Experts reveal the best places to put air conditioning in a house – and the spots to avoid to get the most out of your investment

With things once again hotting up in the UK, and temperatures on the rise in general, more and more people are starting to invest in air conditioning units for their homes, both portable and wall-mounted systems.

If you are considering fitting air con in a bid to keep your home cooler, you are probably mulling over a range of factors, from running and installation costs to whether fitting air conditioning is worth it in the UK, when, let's face it, for most of the time we are a nation that complains about the rain and the cold more than we do the heat.

It is worth bearing in mind that you don't have to fit air conditioning throughout your home to feel its benefits. For example, in my own home, it is the bedrooms that tend to overheat in summer. With this in mind, I asked the experts which rooms benefit the most from air conditioning – and where might it just be a waste of money.

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Which rooms benefit the most from air conditioning?

If you love the idea of being able to cool down a room fast, but are worried about the cost of installing air conditioning, it really does pay to do your research in terms of which spaces are likely to benefit the most.

It is important to bear in mind that the type of house you live in and your individual needs will play a part here – there is not necessarily a one-size-fits-all solution, as air conditioning expert Tom Houlker, director of Houlkair, explains. 'Look for the room that causes the most discomfort, not the biggest. If there’s one bedroom you avoid in summer, or a home office where you’re constantly opening windows and still feel uncomfortable, that’s the place to start. It comes down to how the room is used, how often it overheats or gets cold, and whether the unit can realistically control that space. Installers will look at your room size, insulation, window position, sun exposure and how the air will move around.'

Tom Houlker

Tom Houlker is the director of Houlkair, heating and cooling specialists, based in Manchester. Tom has over 10 years of experience working in the HVAC industry and has risen from a building services engineer to the director of his own air conditioning company. He is an expert in air conditioning, cooling, and heating and can provide expert comments on all aspects of the industry as someone who has worked at each level. Houlkair are a CHAS-accredited contractor and has a REFCOM F-Gas Certification.

All the experts I spoke to agreed that there tended to be three common areas to focus on if you want to feel the benefits of air conditioning the most:

1. Bedrooms (particularly those that face south)

Cooling bedrooms down tends to be one of the biggest struggles homeowners face during a heatwave. Not only do they usually lie on the upper storeys of a house, which tend to get hotter than ground floor spaces, but they are also the one spot that really needs to feel comfortable in order to allow a good night's sleep.

'Without a doubt the master bedrooms and south-facing upstairs rooms benefit from air con the most,' picks up Kevin Pennington of Lancashire Air Conditioning. 'Because of changes to the building regulations leading to better insulation over the past 20 years or so, modern houses hold onto heat incredibly well. Some new build houses that we come across have a master bedroom facing into the sun meaning that they get direct sunlight through double glazed windows for up to 12 to 15 hours a day. That leads to those bedrooms, even in the north of England, reaching over 40°C in relatively cool but sunny weather. In very hot weather they can become completely uninhabitable.'

'Heatwaves can often lead to sleepless nights in summer so the master bedroom is the perfect place for an air conditioner,' agrees Sam Carter, HVAC expert at Appliances Direct, who goes on to explain that units which can also heat a space make a lot of sense in this room. 'Our homes are built to retain heat, which leads to restless, humid summer nights. A bedroom heat pump unit ensures optimal sleep hygiene in July, while offering a highly efficient, fast way to warm the room up in January without turning on the whole central heating system.'

Kevin Pennington

Kevin is owner and managing director of Lancashire Air Conditioning. He specialises in domestic AC installations in England and has installed over 1000 AC units personally and managed many more. Kevin has an encyclopedic knowledge of UK stocked AC units designed for homes and is a member of the Institute of Refrigeration, holding the designation TMInstR.

Sam Carter

Sam is a home heating and cooling (HVAC) expert with 4 years of experience. He is dedicated to helping customers as they shop for radiators, heaters, dehumidifiers, and air conditioning online.

2. Home offices

If you work from home, the last thing you need during a heatwave is to be sitting at your desk sweltering away.

'Along with the bedroom, a home office can be where you spend the most time in one spot and where temperature affects how you feel and function,' points out Tom Houlker. 'A home office that gets too warm or too cold quickly becomes uncomfortable to work in.'

Again, the location of your home office within your house needs to be considered carefully – if it tends to stay relatively cool no matter what the weather, a fixed air con unit will be a waste of money and it will be well worth looking at some of the best portable air conditioners as an alternative, as Tom explains. 'If the room has poor airflow, doors constantly open, or no real heat problem, you can end up paying for a system that never really earns its keep.'

3. Conservatories and garden rooms

Conservatories, heavily-glazed extensions and even garden rooms placed in a sunny spot are all prime candidates for overheating. If you were wondering whether air con is a good idea in a conservatory, rest assured, it is.

'A conservatory is effectively a greenhouse so they get incredibly hot,' says Kevin Pennington. 'Because modern air-conditioning units are actually heat pumps they can not only cool the room in summer but also provide really cheap heating in the winter. Putting a unit in a conservatory makes it a room you can use all year round instead of being an oven in summer and a freezer in winter.'

Tom Houlker is also keen to extoll the benefits of a fitting a unit that heats as well as cools. 'If the unit can heat as well, garden rooms, loft conversions and extensions can also be good candidates because they often sit outside the main heating pattern of the house.'

Which rooms is air conditioning a waste in?

Unless you are building from scratch and considering a whole house heating and cooling system, it tends to be more economical to pick and choose which rooms to install air conditioning in. Having spoken to the experts, it is clear that fixed units are a waste of time in certain spots around the house. So where is the worst place to put air conditioning?

'Air con is usually wasted in rooms people barely use or that already stay comfortable most of the year,' says Tom Houlker. 'I’d also be cautious with hallways, spare rooms, utility rooms or large open areas where one small unit is expected to do too much.'

'Air con is a complete waste of money in hallways, landings and open stairwells,' agrees Kevin Pennington. 'People often think they can just put one big unit at the top of the stairs and it will cool the whole house. It doesn’t work at all. Cold air sinks, so it just falls down the stairs like water and you end up with a freezing cold hallway while the bedrooms stay boiling hot. You should only ever put air conditioning in the rooms where you actually sleep or sit.

'It is also a waste of money in a kitchen if you have things like an AGA cooker left on all summer, or if you are running dishwashers and tumble dryers during the day because the heat produced by these appliances is just fighting the air conditioning,' continues Kevin.

What air con alternatives are worth considering?

Ultimately, air conditioning is not going to be right for every type of space or household. However, that doesn't mean you have to resign yourself to hanging out in the local supermarket in summer in order to get some respite from the heat – there are some great alternatives out there to consider instead.

That said, before you rush out to spend your money on the best fans around, Kevin Pennington has some words of wisdom. 'If people want to look at non air-con solutions before spending money they need to first stop the house getting too hot in the first place. A big mistake homeowners make is closing curtains made from dark heavy fabrics. These, along with aluminium or dark wood blinds, absorb heat. This causes the room to get significantly hotter than it should be. A great way around this is getting white curtains and fitting them very close to the glass to reflect sun away. Heat reflective film on the windows really helps too.'

When it comes to fans, there are several cooling hacks you can try in order to up their efficiency, plus there are now some really clever new products out there, such as misting fans and portable air coolers that cost far less than air con but can be super effective.

Before spending any money on an air con unit for your home, be sure to research portable vs fitted air conditioning so that you can feel confident you are opting for the right system for you and your home.