Why Greenwich homes get so hot
The borough sits well inside London's urban heat island, so summer nights stay warmer here than out in the counties — and it is often the warm nights, not the hot afternoons, that finally push people to sort cooling out. The housing stock splits roughly two ways.
- The older stock — Georgian and Victorian terraces around Greenwich town centre and west Greenwich, the villas and terraces of Blackheath, and Victorian and Edwardian streets across Charlton and Plumstead. Solid brick walls soak up heat all day and give it back in the evening, and top-floor bedrooms under uninsulated roofs are usually the worst rooms in the house. Our guide to air conditioning in Victorian homes covers this stock in detail.
- The new stock — Greenwich Peninsula, Royal Arsenal Riverside in Woolwich, Kidbrooke Village and the other regeneration schemes. Big glazing, single-aspect layouts and airtight construction mean plenty of these flats run hot for a large chunk of the year. The catch is that nearly all new-build flats are leasehold, so you will need freeholder or managing agent consent before anything goes on the outside of the building — some blocks allow it, some do not, and it is worth asking early.
A modern split system is a reversible air-to-air heat pump: it cools in summer and heats efficiently in winter. Costs depend on your building, how many rooms you want covered and where the outdoor unit can go, so we will not invent a number here — our UK cost guide explains what drives the price and what a fair quote looks like.
Planning: this borough takes it seriously
Maritime Greenwich is a World Heritage Site, and the borough has a long list of conservation areas and listed buildings beyond it. None of that automatically rules out an outdoor unit, but placement matters: check the council's conservation area map, and if your street is covered, ask the planning team before committing to anything on an external wall. A decent installer will help with siting; a poor one will bolt a unit somewhere visible and leave you with the problem. Older homes are also worth an electrics check before installation — an electrician can tell you quickly whether your wiring is up to it.
Where Coolhouse is up to in Greenwich
Honestly: we are not live here yet. Our vetted installers currently cover Hertfordshire, and we are building the network out from there. If you leave your details through our estimate form, we will tell you plainly where we are up to and get in touch when a vetted local installer comes on board — no fake urgency, no passing your number around.