Costs
14 min readWhat air conditioning installation actually costs
Fitted air conditioning costs £1,895 to £5,995+. What the price includes, what legitimately changes it, and how to check the quote you were given.
The short answer
Fitted air conditioning in the UK costs between about £1,500 and £6,900 depending on how many rooms you are doing — that is the range UK owners actually report paying, and every cost guide you will find quotes a range like it rather than a price, because the installers behind them quote each job individually. Duneair publishes four fixed installed prices instead: £1,895 for one room, £2,395 for one room with the pipework concealed, £3,795 for two rooms, and £5,995 upwards for a whole floor. Those are the prices, not starting points. The survey, the F-Gas certified installation, the MCS 020(a) noise calculation and commissioning are inside them. What genuinely changes the number — a longer pipe run, loft routing, a condensate pump — is published as well, at £150 to £450 each, and nothing changes after the survey without being quoted to you in writing first.
How much does air conditioning cost to install in the UK?
Four prices, once, and then what sits inside them. These cover supply and installation of a wall-mounted split system in a conventionally built home, fitted by an F-Gas certified engineer, with the noise calculation your permitted development rights depend on included in writing.
| What it covers | Price, fitted | Suits |
|---|---|---|
| One room, quality mid-brand unit | £1,895 | Bedroom, study, small living room |
| One room, premium unit, concealed pipework | £2,395 | Where the pipe run is visible from a main room |
| Two rooms, one outdoor unit | £3,795 | Bedroom plus living room, or two bedrooms |
| Whole floor, multi-split | £5,995+ | Three or more rooms on one system |
Against that, what people report paying elsewhere. These are volunteered figures from UK owners on MoneySavingExpert in August 2026 — a small sample, quoted as reported rather than averaged into a single number that would hide the spread.
“Quotes we got for 1 unit indoor and 1 unit outdoor - ranged £1900-£2500.”
“I paid about £1,500 both times…Basic LG 3.5kW units.”
“I paid £6900 for three way multi split aircon.”
What's actually included in that price?
This is the section no competitor can write, and the reason is worth stating plainly: a page quoting a range cannot itemise what is inside it, because the scope is whatever each installer decides it is. A fixed price has to be specific about what it buys.
- The survey
- IncludedSizing confirmed room by room. Usually remote, from photographs and your address; on site where the property needs it
- MCS 020(a) noise calculation
- Included, in writingThe evidence your permitted development rights depend on, whether or not the answer suits us
- Placement design
- IncludedWhere the indoor head sits, how the pipework runs, where the outdoor unit goes — agreed before anything is drilled
- Installation and commissioning
- IncludedBy an F-Gas certified engineer, tested and handed over working
- Standard pipe run
- Up to 3mLonger runs are published at £150, not discovered afterwards
- Manufacturer warranty
- 5 or 7 yearsDepending on the unit — the premium tier carries the longer term
How much does it cost for one room?
£1,895 or £2,395, and the honest difference between them is not quality of installation — it is the unit and what happens to the pipework. The cheaper tier is a real product rather than a bait price: a quality mid-range unit, properly sized, fitted by the same engineers to the same standard.
What the higher tier buys is a premium unit with a longer warranty and a quieter indoor fan, and pipework boxed in and painted to match the wall rather than run in surface trunking. If the pipe run is somewhere you will look at every day, that is the difference worth paying for. If it runs down the back of the house, it usually is not.
Which capacity you need is a separate question from which tier, and it is answered by the room rather than the budget — what size you actually need walks through it, and going one size up “to be safe” is the most expensive mistake in this category.
What does it cost for two or three rooms?
£3,795 for two rooms, £5,995 upwards for a whole floor. The thing worth understanding is why the second room costs less than the first did: a multi-split runs several indoor heads from one outdoor unit, and the outdoor unit is the expensive half. You are adding a head, a pipe run and labour — not a second system.
That is also why multi-room pricing gets less predictable as it grows. One outdoor unit serving three rooms is a different job in a bungalow than in a three-storey terrace, because the pipework has further to travel and more building to travel through. Above two rooms we price after seeing the building rather than publishing a number we would have to revise.
Does it cost more in a flat than a house?
Almost every cost guide presents property type as a cost driver. It is not one. It is a proxy for room count, and once you know how many rooms you are covering, the flat-versus-house distinction adds very little to the price.
What genuinely differs in a flat is permission and position, not cost. You may need freeholder or managing-agent consent, and the outdoor unit has fewer places it can legally and sensibly go — which is a design and permissions problem that the survey solves. The rules themselves are in whether you need planning permission, including what changed in May 2025 and why most pages still have it wrong.
Why did two installers quote thousands apart for the same house?
Because you are not comparing value, you are comparing numbers you cannot account for. The spread in the figures above is real, and almost all of it decomposes into four things — none of which a quote is obliged to tell you about.
- Kit tier. A basic unit and a premium one from the same manufacturer can differ by several hundred pounds before anybody fits anything, and they differ in warranty length and how quiet they are.
- Pipe run and routing. Three metres of surface trunking and twelve metres routed through a loft are not the same job. If the quote does not state the run in metres, it has not been surveyed.
- Whether the survey and the noise calculation are inside the price. Some quotes price the visit separately. Some do not run the MCS 020(a) calculation at all, which leaves you to prove your own permitted development rights later.
- Whether the installer is F-Gas certified and REFCOM registered. Handling refrigerant without certification is unlawful, and it is also the cheapest way to be cheaper.
What legitimately changes the price?
Publishing the extras is itself the argument. These are the six things that can be added to a job, with what each costs, so you can construct your own worst case rather than discovering it.
| Add-on | Price | When it applies |
|---|---|---|
| Extended pipe run | £150 | Beyond the standard 3m |
| Loft routing | £250 | Where pipework crosses a loft space |
| Condensate pump | £180 | Where gravity drainage isn't possible |
| Decorative outdoor casing | £220 | Where the outdoor unit is visible and wants hiding |
| Concealed trunking | £180 | Boxed in and painted rather than surface-run |
| Old unit removal | £150 | Replacing an existing system |
The one thing we quote rather than publish
Electrical supply work. If your consumer unit has no spare way, or the outdoor unit needs a dedicated circuit, that is quoted at survey rather than carried on this page — because what it costs depends on your existing installation and we would rather price it than guess at it.
What matters is that quoting it at survey does not put a floating cost behind a fixed price, because the mechanism is published too: you get the difference quoted in writing, before any work starts, and you can accept it or cancel. If you cancel at that point you are refunded in full, including the survey. And once the placement is agreed, the price does not move again.
Is there a grant that brings the cost down?
There is, and most households do not qualify for it. Air-to-air heat pumps became eligible for £2,500 under the Boiler Upgrade Scheme in April 2026 — not the £7,500 you will see quoted everywhere, which is the air-to-water figure. The condition that disqualifies most people is that the property must have no fossil fuel heating system, so a gas boiler rules you out. The £2,500 grant, and who actually gets it covers the eligibility rules and the application in full.
What will it cost to run once it's fitted?
Everything above is what it costs to have it fitted. What it costs to switch on is a different question with a different answer, and it is the one that decides whether the purchase was worth making. The short version is roughly 25p an hour in cooling — but the more useful figure is the heating one, because that is where the annual saving actually comes from. What it costs to run has the arithmetic, the assumptions and the temperature at which it stops being cheap.
How to check a quote you've already been given
This works on anybody's quote, including ours. If a quote cannot answer these, it has not been surveyed properly — and an unsurveyed quote is a number that will move.
- Is the survey priced separately, or inside the number?
- Is the MCS 020(a) noise calculation included, and will you get the result in writing whichever way it goes?
- Is the pipe run specified in metres, or left unstated?
- Is the pipework surface-mounted or concealed, and which did you assume?
- Is the installer F-Gas certified and REFCOM registered — and can they give you the numbers?
- Is the install date confirmed when you order, or is it “we'll be in touch”?
- What happens to the price if the survey finds something, and is that written down anywhere you can point at?
What to do next
If you know which room you are doing, the four prices, with what’s in each is the whole list and you can buy from it without speaking to anybody. If you are not sure what size you need, a few questions about the room gets you an indicative band in about a minute, with no email address and no callback.
Where this comes from
We’d rather you checked. These are the primary sources behind the claims above, in the order they matter.
- MoneySavingExpert forums — owner-reported installed pricesWhat UK owners say they actually paid, across two threads in August 2026. A small sample, quoted as reported rather than averaged.
- Ofgem — Boiler Upgrade SchemeSource for the £2,500 air-to-air figure and the fossil-fuel exclusion.
- MCS 020(a) — Planning Standards for Permitted DevelopmentEstablishes the noise calculation as a required deliverable, which is why it sits inside the price rather than beside it.
- Duneair published price listThe four prices quoted throughout. Checked against the live list on the date above.
Not yet independently reviewed. This guide was written from the primary sources listed above and is accurate to the best of our understanding on the date shown. It hasn’t been checked by an independent compliance professional, and it isn’t legal advice. Where a decision turns on it, verify with your local authority or with Ofgem directly — and tell us if we’ve got something wrong.