knowing about timing. Demand climbs sharply the moment the weather turns hot, and lead times climb with it. Booking in autumn or winter means more choice of equipment and a fitting date that suits you.

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