Air conditioning installation in Berkshire

Most air conditioning jobs in Berkshire are routine: a bedroom or a home office, a wall unit, a condenser on the back wall, done in a day. The ones that need more thought usually involve one of three things: floodwater along the Thames and around Thatcham, a management company or covenant on the big estates around Wokingham and Bracknell, or a conservation area or listed building, of which Windsor and the downland villages have many.

Six councils and no county hall

Berkshire has had no county council since 1998. Planning decisions sit with six unitary authorities: Reading, Wokingham, Bracknell Forest, Slough, West Berkshire and the Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead. The boundaries do not follow the way people describe where they live: Earley, Woodley and Shinfield have Reading postcodes but are in Wokingham Borough, so any application goes to Wokingham's planners. Reading itself has its own Reading page.

For a house, most outdoor units need no application; the planning permission guide sets out the conditions and the noise test.

The Thames villages: mount the condenser above the water

Datchet, Wraysbury, Old Windsor and Horton flooded badly in 2014, and plenty of riverside houses from Cookham down through Maidenhead and Bray sit in the same floodplain. The standard installation puts the condenser on a ground pad or low wall bracket, which is exactly where floodwater goes first.

If your house is in a flood-risk area (the GOV.UK long-term flood risk checker gives the answer by postcode, for rivers and for surface water [1]), ask for the outdoor unit to be specified for it:

• Wall-mount the condenser on a bracket that puts its base above the highest water level the property has seen.
• Keep the isolator and electrical connections high as well, and route the supply so it does not dip below that level.
• Use anti-vibration mounts, because a unit fixed high on a wall passes more vibration into the structure, and plan safe access for the annual service.

If a unit has been under water, leave it switched off until an engineer has checked it. The risk is not only from rivers: the July 2007 flood in Thatcham, which West Berkshire Council estimated affected around 1,100 homes, came from surface water running off the land north of the town [7].

Windsor, Eton and the conservation map

Check RBWM's conservation area map before choosing a position [3]. Inside a conservation area the outdoor unit cannot go on a wall or roof fronting a highway [2], and Eton High Street and the streets below Windsor Castle carry a dense stock of listed buildings, where external plant needs listed building consent first.

The usual answer is a rear elevation, a courtyard corner or a garden stand, with pipework run internally. The period home guide covers the routing, and the external unit guide covers siting.

Windsor, Datchet and Colnbrook also sit under the Heathrow flight paths, where on a hot night the choice can be an open window and aircraft noise or a closed one and a room that will not cool. The quiet units guide explains which indoor sound levels are worth paying for.

Bracknell: compact plots

Bracknell grew as a post-war new town [4], and much of its housing is terraced and semi-detached on compact plots. The job is simple inside and tight outside: the condenser often sits a few metres from the neighbour's back door, so its position and its low-speed sound level matter more than usual. The newer flats around the rebuilt town centre need freeholder or management-company consent first; the flat guide covers the order to do things in.

Wokingham: the new estates

Wokingham Borough Council has planned most of its growth into four strategic development locations: Arborfield Garrison, Shinfield parish south of the M4, North Wokingham and South Wokingham, together around 10,000 homes [5]. Like Reading's southern estates, these well-insulated houses overheat through big south- and west-facing windows. Many come with an estate management company or covenants on external equipment, and the new build guide covers what to check before a survey.

West Berkshire: downland and flint

The North Wessex Downs National Landscape covers about three-quarters of West Berkshire [6]. National Landscape status does not change where a house's outdoor unit can go under permitted development; what matters in Lambourn, Hungerford, Kintbury and the downland villages is whether the house is listed or in a village conservation area [2]. The older cottages are often brick and flint, which takes a core drill and patience, and a thatched roof means the condenser and cabling stay well clear of the eaves.

In a village off the mains gas network the heating side of a split system matters as much as the cooling, and the heating and cooling guide sets out what a reversible system can and cannot replace.

What it costs

The cost guide has the national figures, and the cost estimator gives a range for your rooms. Local factors that push a Berkshire quote up are a raised flood-zone bracket, longer pipe runs to reach a permitted position, and consent work for a flat. The installer guide covers the F-gas checks.

Next step

North of the river, the Oxford page covers a similar mix of listed buildings and newer estates. For anywhere in Berkshire, request an installer match and tell us which rooms overheat, which council you are in, and whether the property is in a flood area, a conservation area or on a managed estate. We'll review your requirements and match you with a suitable installer operating in your area.