Ilford air conditioning that cools in July and heats in January

What kind of house is a typical Ilford home?

Very often a terrace more than a hundred years old. Ilford had 10,913 residents in 1891 and 78,188 in 1911, and between 1901 and 1911 Southend was the only English town of over 50,000 people that grew faster. Cameron Corbett began the Grange estate north of the station in 1894 and the Downshall and Mayfield estates at Seven Kings and Goodmayes in 1898, while Peter Griggs built the Cranbrook estate from 1897. Most of what they put up was long, regular streets of two-storey terraces on narrow plots. At the 2021 Census terraced houses were still the most common home in Redbridge: 33,469 of the borough's 103,713 households, or 32.3%, against 27.0% in semi-detached houses and 25.4% in purpose-built flats.

That makes a lot of Ilford straightforward to cool. The back bedroom usually takes the afternoon sun and sits a short pipe run from a rear wall, a side return or the flat roof of a back addition. Permitted development allows one outdoor unit on a terrace or semi and two on a detached house, provided the unit heats as well as cools, measures no more than 1.5 cubic metres, stays off pitched roofs, and goes no higher than the ground floor on any wall that faces a road.

Sources: Victoria County History, population; Victoria County History, Ilford; Area Insights, Census 2021; Planning Portal.

What is changing around Ilford station?

The town centre is growing upwards. Shenfield line trains took the Elizabeth line name on 24 May 2022, the station gained a new entrance and step-free access to every platform that year, and from 6 November 2022 Shenfield trains ran through central London to Paddington. Redbridge's Local Plan, adopted on 15 March 2018, expects 5,300 new homes in the Ilford growth area and treats the town centre as a zone where tall buildings may go. Pioneer Point, 105 metres high, is already the tallest building in the borough. In December 2022 Chapel Place received consent for 837 homes in towers of up to 36 storeys, and in May 2025 a scheme of 326 social-rent flats, rising to 30 storeys, was approved on the former Harrison Gibson site on the High Road.

Flats like these are well sealed and well insulated, which holds the heat in once a warm spell sets in, and research for the government found that more than half of households sometimes report something stopping them opening their windows, mainly security or noise. Approved Document O, the overheating rule in the Building Regulations, has applied since 15 June 2022 and covers new residential buildings only; homes created by conversion are outside it, for now. In a block of flats, permitted development allows a single outdoor unit for the entire building, which leaves most decisions with whoever manages or owns the block. Where nothing may be fixed outside, a unit with no outdoor box is the usual answer. Sources: TfL; Network Rail; Network Rail on through trains; Redbridge Council; Local Plan policy LP1A; policy LP27; Londonist; Construction Enquirer; AHR; MHCLG; Planning Portal; Elmhurst Energy.

Who has to agree before an outdoor unit goes up?

In Ilford it is more often a landlord or a freeholder than the person living there. Private renting in Redbridge climbed from 22.9% of households in 2011 to just over 30% in 2021, and over the same decade the share of households owning their home fell from 63.6% to 57.1%, which the ONS records as the joint largest percentage-point fall in England. In Ilford Town ward the pattern is stronger still: 56% of households rent privately and 55% live in flats.

Renters should get the landlord's consent on paper first, since the work goes through an outside wall. A leaseholder needs the freeholder's, because the outside walls are normally the freeholder's to control. LEASE, the leasehold advice service, says that where work alters the freeholder's own structure, such as an outside wall, the freeholder does not have to agree, and may ask a premium of any amount as the price of agreeing. Landlords have rules of their own as well. Selective licensing covers Ilford Town and Valentines wards from 1 November 2023 to 31 October 2028 and fifteen more Redbridge wards from 8 April 2024 to 7 April 2029; additional licensing of smaller shared houses runs across the whole borough until 17 September 2028; and since 6 December 2019 turning a house into a small shared house for three to six people has needed planning permission. None of these rules stops a landlord fitting air conditioning, though the paperwork for the new electrical circuit should be kept with the property records. Sources: Redbridge Council, 2011 Census; Area Insights, Census 2021; ONS; Area Insights, Ilford Town ward; LEASE; LEASE on charges; Redbridge Council, Ilford Town and Valentines; fifteen-ward scheme; additional licensing; Article 4 on shared houses.

Which parts of Ilford come under conservation rules?

Only a small part, because most of Redbridge's 16 conservation areas are in Wanstead, Snaresbrook and Woodford. The two nearest the town centre are Valentines Mansion, designated in 1981, and the Bungalow Estate between Seven Kings and Goodmayes, first designated as Mayfield on 3 October 1991 and extended and renamed in 2014. William Henry Knox drew the first bungalow designs there in December 1919, John William Moore built from 1925, and the estate was largely finished by 1939; an Article 4 direction has controlled extensions, porches and roof alterations there since September 1987. Valentines Mansion itself is late 17th century and listed at Grade II*, its park is a registered park and garden at Grade II, and the chapel of Ilford Hospital, founded about 1145 by the Abbess of Barking, is also Grade II*.

In a conservation area the householder allowance for outdoor units stops short of any wall or roof that fronts a road and out of the ground between the house and the road. At a listed building there is no permitted development at all, and changing the building's character without listed building consent is an offence. So in the Bungalow Estate we begin at the back garden, and anywhere near a listed building we begin with the council. Sources: Redbridge Council; conservation area proposals, 2014; Bungalow Estate appraisal; Historic England, Valentines Mansion; Historic England, Valentines Park; Historic England, Ilford Hospital chapel; Planning Portal; the 1990 Act, section 7; section 9.

Will the same unit heat the room through the winter?

Yes, and for a fraction of the cost of a plug-in heater. Switched to heating, the box outside pulls warmth out of cold air and the wall unit passes it to the room. Air-to-air systems typically reach a seasonal heating efficiency above 4, according to the Energy Saving Trust, meaning each unit of electricity delivers about four units of heat. With electricity capped by Ofgem at 26.32p a kWh for October to December 2026, our own sum puts a kilowatt-hour of heat from such a system at about 6.6p, against the full 26.32p from a plug-in fan heater and 7.97p for gas before any boiler losses. Ofgem has said the cap for January 2027 onwards will be announced on 25 November.

It warms the room it is fitted in, not the radiators or the hot water, so it works alongside a boiler rather than replacing one. The air-to-air heat pump page explains where that pays off, and the running costs guide sets out the sums. Sources: Energy Saving Trust; Ofgem; Ofgem, August 2026.

Can you cool shops, salons and offices on the High Road?

Yes, and Ilford has done industrial-scale temperature control before. Alfred Harman began making photographic plates in the town in 1879, his Britannia Works became Ilford Limited, and the firm stayed until 1976, when production moved to Basildon. A Sainsbury's opened on the Roden Street site in 1985, and the same land is where Chapel Place has been approved. The workplaces we cool are shops, salons, cafés and restaurants on the High Road, offices and clinics near the station, and the server cupboards in the back of all of them.

There is no legal maximum temperature for a workplace. The law says the temperature indoors must be reasonable, and since June 2026 the HSE has said heat should be assessed like any other hazard. On a shop or office, an outdoor unit is likely to need planning permission because the householder rules do not apply; on top of that, a building whose air conditioning adds up to more than 12 kW must have it inspected by an energy assessor at least every five years. See commercial air conditioning, office air conditioning and server room cooling. Sources: Wikipedia on Ilford Photo; Let's Talk Redbridge; HTA Design; legislation.gov.uk; HSE; Planning Portal; GOV.UK.

What should any installer be able to show you?

Proof of two separate registrations and a sound figure. First, the company's F-gas certificate: every business that installs or services refrigerant equipment for other people, sole traders included, must be certified by an approved body such as Refcom, the F-Gas Register or Bureau Veritas, and must renew every three years; the technician who handles the refrigerant also needs a personal qualification. Second, how the electrics will be signed off. A new circuit is notifiable under Part P; if the electrician belongs to a competent person scheme, the work can be self-certified and the certificate should reach you within eight weeks. Third, for a home, the result of the MCS 020a sound calculation, which has to come to 37 dB(A) or less at the neighbour's nearest window or door for the unit to count as permitted development. Our F-gas checking guide shows how to look a firm up. Sources: GOV.UK; GOV.UK; IET; GOV.UK; Grant UK.