County wide
Air conditioning in Kent
From Westerham and Sevenoaks down through Tonbridge and Royal Tunbridge Wells to the Weald, we install and service air conditioning across the west Kent commuter belt.
Kent is a big county, and we will be honest from the start about which end of it we serve best. Arctic Cool is based in Storrington in West Sussex, so our Kent work sits naturally in the west of the county, in the commuter belt that runs from Westerham and Sevenoaks down through Tonbridge and Royal Tunbridge Wells and out into the Weald around Paddock Wood, Cranbrook and Hawkhurst. These are towns of period houses, converted oasts, glazed extensions and fast trains to London, and between them they generate exactly the kind of varied, careful air conditioning work our engineers enjoy getting their teeth into.
Every engineer on the team is F-Gas qualified, and we install Daikin and Mitsubishi Electric equipment, brands we trust to run quietly and reliably year after year. Whether you are cooling a stuffy loft office in Sevenoaks, a south facing kitchen extension in Tunbridge Wells, a shop on Tonbridge High Street or a barn conversion outside Cranbrook, the job starts the same way for every customer, with a proper look at the building, straight answers about what will and will not work, and a fixed written quotation before a single hole is drilled in your wall.
The buildings
Kent’s housing stock, from oast roundels to commuter villas
West Kent’s houses tell the county’s story. Royal Tunbridge Wells grew as a Georgian spa town, and its centre still runs from the colonnaded Pantiles up through Decimus Burton’s Calverley Park villas, with whole streets protected by conservation area status. Sevenoaks pairs a high street of listed buildings with big Victorian and Edwardian family homes near Knole Park. Tonbridge spreads out from its medieval castle gatehouse beside the Medway in streets of Victorian terraces and interwar semis, while out in the Weald, Cranbrook and Hawkhurst are all white weatherboard, tile hanging and converted oasts inside the High Weald National Landscape. Each type heats up differently in summer, and each needs a different approach to pipework and placement.
The rural stock brings its puzzles. Oast conversions have round kiln rooms and conical roofs where a standard wall unit does not fit, so we often use concealed ducted systems fed from a roof void instead. Barn conversions and glazed farmhouse extensions gain heat fast through south facing glass. In conservation areas and around listed buildings from Westerham to Goudhurst, outdoor units need placing with real care, screened from the street and fixed without harming historic fabric, with listed building consent sorted first where it applies. Paddock Wood, meanwhile, is growing quickly, and its highly insulated new build homes hold summer heat and suit modern wall mounted systems.
The work
Air conditioning work we take on across Kent
Much of our Kent work comes from the commuter towns. Sevenoaks, Tonbridge and Tunbridge Wells are full of people who moved out of London for space, work from home for part of the week and discover that a loft office or a glazed rear extension is unusable by July. A wall mounted or ducted system fixes that, and because these units are air to air heat pumps they provide efficient heating through the winter as well. We also look after commercial premises, from cafes and shops around The Pantiles to salons and small offices in the market towns, where dependable cooling keeps staff, customers and stock comfortable through a heatwave.
- Loft office and bedroom cooling in Sevenoaks and Tonbridge commuter homes
- Concealed ducted systems for oast and barn conversions in the Weald
- Discreet installs in Tunbridge Wells and Sevenoaks conservation areas
- Cooling for glazed kitchen extensions and garden rooms
- Air conditioning for shops, cafes and salons on Kent high streets
- Server and comms room cooling for small offices
- Servicing, repairs and refrigerant leak checks on existing systems
Nearby
Towns across Kent we cover
Our Kent work concentrates on the western side of the county, where the M25, A21 and A26 make the run over from Sussex straightforward. If your town is not on this list, or you are further east towards Maidstone, Ashford or the coast, ring us anyway before assuming we cannot help. We will tell you honestly whether the distance works, and point you elsewhere if it does not.
Postcode districts we cover here: TN1, TN2, TN3, TN4, TN8, TN9, TN10, TN11, TN12, TN13, TN14, TN15, TN16, TN17, TN18, BR1, BR2, BR6, BR8.
Our own work
Photographs from recent jobs.
Questions
Asked before most jobs.
You are based in Sussex, so do you really cover Kent?
Honestly, yes for the west of the county. We are based in Storrington in West Sussex and work across the South East, so Westerham, Sevenoaks, Tonbridge, Tunbridge Wells and the Weald towns are all within sensible reach for surveys, installations and servicing. For addresses further east, towards Maidstone, Ashford or the coast, give us a quick call anyway. We will say straight away, on the phone, whether we can get to you, or tell you plainly if a firm nearer to you makes better sense for the job.
Can you install air conditioning in a listed building or conservation area?
Often, yes, with the planning side handled properly. Towns like Tunbridge Wells, Sevenoaks and Westerham have large conservation areas, and listed buildings need consent before equipment is fixed to the historic structure. The usual answer is careful placement, putting the outdoor unit somewhere it cannot be seen from the street, keeping pipe runs internal where possible and choosing compact, quiet condensers. We will tell you at the survey stage whether consent is likely to be needed and what your council will expect to see before you commit to anything.
What can you do with an oast house or barn conversion?
Quite a lot, and they are some of our favourite jobs. The round kiln rooms of a converted oast rarely suit a flat wall mounted unit, so we look at ducted systems hidden in roof spaces or floor voids, with nothing showing in the room but a neat grille. Barn conversions with tall glazed gables respond well to carefully sized wall or ceiling units that deal with the solar gain. Every one of these buildings is different, which is why we always survey properly before we quote.
Which brands do you install and who does the work?
We install Daikin and Mitsubishi Electric systems, chosen because they are quiet, efficient and well supported with spare parts in the UK. All installation, servicing and repair work is carried out by F-Gas qualified engineers, which is a legal requirement for anyone handling refrigerant, and gases are recovered properly whenever a system is opened up or taken out. You get the manufacturer’s warranty on the equipment, a clean and tidy installation, and a proper walkthrough of the controls before we leave your home or premises.
Next step
Book your free survey.
Arctic Cool is based in Storrington in West Sussex and works across the South East, and west Kent sits comfortably within that patch. Call us about your project, tell us where you are, and we will say straight away whether we can get to you, then arrange a survey at a time that suits.
