Why homes in Cobham, Esher and Weybridge overheat
Houses here are built for space and light, and in a heatwave that turns against you. The big modern houses on the private estates — St George's Hill, the roads around Oxshott and Cobham — tend to have floor-to-ceiling glazing, open-plan kitchens facing the garden and large south-facing bedrooms. All that glass soaks up sun through the day and holds the heat well into the night.
The older stock gets there a different way. The Edwardian and interwar houses around Esher and Weybridge have solid walls that absorb heat slowly and release it into big upstairs rooms all evening — rooms that size take a long time to cool down again.
A properly installed split system sorts both, and because a modern split is a reversible air-to-air heat pump, it heats the same rooms efficiently in winter too. Two checks first: parts of the area sit in conservation areas, and some private estates have their own rules about what can go on external walls. Check before anything is fixed to the house — don't assume.
Sort the electrics first
Before pricing units, look at the fuse board. Larger homes here often carry plenty of electrical load already — an EV charger, outbuildings, sometimes a pool — and some of the older houses are still on ageing consumer units. A split system, like anything with a compressor, needs sound modern electrics behind it.
An electrician's condition report (an EICR) tells you exactly where you stand, and if a new consumer unit is needed it's a routine job. Our guide to whether your home's electrics can handle air conditioning covers what to check — worth doing before solar, a battery or anything else goes in as well.
What it typically costs — and where we're up to
As a rough guide, a single-room wall-mounted split usually comes in around £1,500–£3,000 fitted. A multi-split covering three or four rooms — the main bedrooms, perhaps the home office — runs more like £3,500–£7,000. Bigger houses sometimes want more than one system, but few families cool every room; most do the rooms that actually bake. Our full cost guide breaks it down properly.
And an honest note: we're new here. We're opening in Elmbridge now and still onboarding vetted local installers for KT10, KT11 and KT13, so we won't pretend there's a crew round the corner today. Register your interest and we'll match you with a vetted local installer as the network comes online — one introduction, not a call barrage.