Air conditioning in Banstead

Why is a Banstead house the easy case for an outdoor unit?

Walls and plot size. The 2021 Census counted 59,849 households in Reigate and Banstead: 16,679 in detached houses and 17,720 in semi-detached ones, well over half between them, against 12,839 in purpose-built flats and 1,467 in converted houses. Nork is described as predominantly detached or semi-detached, built fast after the Nork estate was sold to a development company in 1923, with later estates at Rose Bushes in the 1960s and High Beeches in the 1970s. A house with its own side and rear walls can take one outdoor unit as permitted development, up to 1.5 cubic metres, and a detached house can take two, with the old one-metre boundary rule gone since May 2025. The job then turns on where the unit sounds quietest for the neighbours, not on who owns the wall. Sources: Census 2021; Wikipedia; MCS; Planning Portal.

Does Banstead have a conservation area?

One, around Park Road and Mint Road. The national planning register records its start date as 12 June 1973, and it is number 1 of the 17 conservation areas on Reigate and Banstead's heritage map, with Chipstead's two the nearest others. Inside it, permitted development does not allow an outdoor unit on a wall or roof slope that faces the road, so the unit goes to the back or to a side wall out of sight, and the conservation officer at Reigate and Banstead, not Croydon, is the person to ask when a position is borderline. The rest of Banstead, including the Nork estate and the streets around the station, has no such restriction. Sources: planning.data.gov.uk; Reigate and Banstead Council; Planning Portal.

How much does the height of Banstead change the sums?

Enough to notice in winter. Much of the village stands at about 125 metres on flint and chalk, and Nork reaches 175 metres at its highest point. The nearest Met Office climate station, Kenley Airfield, averages about 35 days of air frost a year with a January daytime high of around 7°C, and Banstead Downs, a 430-acre Site of Special Scientific Interest and one of the four Banstead Commons, lies open along the north side of the village. An air-to-air heat pump sized for the heating season, rather than a cooling-only unit, is the sensible specification here. Sources: Wikipedia; Wikipedia (Nork); Met Office.

Do Croydon’s landlord rules reach Banstead?

No. Banstead is in Surrey, under Reigate and Banstead Borough Council, so Croydon's selective licensing of 14 wards from 1 September 2026 and its borough-wide Article 4 direction on small shared houses both stop at the Greater London boundary. A Banstead landlord fitting air conditioning for tenants deals with Reigate and Banstead's planning and housing teams instead, and the Metropolitan Green Belt that wraps the village affects new building, not a unit on an existing house. The paperwork that does travel is the national kind: the F-gas certificate of whoever does the work and the electrical certificate for the new circuit. Sources: Croydon licensing notice; Croydon Council; Wikipedia.

What do we do in Banstead?

Every service on this site is available in Banstead. Choose one to read what the job involves.

What happens next?

1. You tell us about the room

   Ring 020 8194 3009 or send the form with a postcode, and say which room runs hot, and whether you own the outside wall.

2. We survey the building

   We measure the room, find a place for the outdoor unit, check the electrics and ask about the lease or the freeholder. You get a written price with the electrics itemised.

3. Consents come first

   If a freeholder, a landlord or the council has to agree, that happens before anything is drilled. We supply the drawings and the sound figures they ask for.

4. We fit, test and show you the controls

   Units, pipework and the new circuit go in, the system is pressure tested, evacuated and charged, and you leave with the certificates. A yearly service keeps it right.