Air Conditioning System in a Residential Property. If you want to know how your DIY projects could be affected by building and planning regulations, click here to post questions and view answers

[jonnewman1982]

I would really appreciate anyone's thoughts / experiences on the subject.

I am looking to install an air conditioning system in my property. The property is a two bedroom maisonette. We are looking to install air conditioning as we cannot get ags supplied to the property and was looking to use this as both a cooling and heating system.

We will have to place one unit on the outside of the building and have been informed that planning permission is probably required. Has anyone else had to apply for planning permission for air conditioning? If so, I would greatly appreciate your insight into the process and how best to get such an application approved.

The neighbours on either side of the property do not have any objections to the proposed unit - and there are similar (actually bigger) units in the road servicing restaurants / hairdressers / etc.

Is there any case examples out there which I could use in my case?

I imagine the main objection could be the noise of the unit - which the techincal specification shows it runs no greater than 49db. Would this be too loud? I assume it is all relative to the background noise in the surrounding area but how can I find out what this is???

Please help!!!

Many thanks,

Jon

[ericmark]

As to regulations sorry can't help but I have lived where we used air conditioning units and the heat option was in the main elements. Very few used heat pump i.e. reversed pump. And those that did had problems with freezing up. Even in the desert of Algeria so little hope of working in the UK. There are ground heat pump units but these would not normally be wall mounted. The heat option for many air-cons is not to heat premises but to de-ice unit. Often even in the desert the moisture gathers on the evaporator and this attracts dust which reduces air flow which get evaporator below freezing this then builds up until it is solid block of ice. Only cure is to turn onto heat. Main problem with wall mounted air-cons is water and many times in Hong Kong I was hit by water dropping into street from Air-cons which may not be acceptable here. Legionairs is also a problem and they do as a result need to be regular maintained. Sounds nice idea but not as good as the glossy mags make out.

[Obert]

You must have a permission to you neighbor before installing the airconditioner. Make sure that the airconditioner is not making a noise so that you will not disturb others.