Air Conditioning

A typical home system comes in two parts. The indoor unit sits in the room and moves conditioned air around it. The outdoor unit sits outside and holds the compressor, a fan and a heat exchanger.

The two are joined by insulated pipes carrying refrigerant, which is simply a substance that absorbs heat in one place and releases it in another. To cool a room, heat is taken out of the air indoors and let go outside. A system that also heats does the same thing in reverse.

Many modern air-to-air systems can do both, because the process that moves heat out of a room can be run the other way to bring heat into it. Whether your system can depends on the model fitted. If you are having one installed, tell us you want heating as well and we will make sure what goes in can do it.

Periodic professional servicing is generally recommended to keep a system working properly and to catch problems while they are still small. There is no single interval that applies to every home system — it depends on the equipment, how heavily it is used and the conditions it works in, so follow the maintenance guidance from your system manufacturer alongside a professional service.

A visual inspection of the indoor and outdoor units, cleaning accessible filters, checking coils, fans and airflow, checking the condensate drainage is running away properly, checking accessible electrical connections, testing the controls and running the system to see how it performs. The engineer tells you about anything they find. The full list is on the AC service page.

Filters and coils collect dust, and a system working through a layer of dirt has to work harder to shift the same air. Condensate drainage can block and cause leaks. Servicing keeps those in check and gives an engineer the chance to notice a developing fault before it stops the system. It cannot rule out every breakdown, and we would not claim otherwise.

£150 for a service. You see that price before you give us any personal details, and you secure the appointment with a deposit of £10 that comes off the bill.

From £1,200 for a single-room system. The final price depends on where the outdoor unit goes and whether the indoor unit sits against an outside wall — you answer a few questions online and see your own price before booking.

Not through the website at the moment. Online booking currently covers single-room installation only. Multi-room options are shown in the booking journey marked as coming soon, so you can see where we are heading — if you need more than one room now, give us a call.

Usually on the floor outside, or mounted on a wall either low down or high up. Which of those suits your property depends on the space available and access, and it is one of the questions we ask when you book. Floor and low wall mounting are included in the price; high wall mounting costs more.

Working at height needs access equipment and takes longer than setting a unit down at ground level, so the installation is a bigger job. That is what the additional £400 covers.

Your online price is based on what you tell us during booking. If the job needs work or materials that could not reasonably have been identified from your answers, we explain what is needed and what it costs, and we get your agreement before carrying out that additional work. You are never charged for something you have not agreed to.

No. You pay a deposit of £10 to secure the appointment, and it comes off your final bill rather than being an extra charge. The balance is settled once the work is done.