Why Wandsworth homes overheat
The Victorian terraces that fill Balham, Tooting, Earlsfield and much of Putney were built to keep heat in, not out. Solid brick walls soak up sun all day and release it through the evening, loft conversions sit directly under the roof tiles, and rear kitchen extensions with big glazed doors can behave like greenhouses. The newer riverside blocks around Battersea and Wandsworth Town have the opposite construction and the same result: floor-to-ceiling glazing, high airtightness, and windows that often barely open.
Add London's urban heat island — the borough simply does not cool down overnight the way open countryside does — and top-floor flats and converted lofts can stay warm well past midnight. Opening windows helps less than you would hope if you live near the South Circular or above a busy street like Tooting High Street or Northcote Road. We cover the terrace-specific issues in our guide to air conditioning in Victorian homes.
Costs and the practical questions
We would rather not throw numbers at you that turn out to be wrong for your house — what a system costs depends on the property, how many rooms you want covered and how the pipework has to run. Our guide to air conditioning costs in the UK sets out realistic ranges and what pushes a job up or down. One thing worth knowing: a modern split system is a reversible air-to-air heat pump, so the same unit heats efficiently in winter — though it is not covered by the Boiler Upgrade Scheme, which only applies to heat pumps that heat water.
A few things that come up often in this borough:
- Older wiring in Victorian houses often needs checking before a system can be connected, and some homes need electrical work done first. Any decent installer will look at this at the survey stage, not after the units have gone up.
- Wandsworth has a number of conservation areas. Check with the council before fixing an external unit to a visible wall — do not assume either way.
- If you are in a flat — which covers most of the riverside blocks — you will almost always need freeholder or managing agent consent before anything is mounted outside.
Where Coolhouse is up to in Wandsworth
Straight answer: our vetted installers are currently in Hertfordshire, not south-west London, and we are building the network outwards now. We will not pretend otherwise or promise you a quote by Friday. What we can do is take your details, tell you honestly where we have got to, and put you in touch as soon as a vetted installer covering SW postcodes comes on board. In the meantime, our estimate tool will give you a realistic sense of what your home would involve.