Air conditioning installation in Harwich and Dovercourt

Harwich and Dovercourt get treated as one place and quoted as one place, and they are not. The old town is medieval street pattern and Georgian frontages inside a conservation area. Dovercourt is a Victorian and Edwardian seaside resort with the housing to match. They need different answers.

The old town

Harwich old town is a tight grid of narrow streets with buildings straight onto the pavement — Church Street, King's Head Street, the quay. A great many are listed, and nearly all of it sits inside the conservation area. That rules out the easy solution of putting the outdoor unit on the nearest external wall, because on most of these houses the nearest external wall faces a public street.

What works instead is a rear or courtyard position, worked out properly at survey, with the pipe run planned rather than improvised. Where a building is listed, an outdoor unit needs listed building consent, and that is a conversation to have before anything is ordered rather than after. If your house is listed, say so when you call.

Dovercourt

Dovercourt is the easier job and the bigger opportunity. Edwardian and interwar semis and detached villas on generous plots, with side access and room to put an outdoor unit somewhere sensible. Solid walls and high ceilings, which is why they are expensive to heat and why most of our customers in this sort of house end up using the heating far more than the cooling.

Where the salt comes from

Harwich sits at the mouth of two estuaries and faces open water on three sides of the peninsula. Add the constant movement of shipping air off the harbour and you have conditions that take a standard aluminium condenser coil apart faster than anywhere inland. A factory-applied protective coating, specified when the unit is ordered, is the difference between a system that lasts fifteen years here and one that quietly fades in six.

Villages and areas nearby

We also cover Dovercourt, Parkeston, Ramsey, Little Oakley, Great Oakley, Wrabness and Bradfield, along with the Tendring villages between here and Manningtree. If you are not sure whether you are in range, call and ask — the answer is usually yes.

What it costs

Our pricing is published rather than quoted on the doorstep, so you can see roughly where you stand before anyone visits. See one, two and three room prices.

Nearby towns we cover

• Air conditioning in Manningtree
• Air conditioning in Frinton-on-Sea
• Air conditioning in Walton-on-the-Naze
• Air conditioning in Colchester
• See every area we cover

Worth reading first

• Why it needs an annual service
• Do you need planning permission?
• Does air conditioning heat a room?