Air conditioning in Ruislip
A medieval village centre wrapped in a 1930s garden suburb, and more detached houses than almost anywhere else in the borough.
Air conditioning installation across London. Based in Harrow and Stanmore.
Air conditioning in Ruislip
Yes, we cover Ruislip, and the planning authority here is Hillingdon rather than Harrow, which changes what you need to know. Ruislip has two conservation areas, Ruislip Village and Ruislip Manor Way. The village one is the constraint that matters: it holds 23 statutorily listed buildings, 26 locally listed buildings and a scheduled ancient monument inside a small area, so in and around the old centre the outdoor unit goes to the rear, out of sight of the street. Hillingdon does have an Article 4 direction covering every address in Ruislip, but it is about large single storey rear extensions and has nothing to do with an air conditioning unit. Outside the conservation areas, Ruislip is mostly detached and semi detached interwar housing on generous plots, and those are straightforward installs.
Wall mounted systems start from £1,995 fully installed, and the price does not change with the postcode.
Planning authority
London Borough of Hillingdon
Postcode district
HA4
Conservation areas
Two
Listed in the village area
23 statutory, 26 local
A different borough to the rest of our patch
Most of the places we work are in Harrow. Ruislip is not. It sits in the London Borough of Hillingdon, which publishes its own conservation area register, runs its own Article 4 directions and makes its own decisions. If you have read advice written for a Harrow address, very little of it transfers.
Hillingdon publishes 31 conservation areas across the borough. Two of them are in Ruislip: Ruislip Village, designated in 1969 and one of the first areas the borough agreed, and Ruislip Manor Way, designated in 1989. Nearby Eastcote adds three more and Northwood another three, so if you are on the edge of the village it is worth establishing which side of a boundary you are on before anything is ordered.
The two Ruislip conservation areas
As Hillingdon publishes them. The village area was extended on 14 January 2009 to take in all of the High Street and the residential suburbs west of it, so a house built in the 1930s can sit inside a conservation area named after a medieval village.
| Conservation area | Designated | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| Ruislip Village | 1969, extended 14 January 2009 | The medieval core, all of the High Street, and the western residential suburbs |
| Ruislip Manor Way | 1989 | The Manor Way estate |
Published by the London Borough of Hillingdon. Hillingdon also designates Areas of Special Local Character, a separate and lesser status, and two of the fifteen are in Ruislip: Moat Drive and Midcroft.
The Article 4 direction here is not about outdoor units
Hillingdon has an Article 4 direction that applies to every address in the borough, Ruislip included, and it is easy to find and easy to misread. It came into force on 22 September 2014 and it removes permitted development rights under Class A of Part 1 for a single storey rear extension that would project more than 4 metres beyond the rear wall of the original house. That is its entire scope. It does not govern where an air conditioning condenser goes, and any quote that cites it as a reason to charge you for a planning application has misunderstood it. What decides a condenser position in Ruislip is whether you are inside a conservation area.
What is actually in the village area
The adopted appraisal puts it plainly: within the conservation area there are 23 statutorily listed buildings, 26 locally listed buildings and one scheduled ancient monument. That is a lot of protection in a small space, and it is the reason the village core needs care rather than paperwork.
The scheduled monument is a Norman motte and bailey castle site at Manor Farm. Alongside it stand the Great Barn, a 13th century aisled oak frame listed at grade II star, the Small Barn which has been the public library since 1937, and Manor Farm House, built in 1505 and 1506 on part of the site of a 13th century priory belonging to the Norman Abbey of Bec. The parish church of St Martin of Tours next door is listed grade I, the only grade I building for some distance.
The council divides the area into three character areas: the early village core, the High Street, and the western residential area. They are not the same job. The core is timber framed and genuinely old, the High Street is early 20th century shop parades, and the western part is interwar housing that was only brought inside the boundary in 2009.
Why so much of Ruislip is 1930s
In 1909 Kings College held a competition to plan a garden suburb on its Ruislip land. It was won by the architects A and J Soutar, and their plan shaped how the area around the old village was laid out as it filled in over the following decades.
The practical effect for us is plot size. Garden suburb planning means houses set back behind front gardens with real space at the side and rear, which is usually good news: there is somewhere discreet to put the outdoor unit, and a rear elevation that nobody sees from the road.
What this means street by street
In the village core or on the High Street
Timber framed, genuinely old, and densely listed. If your building is listed, listed building consent is a separate matter from planning permission and both may be needed. We establish that before quoting, not after.
In the western part of the conservation area
Interwar housing inside a conservation area boundary drawn in 2009. The house may be ordinary, the constraint is not. The unit goes to the rear, away from the street elevation.
In a detached house outside the boundary
Ruislip ward is about 37 percent detached against 14 percent across Hillingdon as a whole, so the odds of a bigger plot are better here than almost anywhere we work. That usually means a longer pipe run to a discreet position, and anything past the three metres included is priced per metre on the quote.
In a flat or a maisonette
Around a fifth of Ruislip ward households are in purpose built flats. Freeholder consent comes first, and above the first floor a condensate pump is likely and is priced on the quote rather than raised on the day.
One thing people get wrong about Ruislip
The conservation area is named after a medieval village, so people assume it only covers the handful of old buildings around the church. Since January 2009 it has not. The boundary was extended to take in all of the High Street and the residential streets to the west, built on the Park House Estate, Withy Crofts and King's College land, along with the old hamlets of Great Kings End and Little Kings End.
So a perfectly ordinary 1930s semi several streets from the church can sit inside the same conservation area as a 13th century barn. It is worth checking your specific address rather than assuming, and it takes us a minute to do.
Your planning authority is London Borough of Hillingdon
They decide any application for your address, and they publish the conservation area maps you would need to check it. We do not submit applications on your behalf, but we will tell you at the survey if one is likely and give you the unit dimensions and position to put on the form.
London Borough of Hillingdon conservation areasWhat we fit most in Ruislip
Every price is fully installed and includes the unit, the installation, the electrical work and VAT.
Nearby
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Instant estimate
Ruislip is a straight run for us.
Out along the A40 or across from Pinner, and the survey and the install usually sit close together. Size your room in about a minute and we will give you a starting price.