Orpington air conditioning – fitting, servicing and repairs

Fitting air conditioning in Orpington

Air conditioning installation in Orpington 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

Most houses in the Chislehurst Road Conservation Area were built with driveways, so a van can often park off the road. We’ll ask about parking 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 Orpington, 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:

Set the mode to Cool, and the temperature below the room’s.
Check the remote’s batteries and any timer.
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 Orpington

Air con makes we fit in Orpington 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.

Days above 30C a year in Bromley

4 a year from 2001 to 2020, and about 7 a year by around 2050. How London's summers are changing.

Source: Met Office Local Authority Climate Service.

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 Orpington

Shops and offices around Orpington need a noise plan before they fit outdoor units, because many have homes above or behind them. The census found about 510 homes inside commercial buildings across these 15 neighbourhoods. More than half are in Orpington West, Bickley East and Chislehurst North.

The main shopping streets are:

Orpington town centre, along the High Street and The Walnuts
Petts Wood, around Station Square, Queensway and Fairway
Chislehurst High Street
Locksbottom, on Crofton Road

One BR5 shop won approval for its rear condensers in 2026, with acoustic enclosures and an accepted noise report.

Orpington’s town centre guide puts good building design ahead of air conditioning in new development. That matters most on larger schemes, such as the Walnuts proposal it mentions.

The Cray Business Corridor is one of the borough’s main places of work outside its town centres, and our commercial work covers it too.

How commercial jobs work.

Sources: Census 2021, table TS044, the Orpington Town Centre guide (July 2023) and Bromley’s planning register. Also its Local Plan, paragraph 1.2.24 and Appendix 10.9. The census is taken every 10 years.

Screening a unit in Petts Wood

Hiding a unit behind a new fence in Petts Wood can need its own planning permission. Article 4 directions take away the usual right to put up a gate, fence, wall or other enclosure there.

The rule reaches these parts of Petts Wood:

the Area of Special Residential Character, about 1,500 homes
The Chenies Conservation Area
Chislehurst Road Conservation Area
The Covert Conservation Area
The Thrifts Conservation Area

Bromley Council wants to keep the estate’s open look. The Local Plan describes low boundaries and visible front gardens. The Covert’s plan makes that open character a key test for new front fences or walls.

The June 2025 plans for Chislehurst Road, The Covert and The Thrifts add a second point. All plant should generally stay out of public view. So the job needs a plan that covers both:

Existing cover: a spot behind the house, or behind a hedge or wall you already have, needs no new boundary. It still needs clear air around it.
New screens: allow for an application before you order a fence, wall or gate. The council’s Article 4 list has the maps.
Old deeds: the first plots here were sold with covenants on how buildings looked. A conveyancer can say whether yours still applies.

The same care applies across this side of the borough, which has 14 conservation areas:

Petts Wood: Chislehurst Road, The Chenies, The Covert, The Thrifts and Station Square
Orpington: Broomhill and The Priory
The Crays: St Mary Cray and St Paul’s Cray
Chislehurst: the Chislehurst Conservation Area
Farnborough and the south: Farnborough Village, Farnborough Park, Chelsfield and Downe

If no hidden spot exists, a fixed outdoor unit may not suit the house. If an outdoor box won’t work. Weighing up a spot.

Sources: Bromley’s Article 4 direction for Petts Wood (in effect 16 June 2016), its Local Plan, Appendix 10.6, and its conservation pages. Plans: Chislehurst Road, paragraphs 5.39 and 5.46, The Covert, paragraphs 5.35, 5.42 and 5.43, and The Thrifts, paragraphs 5.35 and 5.42.

Planning for air con in Bromley

Most air con applications around Orpington win approval: 7 of 9 in BR5, BR6 and BR7 over the five years to October 2026. That’s a small count, so treat it as a guide.

Officers look at how close the neighbours are, and whether anyone has measured the noise. So noise detail comes first in our plan.

A detached BR6 house won approval in 2026 for four units on side walls, in a conservation area. Officers took it without a noise report, because neighbours stood well apart.

Allow about 11 weeks. The median was 77 days, and 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: Bromley’s planning register and PlanIt (read 31 October 2026), and GOV.UK on decision times.

Homes from Petts Wood to the Crays

Houses make up 83% of homes around Orpington, and semis are the biggest group at 39%. The other 17% are flats. Those figures add up 15 census neighbourhoods, from Chislehurst to Chelsfield.

Most homes here can start from the national heat pump rights. Those allow one unit on a semi or terrace and two on a detached house, within limits. A unit that just cools falls outside them. The limits in full.

Local character then decides where the unit can go:

Petts Wood: about 9 in 10 homes are houses, with wide gaps between them and low front boundaries. A side wall can show from the road, so the rear is the likely spot. Long back gardens give more choice.
Chislehurst: half of homes in Chislehurst West and Elmstead are detached, the highest share here. On the Marlings Park Estate many front gardens stay open, so a front wall is a poor choice.
Chelsfield Park: the Local Plan describes about 370 homes on very large plots, with a covenant protecting the layout. Gaps between houses reach 6 metres or more in parts, which helps with noise.
St Mary Cray: about 3 in 10 homes in St Mary Cray North and East are terraced, and over 1 in 5 are purpose-built flats. Homes in the middle of a row have no side wall to use, and a flat needs the freeholder’s yes. What to agree in a flat.

Sources: Census 2021, table TS044, Bromley’s Local Plan, Appendix 10.6, and the planning order. The census is taken every 10 years. Census figures cover Orpington West, East and South, Goddington, Crofton, Petts Wood and Bickley East, which takes in Petts Wood’s shops. They also cover St Mary Cray North, East and South, the three Chislehurst neighbourhoods, Farnborough, and Chelsfield and Green Street Green.

Where the Orpington area needs cooling most

Cooling need around Orpington looks highest in St Mary Cray, on the Greater London Authority’s climate risk map. The picture across these neighbourhoods runs like this:

St Mary Cray East and North: the highest need on this side of the borough.
Orpington West and East: next highest. Orpington East has the least tree cover of the 15 neighbourhoods, at about 1 tenth of its land.
Chislehurst West and Elmstead: the most tree cover, at nearly 4 tenths.
Petts Wood and Farnborough: the lowest need here.

The map blends weather with who lives there, including age and income, and it was drawn for all of London. Use it as a broad steer, and let the survey settle your own home.

We start upstairs at the survey, because a bedroom under the roof tends to hold heat into the night. Cooling a loft room, and how London’s summers could change.

Source: the Greater London Authority’s climate risk maps (2024), averaged by neighbourhood.

Postcodes we cover in Orpington

Orpington’s three districts run from Chislehurst in the north to the Kent border in the south, and we cover their London parts:

BR5: Petts Wood, St Mary Cray, St Paul’s Cray and the east side of Orpington
BR6: Orpington town centre, Crofton, Farnborough, Locksbottom, Green Street Green, Chelsfield, Downe and Pratts Bottom
BR7: Chislehurst and Elmstead

A small part of BR6 falls in Sevenoaks district, in Kent. That part is outside London, so we can’t take jobs there. BR7 also crosses into Greenwich around Mottingham, which we cover as well.

Areas near Orpington

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

BR1 BR2 · Bromley

Bromley

Bromley town centre, Shortlands, Hayes and Bickley.
DA6 DA7 DA14 DA16 · Bexley

Bexleyheath, Sidcup and Welling

Bexleyheath, Sidcup, Welling and Erith.
SE3 SE7 SE10 SE18 · Greenwich

Greenwich

Greenwich, Blackheath, Charlton, Woolwich and Eltham.

Orpington questions

Do I need permission for a fence around an outdoor unit in Petts Wood?

A new fence, wall or gate in much of Petts Wood needs planning permission, because of an Article 4 direction. That covers the Area of Special Residential Character and four conservation areas. Check your street on the council’s list.

What helps an air con application near Orpington?

Noise evidence helps most near Orpington, above all where neighbours sit close. We’ll look at that at the survey. How noise is judged.

Can I have two outdoor units on my Orpington semi?

Two outdoor units on an Orpington semi would need an application, because the national rights stop at one. One outdoor unit can often serve more than one room instead. One outdoor unit or several.

Does the Chelsfield Park covenant affect air con?

The Chelsfield Park covenant protects the road layout and large plots, according to the Local Plan. We can’t read your deeds for you, so ask a conveyancer before you fix anything to the outside. How an installation works.

Can I fit air con if I rent in St Mary Cray or Orpington?

Renters in St Mary Cray or Orpington need the landlord’s agreement before anything is fixed to the wall. A portable unit can be the simpler answer. Options if you rent.

Do you cover all of BR6?

We cover the London part of BR6, from Orpington town centre to Downe and Pratts Bottom. The small part in Kent is outside our area. All our Orpington postcodes.

Air conditioning in Orpington