Residential
Where you put the indoor and outdoor units is the single biggest thing that decides whether you love your air conditioning or quietly resent it. A perfectly good unit in the wrong spot will feel draughty, run noisier than it should and cost more to run than it needs to. The same kit, sited properly, just melts into the background and does its job.
After more than 25 years fitting systems in homes right across the North-East, we have seen the same placement mistakes come up again and again. The good news is they are all avoidable. Here is how we think about position when we survey a home in Newcastle, Durham, Sunderland or anywhere in between.
Start with the room, not the wall
People often point at a wall and say they want the unit there because it is out of the way. That is the right instinct but the wrong order. We start by working out where the air needs to go, then we find a wall that lets us deliver it. A wall-mounted indoor unit throws a long flat fan of air out and slightly down across the ceiling. That air sweeps across the room, drops as it cools and circulates back. Get that sweep right and the whole room feels even. Get it wrong and you end up with a cold corner and a warm corner.
The ideal is a unit mounted high on a wall with a clear run of ceiling in front of it, so the air can travel the length of the room before it falls. You want it blowing into the living space, not straight into a wall or a tall wardrobe a metre away.
We also think about the way you move through a room. In an open-plan kitchen diner the family tends to gather at one end, so that is the end the air needs to reach. In a long thin lounge the sofa might be right down one end facing the window, so there is no point throwing cool air across an empty stretch of floor. Watching how a room is actually lived in tells us more than any rule of thumb, and it is the kind of thing you only pick up by standing in the space.
Never aim it straight at a bed or a desk
This is the complaint we hear most from people who inherited a system fitted by someone else. The indoor unit is sitting directly above or opposite the bed and every night it blows a steady stream of cool air straight onto whoever is sleeping there. It feels like a draught, it dries your throat and people end up switching the whole thing off and sweating instead.
The fix is simple at the design stage. We site bedroom units so the airflow passes over the bed rather than onto it, usually on a side wall blowing across the foot of the bed or along the room. Modern units let you angle the louvres and set a gentle breeze, but you should not have to fight the geometry of the room. The same rule applies to a home office. Nobody wants cold air landing on the back of their neck while they work, so we keep the throw away from where a desk is likely to go.
It is worth thinking a step ahead here too. People move furniture around, and a bed that is on one wall today might be swapped to another wall next year when the room gets redecorated. Where we have the choice, we favour a position that still works if the layout changes, rather than one that only suits the exact arrangement on the day we visit. A little foresight at the survey saves you living with a draught after the next tidy-up.
Room by room
- Lounge. Mount high on a wall that lets the air sweep across the longest part of the room. Keep it clear of the TV wall where possible so pipework stays tidy and the unit is not the first thing you look at.
- Bedroom. Side wall, air travelling over the bed rather than onto it. A quiet night mode matters here, so we also think about where the sleeper is relative to the fan noise.
- Home office. Away from the desk zone, gentle throw, easy reach of the controller or a tidy spot for the remote.
- Kitchen diner. Open-plan spaces often need the unit positioned to serve the seating and living end rather than blasting the hob, and sometimes a higher-capacity unit to cope with the extra heat and glazing.
- Conservatory or garden room. These are heat traps in summer and cold boxes in winter, so placement and sizing both matter. We look hard at the glass and the aspect before we pick a wall.
The outdoor unit matters just as much
The outdoor condenser is the part people forget to plan for, then it ends up bolted somewhere awkward as an afterthought. It needs a decent flow of air around it to work efficiently, so it cannot be boxed in or shoved into a tight alcove where the hot air it throws out just recirculates. It also makes some noise, a low hum, so we think about where that noise lands.
We like to keep the outdoor unit away from bedroom windows, away from a neighbour’s boundary where we can manage it and off the ground on brackets or a stand so leaves and debris do not pile up underneath. A north or east facing wall is often kinder than a wall that bakes in afternoon sun. We also keep it clear of anywhere you sit out in summer, because nobody wants to relax next to a gently humming box.
Access matters more than people expect. The outdoor unit will need a service every so often, so it has to be somewhere an engineer can actually reach safely. A condenser hung high on a gable end with no safe way to get to it just stores up trouble, and a unit buried behind a shed or a water butt is no better. We look for a spot that is out of the way visually but still sensible to reach with a ladder or from the ground.
In a terraced yard or on a small plot the options can be limited, and that is fine. We would rather have an honest conversation about the one or two realistic spots than pretend there is a perfect one. Sometimes the answer is a wall-mounted bracket, sometimes a ground stand, sometimes a flat roof above an extension. Each has its merits and we will tell you straight which one we would choose and why.
Keep the pipe run short
The indoor and outdoor units are joined by refrigerant pipes, a drain and a cable. The shorter and more direct that run, the better the system performs and the tidier the install. Long, winding pipe runs cost efficiency and give more opportunity for the finish to look messy. When we survey, we are always looking for the pairing of an indoor spot and an outdoor spot that are close together, ideally back to back or on the same side of the house, with a sensible route between them.
Hiding the pipework
Outside, the pipes are wrapped and usually run in neat white or colour-matched trunking. A good installer treats the external run as part of the job, not an afterthought, keeping it straight, level and tucked against mortar lines or downpipes so your eye slides over it.
Inside, we go to real lengths to keep pipework hidden. Depending on the property we can drop pipes down inside a stud wall, run them through a loft or ceiling void, box them into a corner or bring them through to an outdoor run as directly as possible. On a straightforward back-to-back install the pipe barely shows at all. On a trickier layout we will talk you through exactly where the run goes before we lift a drill, so there are no surprises.
The homes that give us the most freedom are those with a loft above the room, because we can run the pipe up into the void and across to come out wherever suits, keeping it off the finished walls entirely. Older solid-walled properties take a bit more thought, since there is nowhere to hide a pipe inside the wall itself, so there we plan the neatest external route and a tidy internal drop. Either way, the finish should look like it was always meant to be there, not bolted on afterwards.
Drainage you can forget about
An indoor unit produces condensate water, which has to drain away. Where possible we let it fall to a sensible outside point by gravity, which is silent and maintenance-free. Where the layout will not allow that, we fit a small, quiet condensate pump. Either way this is part of the position decision, because a unit sited with nowhere for the water to go leads to compromises later. We sort it at survey so it is never your problem.
Common mistakes we fix
- Unit crammed above a door. It looks tidy but the air has nowhere to travel and the room feels patchy.
- Blowing onto a wall or wardrobe. The throw is wasted and circulation suffers.
- Outdoor unit boxed in. Restricted airflow makes it work harder, run louder and last less long.
- Aimed at the bed. The draught that gets the whole system switched off.
- Long lazy pipe runs. Easier for a rushed fitter, worse for you on performance and looks.
Why the survey is everything
You cannot pick the right position from a photo or a phone call. Every home is different: the size and shape of the room, where the sun lands through the day, how the glazing behaves, where you actually sit and sleep, where the pipe can run and where the outdoor unit can sensibly live. A proper survey weighs all of that together and comes back with a position that works for the way you use the space, not just the way that was quickest to fit.
That is also where sizing gets locked down. A unit that is too small never keeps up and a unit that is too big short-cycles and feels clammy, so position and capacity go hand in hand. We would far rather spend half an hour in your home getting this right than leave you with a unit you end up fighting.
A survey is also your chance to ask the awkward questions. Where exactly will the pipe come out? How will the outdoor unit look from the garden? Will it wake anyone at night? Can the controller go somewhere handy? These are all fair things to want answered before you commit, and a good installer welcomes them. We would far rather you quizzed us on the day than wondered afterwards.
And remember that getting position right is not just about comfort, it is about running cost and longevity too. A well-sited system with short pipe runs and a free-breathing outdoor unit works less hard to do the same job, which means it uses less energy and lasts longer. Rushing the position to save an hour on the install is a false economy you pay for every month afterwards.
Talk to Air Con North
If you are weighing up air conditioning for your home anywhere across the North-East, let us come and take a proper look. We will walk the rooms with you, talk through where the units would sit and how we would hide the pipework and give you honest advice on what suits your home. It is a free, no-obligation survey and quote with no pressure at the end of it. Call us free on 0800 246 5430 and we will arrange a time that suits.
