Portable air conditioners that Lidl sold for £149 were flying off the shelves this summer, as households desperate for relief from intensifying heatwaves scrambled for any cooling solution they could find. The demand has been so fierce that retailers have seen their stock disappear and online units sell out, according to the BBC.
The scramble reflects a fundamental mismatch: while air conditioning has long been standard in cars, hotels and public buildings, British homes were designed to trap heat, not expel it. But as UK summers get hotter and heatwaves become more regular, that is beginning to change.
“Air conditioning demand surges as UK heatwaves worsen, with portable units from £149 to whole-home systems costing up to £10,000.”
The technology works by drawing in warm air, cooling it and venting the heat outside. For homeowners, there are three main options.
Cheapest are portable units – standalone machines that plug into a socket and vent through a window. Checkatrade, the tradespeople directory, puts the average cost at £350 to £650, though Lidl’s middle-aisle special offered a temporary reprieve at £149.
More permanent are split systems, with an indoor unit and an outdoor condenser linked by a pipe. These can be installed for a single room or multiple indoor units can be connected to one outdoor condenser, according to LG, the appliance retailer. British Gas says such “ductless systems” are among the most common options for UK homes. The unit alone costs between £750 and £1,100, but installation – including connection to the fuse board – pushes the full cost to £2,000-£3,500, installation company Heatable estimates. For more than one room, that can rise to £6,000.
The most expensive option is ducted air con, a whole-home system with a central unit pushing cooled air through a network of ducts and vents in each room. The unit costs £990 to £1,750 without installation, but fitting the ducting – which typically requires invasive renovation – means the total ranges from £5,000 to £10,000, depending on property size and layout, according to Heatable.
With temperatures rising and stock vanishing, the question hanging over Britain’s heatwave-weary households is no longer whether air conditioning works, but whether it is time to make it a permanent fixture in most homes.