Air conditioning in Wandsworth

Wandsworth Council has 46 conservation areas, ranging from a single street such as Deodar Road to large areas such as West Putney, and including Battersea Park, Clapham Common and Wandsworth Common. People in the borough search for "wandsworth planning permission air conditioning". For a house, one heat pump that also heats can be permitted development if it meets the size, siting and noise rules and, in a conservation area, stays off any wall or roof facing the street. For flats, mansion blocks and cooling only units, expect an application.

The mansion blocks overlooking Battersea Park have managing agents, rear courtyards and lightwells, and leases that control any alteration to the outside. A licence for alterations, with drawings and a noise figure, comes first. A dripping unit in a mansion flat can also damage the ceiling below, so the condensate route is planned carefully. In the new towers at Nine Elms, the building's own ventilation and cooling design and the lease usually rule out external units, so ask the building manager what is allowed.

Across Clapham, Earlsfield and Tooting, the standard job is a loft conversion bedroom and one or two other bedrooms. With one outdoor unit allowed on a terrace under permitted development, a multi split on the rear extension roof works well. Pipes from the loft usually come through the eaves or down an internal wall. Get the pipework in while the loft is being built if you can.

Putney and Southfields have larger Edwardian houses, mansion flats near Putney Bridge and the Heath, and the big West Putney conservation area. Detached and semi detached houses here often have the garden space for a well placed outdoor unit, and a detached house can have two under permitted development since May 2025 if both also heat. Mansion flats follow the freeholder and planning route described above.

Along the river at Wandsworth Riverside, Battersea Reach and Nine Elms, many homes are flats in newer towers with building managers and their own building services. As elsewhere in London, the first call for a hot flat is the building manager, to find out what the lease allows and whether the block already has a cooling or ventilation system that needs attention.