For many UK homeowners, air conditioning still means a wall-mounted unit blowing cold air across a hotel bedroom or office. But air-based systems do much more than cool a single room: depending on the design, they can heat, cool and circulate air around the home, with filtration, humidity management and fresh-air ventilation potentially integrated into
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For many UK homeowners, air conditioning still means a wall-mounted unit blowing cold air across a hotel bedroom or office. But air-based systems do much more than cool a single room: depending on the design, they can heat, cool and circulate air around the home, with filtration, humidity management and fresh-air ventilation potentially integrated into the wider system. So, should this tech form part of your comfort strategy?
Do you really need a dedicated home cooling system?
Heat waves have become a prominent part of the summer conversation – reinforced by our exceptional run of hot weather this year – and more homeowners are considering whether they need active cooling. Many homes, whether recently built or much older, were not designed to cope with overheating or prolonged periods of high temperatures. The effects are often felt most acutely in bedrooms, where noise and security concerns – not to mention hot nights themselves – can make opening windows impractical.
New-build homes in England are subject to Part O of the Building Regulations, introduced in 2022 to limit unwanted solar gains and ensure excess heat can be removed. They also provide a blank canvas for incorporating features such as external shading and well-positioned opening windows or rooflights. Yet, passive measures may not always work as intended. Meanwhile, existing homes typically offer less opportunity to introduce them effectively.
The upshot? “People now are starting to say, ‘I need cooling’,” says Richard Soper, UK managing director at The Unico System. It’s a need recognised in the US decades ago, with active cooling now the norm across much of the country. Richard sees a parallel with air conditioning in cars. “I’ll put the aircon on at the start of a journey and feel the same at the end as I did when I got into the car,” he says. “You can have that same effect in your home – and you won’t even think about it; it becomes second nature.”
For UK homeowners considering it, the choice is whether to address individual problem rooms or manage comfort more consistently throughout the building. Either way, for effective cooling, you’ll want to look beyond the low-cost portable air coolers heavily promoted online.
Portable evaporative coolers sell like hotcakes over the summer and can provide some local relief. But they add moisture to the air and become less effective as humidity rises; so don’t expect them to perform the role of built-in active cooling systems. Photo: ISTOCK UNDEFINEDUNDEFINED
What types of air-based heating and cooling systems are available?
Many fixed air-conditioning systems are actually a type of air-to-air heat pump. In cooling mode, they take heat from inside the building and release it outdoors; reversible models can run the process in the opposite direction to provide heating. Like the more familiar air-to-water heat pump, they use a refrigerant circuit to move heat. The difference is how that energy is delivered: air-to-water systems transfer it into water for radiators, underfloor heating and a hot water cylinder, while air-to-air systems deliver heating or cooling through the air.
The simplest form is the familiar hotel-room setup: an outdoor pump serving a wall-mounted or concealed fan unit inside the room. Multi-split arrangements connect several indoor units to a single outdoor appliance. They can suit homes where only selected rooms need heating and cooling, but each indoor unit still serves a defined room or zone rather than distributing air throughout the house.
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