Is air conditioning worth it for a Yorkshire home?

Yorkshire is not the first place most people picture when they think about air conditioning. But the last few summers have changed the conversation. More of our customers are asking the same question: is it actually worth putting air conditioning into a home up here? The honest answer for a lot of homes is now yes, and the reason is that a modern unit does far more than cool.

It heats as well as it cools

The Worcester Bosch Climate 3200i we fit is an air source unit, the same technology family as an air source heat pump. That means it works in both directions. In July it pulls heat out of the room and keeps it comfortable. In October it does the opposite, taking warmth from the outside air and pushing it inside, so a single wall unit takes the chill off a room without firing up the whole central heating system.

That is the part most people miss. You are not buying a box that earns its keep for three weeks a year. You are buying year-round comfort, and a cheap way to warm a single room that the boiler struggles to reach, like a loft conversion, a garden office or an extension.

What it costs to run

The Climate 3200i is rated A++ for cooling and A+ for heating, which are the top efficiency bands. It runs on electricity, and because a heat pump moves heat rather than burning fuel to make it, you get several units of heating or cooling for every unit of electricity it draws. A built-in Save Mode trims consumption further, and the weekly timer means you are only conditioning the room when someone is in it.

Running costs depend on your tariff and how hard you push it, so we will not pretend there is one magic number. What we will say is that cooling a bedroom for a good night’s sleep on a hot night costs pennies, not pounds.

Cleaner, quieter, smarter

It is not only about temperature. The 3200i filters the air as it runs, which helps with allergens, odours and dust, and it is quiet enough to sleep next to. You control it from the Bosch HomeCom Easy app or with Alexa, Google Home and Apple Home, so you can cool the bedroom before you go up or warm the office before you start work.

What we charge

We keep it simple with two supplied-and-fitted packages, both with a 5-year guarantee:

• One room from £1,495 inc VAT, or about £20 a month on finance.
• Two rooms from £2,895 inc VAT, or about £39 a month.

Those are real prices for a standard install, fitted by an employed BASI engineer rather than a sub-contractor. If you want more than two rooms, or you are weighing it up for a shop or office, we survey the space and quote one fixed price before any work starts. The full detail, the spec and the packages are on our air conditioning page.

Is it right for your home?

Air conditioning is not the answer for every room or every budget, and we will tell you straight if we think your money is better spent elsewhere, the same way we do with boilers and heat pumps. But if you have a room that bakes in summer, a space the heating never quite reaches, or you simply want to sleep through a heatwave, a single Worcester Bosch unit is a tidy, efficient way to fix it.

Want a fixed price? Tell us about the room and we will give you a number, or spread the cost with our finance options.