Tools
Air Conditioning Planning Tools
Free, no sign-up tools for working out roughly where you stand before anybody visits. Each one shows its arithmetic, names every assumption it makes and tells you what it cannot tell you.
Planning aids, not surveys
These tools exist so you can arrive at a conversation with us already knowing roughly what you are dealing with. They are deliberately cautious, they are open about their method, and none of them will tell you which product to buy — that depends on your building, and a survey is how anyone finds out.
Nothing you type into them is sent to us, saved to an account or stored anywhere, unless you decide at the end to send us your results.
They are just as useful if you end up going elsewhere. We would rather be the company that explained it properly.
Start with the question you have
In roughly the order they come up. There is no need to work through them in order, and no need to use all of them.
What kind of system would even suit my space?
This is where nearly everyone starts, and it is the question the industry is worst at answering in plain terms. Wall-mounted, cassette, ducted, floor-standing — most people meet those words for the first time on a quotation, by which point it is awkward to admit you do not know what you are being offered. The choice is usually made for you by the building rather than by preference, and knowing which one and why puts you in a much better position before anybody visits.
What size do I need?
The most common way to get this wrong is to work from floor area, and it is wrong in both directions. Too small and the system never quite copes on the hottest days. Too large and it cools the air quickly, shuts off before it has removed much moisture, and leaves a room that is cold and clammy — while cycling on and off in a way that is harder on the equipment than steady running. What actually decides it is how much heat gets into the room and how much stays there.
What will it actually cost to run?
Air conditioning is widely assumed to be expensive to run and heat-pump heating is widely assumed to be cheap. Both depend entirely on the equipment, what you pay for electricity and how much the system is actually used. The single most expensive misunderstanding here is that a system's kW figure is the electricity it uses — it is not, it is the cooling or heating it delivers, and the two are very different numbers.
What is it like to live with?
Sound is the most common reason somebody is unhappy with an otherwise perfectly good installation, and it is the specification figure customers are least equipped to read. 19 dB(A) and 25 dB(A) look almost identical on paper. In a bedroom at two in the morning they are not.
What actually happens if I go ahead?
Most people have never had air conditioning fitted and have no idea what the day involves — how long it takes, how much mess there is, or what half the words on the quotation mean. Knowing what the stages are also tells you what to check is included, because two of the most important ones are the easiest to skip and the hardest to see afterwards.
Every tool, in one list
The same tools again, if you already know which one you want.
- Most used
Air Conditioning Running Cost Calculator
Estimate what a system costs to run from the cooling or heating it delivers, its efficiency rating and your own electricity unit rate.
Open the tool - Most used
Indicative Room Sizing Guide
A pre-survey screening guide to the capacity band a room is likely to need, and the factors that would change it.
Open the tool - Most used
Which System Is Right For You?
Answer eight questions about the space and get one or two shapes of system worth looking at, with the reasoning behind each.
Open the tool How Loud Is It, Really?
What a dB(A) figure on a specification actually means, and why a few decibels is a bigger difference than it looks.
Open the toolWhat Happens On Installation Day
The eight stages of an installation from survey to aftercare, each one explained in plain English.
Open the toolCompare Systems Side By Side
Put up to four of the systems we install next to each other and see exactly where they differ.
Open the tool
What every tool here promises
The same five rules apply to all of them. They are the reason these are worth using rather than the calculators that exist to collect an email address.
- Every one shows its working
- No tool here gives you a number without showing how it got there and what it assumed. If you disagree with an assumption, you can change it and watch the answer move.
- Nothing you type is sent to us
- There is no sign-up, no email gate and no saved profile. The calculations happen in your browser and stay there, unless you decide at the end to send us your results.
- Each one says what it cannot tell you
- Before the form, not after the answer. A limitation you read once you already have a number is a disclaimer; one you read first is something you use the tool with.
- None of them will pick a product for you
- Which system is right depends on your building, and that comes out of a survey. These narrow the question down and tell you what to ask — they do not pretend to close it.
- We do not publish a saving
- Nothing here claims what you would save against any other way of heating or cooling a room. That depends on what you have now, how you use it and what you pay for energy, and we will not put a number on it without knowing all three.
Before you rely on this
- This is indicative, not a specification. It is a guide to help you plan and ask better questions. It is not a design, not a quotation and not a substitute for a survey.
- A survey is what decides. An engineer measures the things this page can only ask you to estimate, and confirms where equipment can physically go, how it will be run and what the electrical supply allows.
- Installation and refrigerant work are regulated. Air-conditioning systems contain refrigerant under pressure and are connected to a fixed electrical supply. Installing, moving, opening, recharging or decommissioning one is work for a qualified, F-Gas registered engineer — never a DIY job.
- We do not publish a saving. Nothing on this page claims what you would save against any other way of heating or cooling a room. What you would save depends on what you have now, how you use it and what you pay for energy, and we will not put a number on that without knowing all three.
Related services
What these tools are a first step towards.
- InstallationDesign, supply and installation for homes and businesses
- RepairsFault diagnosis and repair when a system stops working
- MaintenancePlanned servicing to keep a system efficient and reliable
- ResidentialAir conditioning for houses, flats and garden rooms
- CommercialOffices, retail, server rooms and multi-site estates
Worked It Out? Let's Check It Properly
A survey measures the things these tools had to ask you to estimate. It is free, there is no obligation, and if we think air conditioning is the wrong answer for what you are trying to achieve, we will say so.