Air conditioning in Greenwich

Fitting air conditioning in Greenwich

Air conditioning installation in Greenwich starts with a survey of your rooms and your building. We check the unit size, the pipe route and where the outdoor unit can go, then you get a written quote. How an installation works.

A single split cools one room, and a multi-split runs several rooms from one outdoor unit. Fewer outdoor units means less to place, which helps on a terrace or in a flat. Most split units heat as well as cool, so one system can do both jobs.

A few things make the survey quicker:

• a list of the rooms you want cooled
• your lease, if you live in a flat
• the name of your conservation area, if you’re in one

Greenwich Council has a tradesperson parking permit for eligible addresses in a controlled parking zone, lasting one to six weeks. You can apply up to 30 days ahead, so we’ll ask about your street when we book.

Most units heat as well as cool. How air con can heat your home.

Servicing and repairs

Servicing and repairs cover all of Greenwich, whoever fitted your system. A service keeps it clean and running well, and a repair visit finds out why it has stopped cooling or shown a fault. What a service covers and how a repair visit works.

A unit that has stopped cooling is worth a quick check before you book:

1. Set the mode to Cool, and the temperature below the room’s.
2. Check the remote’s batteries and any timer.
3. Clear anything from around the outdoor unit.

Ice that comes back, water dripping indoors or an error code all need an engineer. Why air con stops cooling.

Air con makes we fit in Greenwich

Air con makes we fit in Greenwich include the nine below, and we’ll suggest the one that suits your rooms. We service and repair these makes too, whoever fitted them. The make and model are on a label on the indoor unit, so have them ready when we call.

More homes are fitting air con

More UK homes are fitting air conditioning, and homes with built-in units have about doubled in three years. The best time for a survey is before the first hot spell, when fitters have more room in the diary.

How VAT and the grant affect what you pay.

Source: Uswitch (April 2026).

Shops, offices and restaurants in Greenwich

Shops, offices and restaurants in Greenwich town centre need the most care, because the historic core sits inside the World Heritage Site. The council’s design guide also wants rooftop plant screened. Given the borough’s hills, it says roofs should be designed for views from above.

The design guide applies across the main centres:

• Woolwich and Eltham, the major centres
• Greenwich town, East Greenwich, Blackheath, Plumstead, Thamesmead and Lee Green, the district centres

Many share a building with homes. About 1,100 Greenwich households live over a shop or in an office or hotel building, the census found. Greenwich Town and Park has the most.

Past approvals point to what tends to pass:

• condensers inside acoustic enclosures, in SE18 and SE9
• units moved off a side wall and onto the roof, in SE7 and SE10
• plant inside a new louvred enclosure, in SE18

How commercial jobs work.

Sources: Greenwich’s Urban Design Guide, paragraphs f.134 and f.135, the council’s World Heritage Site page and Core Strategy (2014), page 73 as printed. Also Census 2021, table TS044 and Greenwich’s planning register. The census is taken every 10 years.

Where Greenwich’s climate guide accepts heat pumps

Greenwich Council’s climate guide favours heat pumps over air conditioning units, because of carbon emissions. The council adopted it on 25 March 2026, and it counts in planning decisions. It points people to window shading and planting first.

The guide notes that a heat pump with a reverse valve can also cool a building. Its table says where a heat pump is acceptable:

• Conservation area: at the rear of the property. It should also meet the size and noise conditions in the national rights.
• Listed building: at the rear, away from any outside wall, in a sympathetic enclosure. Inside pipes run low and leave skirting and panelling unharmed, and you need listed building consent.
• Other homes: generally the side or rear. A flat main roof towards the back also works, set in 1m from the edge and 2m from any walls.

That heat pump section is written around heating and hot water. So we read a system that replaces your heating as the safer case, and the council’s duty planner can confirm it.

Greenwich has 23 conservation areas, and six are on the council’s list for Article 4 directions:

• Ashburnham Triangle
• East Greenwich
• Progress Estate
• Rectory Field
• Shrewsbury Park Estate
• West Greenwich

Where a direction applies, the guide says no cooling or shading fixtures on the front of the building. For conservation areas and listed buildings, it also tells applicants to get a lawful development certificate if they think no permission is needed.

Some homes have no workable rear spot, and then a fixed outdoor unit is the wrong choice. Cooling with no outdoor unit.

Sources: Greenwich’s Climate Resilience SPD, page 61, Table 1 on pages 63 to 65, and paragraphs 3.7, 3.22 and 3.25. Also its adoption statement and the council’s conservation areas.

Planning for air con in Greenwich

Greenwich Council has approved most of the air con put to it: 24 of 27 applications over the five years to October 2026. Approvals have carried on under the climate guide, with 3 since March 2026, 2 of them homes.

Three things help a unit pass:

• Looks: a spot that stays out of view from the street. On one Blackheath house, officers said timber slats would suit better than metal.
• Noise: a report with a sound method, as Environmental Health checks how it was done.
• Heritage: extra care around listed buildings, covered in the next section.

A decision took a median of 85 days, so allow about 12 weeks. The target is 8 weeks.

These are past results, not a promise for your home. They count people who applied, and many units never need an application.

We check the planning route at the survey. If you need to apply or ask a freeholder, we supply the drawings and the unit’s data.

How planning works for air con, and planning in a flat.

Sources: Greenwich’s planning register and PlanIt (read 31 October 2026), and government planning statistics.

If you live in or near the World Heritage Site

The World Heritage Site adds one more test for a Greenwich home, not a new kind of application. The site covers the historic town centre around Cutty Sark, the Old Royal Naval College and the whole Royal Park.

The council treats alterations inside the site like those in a conservation area. The East Greenwich, West Greenwich and Blackheath conservation areas form its buffer zone. Three things change for you:

• Harm to the site counts: work inside it should protect and enhance what makes it special. In the buffer zone, work shouldn’t harm that, including views to and from the site.
• Rear walls can show too: a unit high on the back of a building may be seen from public places. We look for a lower spot.
• National rights differ here: they leave out a heat pump on a wall or roof facing a road. They also leave out one nearer a road than the home.

So find out whether your street is inside the site or the buffer zone before you pick a spot. Then aim for a low position, out of public view, and show that in your drawings.

Sources: the council’s World Heritage Site page, Core Strategy policy DH4 (2014) and Greenwich’s planning register. Also the planning order, Class G, paragraph G.2(j).

Flats in Blackheath, houses in Eltham, blocks by the river

Flats and houses split almost evenly across Greenwich, at 52% and 48% of households. Most of those flats are in purpose-built blocks, at 43% of all households.

That split sets the route. Houses can sometimes use national heat pump rights, while a flat needs the freeholder’s yes first. What to agree with a freeholder.

Each part of the borough brings its own job:

• Blackheath and Westcombe Park: 32% of homes in Blackheath Standard and Village are conversions, the borough’s highest share. Some big old houses in Blackheath Park were split into flats. Expect a freeholder and a conservation area to satisfy.
• Creekside and Woolwich: 91% of homes in Greenwich and Deptford Creekside are purpose-built flats, and over half in Woolwich West and Woolwich South. The owner of the block has the first say on any outdoor unit.
• Eltham: Eltham North, Eltham West and New Eltham are 80% to 88% houses. The Progress Estate has an Article 4 direction, so check it before anything goes on the front.
• Plumstead and Abbey Wood: terraces lead, at 51% of homes in Abbey Wood South. National rights allow one heat pump on a terrace, so one multi-split may suit better than separate units. One outdoor unit or several?

Sources: Census 2021, table TS044 and the Blackheath Park appraisal, pages 10 and 18. Also the council’s conservation areas and the planning order, Class G. The census is taken every 10 years.

Where Greenwich feels the heat most

Greenwich feels the heat most in the north of the borough, around Woolwich and Plumstead, the council’s planners say. They link the heat to the area’s urban character. The Greater London Authority’s map, which they cite, puts these wards among the highest:

• Woolwich Dockyard
• Woolwich Common
• Plumstead and Glyndon

Blackheath Westcombe scores lowest. These scores mix temperature with things like age, income and green space, and the GLA says they aren’t for street-level decisions. Take them as a guide to need across the borough.

The borough as a whole gets about 5 hot days a year above 30C in Met Office modelling for 2001 to 2020. At 2C of global warming that rises to about 9, and could be 5 to 13. The Climate Change Committee puts the world on a path to around 2C by 2050. What the next ten years could bring.

The council’s guide asks for shade and planting before cooling, so our survey starts there too. If blinds or shutters would settle a room, we’ll say so. Options if you rent.

Sources: Greenwich’s Local Plan Scoping Report (December 2025), page 36, and the GLA’s Climate Risk Maps (2024), sorted by ward in our own working. Also the Met Office climate data portal, the Climate Change Committee (May 2026) and the climate guide, page 61.

Postcodes we cover in Greenwich

Greenwich’s postcodes follow the river from the town to Thamesmead, then run south to Eltham. All of these are in our area:

• SE3: Blackheath and Kidbrooke
• SE7: Charlton
• SE9: Eltham, New Eltham and Avery Hill
• SE10: Greenwich town, East Greenwich and Greenwich Peninsula
• SE18: Woolwich, Plumstead and Shooters Hill
• SE2: Abbey Wood
• SE28: Thamesmead

The Greenwich parts of SE8, SE12, SE13, BR7, DA15 and DA16 are covered too, such as Greenwich Creekside and Horn Park.

SE3 is split with Lewisham, and planning rules differ by council, so we’ll check which one is yours.

Areas near Greenwich

Areas near Greenwich are covered as well, so a home in the next borough is no problem. All our London areas.

Map source: Office for National Statistics licensed under the Open Government Licence v.3.0. Contains OS data © Crown copyright and database right 2026.

• SE4 SE6 SE13 SE23 · Lewisham

  Lewisham

  Lewisham, Catford, Deptford, Brockley and Forest Hill.

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• E14 E1 E3 · Tower Hamlets

  Canary Wharf

  Canary Wharf, the Isle of Dogs, Wapping and Bow.

  See this area

• DA6 DA7 DA14 DA16 · Bexley

  Bexleyheath, Sidcup and Welling

  Bexleyheath, Sidcup, Welling and Erith.

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• BR1 BR2 · Bromley

  Bromley

  Bromley town centre, Shortlands, Hayes and Bickley.

  See this area