Office air conditioning in Ilford

What does the law say about heat in an office?

That it must be reasonable, without setting a ceiling. Under regulation 7 of the Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992, an employer has to keep the temperature inside a workplace reasonable while people are working. Government guidance confirms there is no legal maximum or minimum, and suggests at least 16°C, falling to 13°C for strenuous work. The Health and Safety Executive's statement of 19 June 2026 puts heat alongside every other workplace hazard, to be assessed and controlled. Cooling is one control; blinds, moving desks out of direct sun and changing hours are others. Sources: HSE, June 2026; Workplace Regulations 1992; GOV.UK guidance.

What decides the size of an office system?

The heat each space gains, counted room by room:

• floor area, ceiling height and the amount and direction of glazing;
• the most people in the room at once, not the daily average;
• computers, screens, printers and lighting, since nearly all the power they draw ends up as heat;
• meeting rooms that fill for an hour and then sit empty, which are better on their own unit;
• a comms cupboard, which is better served by its own unit than by the office system.

In a converted space above a shop, the lease and the route to an outdoor position can matter as much as the heat load.

Does an office unit in Ilford need planning permission?

Assume it does. Planning Portal says an air source heat pump, which is what an air conditioning unit is, is likely to need a planning application on non-domestic land. In London, applications are judged against the London Plan, whose policy SI 4 sets a cooling hierarchy for major developments, with active cooling as the last step, and says increased use of air conditioning "is not desirable" because of its energy demand. Its principles can be applied to smaller schemes too. For an office, that means choosing the position where the unit is least seen and heard, such as a rear wall, a flat roof or a plant deck already in use. Separately, your lease decides what the landlord has to approve. Sources: Planning Portal; London Plan 2021.

When does a TM44 inspection apply?

Once the air conditioning in a building controlled by one person totals over 12kW of effective rated output. Small units count together: four 3.5kW wall units under one tenant make 14kW (our sum), which is inside the rule, although systems in separate buildings cannot be added together. The inspector must be an energy assessor in an accreditation scheme, inspections can be no more than five years apart, and each one produces a report on the system's likely efficiency with suggestions for improvement, which you are not legally required to act on. Having no report risks a £300 fixed penalty, and not producing it for Trading Standards within a week of a request a further £200. Source: GOV.UK.

How do we fit it without stopping work?

By splitting the job into noisy and quiet parts. Core drilling, outdoor brackets and anything on a roof can be done early, late or at a weekend. Mounting indoor units and running pipework in ceiling voids can then go room by room, with desks and equipment covered or moved, and fire exits kept clear throughout. We agree the order with whoever manages the office. The same approach works for a single room over a shop or a whole floor; cooling and heating in Ilford sets out the rest of what we do locally.