Air conditioning has never been a hotter commodity than it is now. With temperatures in the UK continuing to creep up, hot summers are becoming our new normal – and many homes just aren’t prepared.More people are installing air conditioning units in their homes than ever before. According to a Uswitch study published in May 2026, the number of UK homes with fitted air conditioning has almost doubled in three years, increasing from around 926,000 in 2022 to a whopping 1.85 million in 2025. While portable air conditioners are a more affordable option, they’re noisy, bulky and nowhere near as effective at cooling an entire home during a heatwave. Actual installed split air conditioning systems are quieter, offer lower running costs and are a lot more powerful at cooling down rooms – but they can cost thousands of pounds to initially install.One of the biggest names offering home air conditioning installations in the UK is Boxt. The Leeds-based company, best known for installing boilers and solar panels, has also been fitting split air conditioning systems since 2022. To see whether home AC is finally worth the investment in the UK, I got heating and cooling specialist Boxt to install two Bosch Climate 3200i units and one Bosch 5000M condenser in my home.Read more: Is central air conditioning worth it in the UK?Get a free quote now Boxt air conditioning review: Quotation process and price Boxt makes it super simple to get a quote for fitted air conditioning, and you don’t even need to arrange an at-home visit. You fill out a guided questionnaire that curates the ideal air conditioning system based around your property and the type of installation you need. I knew I wanted two units – one for my bedroom and one for the living room. The process all started by asking what type of property I live in, whether that’s a detached, semi-detached, terraced, bungalow, flat or commercial unit. After selecting semi-detached, I was then asked where I wanted the outdoor condenser unit to be installed. An outdoor condenser is basically a large external box that sits outside your home and powers the indoor air conditioning units.Boxt then asked me how many rooms I wanted air conditioning in – I was looking to install one unit in my bedroom and one in the living room. A two-room installation connects multiple indoor units to a single outdoor condenser. Boxt currently supports up to three rooms through the online portal, with a discount automatically applied if you choose more than one unit or room. The quote process is easy to follow (Alex Lee/The Independent)You have to provide a few details about each room – from the type of room (living room, kitchen, conservatory etc) and which floor level it’s on, to specifying the size of the room and describing how much sunlight it gets. I was then asked whether I wanted the indoor unit mounted on an external or internal wall. Boxt helpfully explained that external walls are preferred, because they reduce pipework complexity and the amount of visible trunking needed inside the home.Boxt also asks you to estimate how far the outdoor condenser will sit from the indoor unit and where it’ll be installed (on the ground, on the wall or on a higher-level floor). You can choose from 3m to 25m. For both rooms, I selected a 15m pipe run. Boxt recommends fitting the unit on the floor where possible, rather than wall mounting it higher up.It’s super easy to follow – even for a total DIY newbie like me. Every question is accompanied by an explanation, diagrams and lots of examples. So, even if you know absolutely nothing about split air conditioning systems (trust me, I had no clue – I just wanted to stay cool), your hand is held throughout the entire process. After entering my postcode, Boxt generated a full recommendation in seconds. Based on the answers I’d provided, the company suggested I get two Bosch Climate 3200i 3.5kW indoor units paired with a Bosch Climate 5000M 6.2kW outdoor condenser. The quote also included the full installation, including trunking, mounting equipment and REFCOM-certified fitting. Altogether, the quote for my two-room setup came to £4,610 including installation. The Bosch Climate 5000M 6.2kW outdoor condenser made up a chunk of the installation, costing £3,160. The two Bosch Climate 3200i 3.5kW indoor units, which also have a heat pump for the colder months, cost £750 each.The quote also included the floor mounting pack for the outdoor unit, trunking to conceal the pipework and wiring, as well as REFCOM-certified installation and a five-year warranty. Boxt automatically applied a £200 discount for choosing a two-room installation.The system recommendation is clearly laid out (Alex Lee/The Independent)At £4,610 for a two-room setup, Boxt isn’t cheap, but it also isn’t wildly out of step with the rest of the market. According to MyBuilder, professionally installed multi-split air conditioning systems capable of cooling between two and four rooms typically cost between £3,500 and £5,500 in the UK, depending on installation complexity and the number of indoor units.In a recent interview with The Independent’s energy editor Jeff Meyer, Glow Green founder Lloyd Greenfield explained that the final cost of a fixed air conditioning installation can vary significantly depending on several factors. These include the number of rooms, the distance between the indoor and outdoor units, whether the system is mounted on an internal or external wall and if additional work like scaffolding is required.If paying more than £4,000 up front sounds eye-watering, Boxt also offers finance options. I was shown repayment plans from 12 to 120 months, but there were also shorter-term interest-free plans. For my recommended system, there were monthly payments available starting from £33 per month. The longer the term you lock in, the higher your interest.Once you’re happy with the quote, you can then choose the date of your installation. At the time of writing, Boxt had installation slots available less than a week away from when I completed the questionnaire, with the company even advertising next-working-day installation in some areas.For my installation, Boxt estimated that it would take up to two days to complete. I was also given a specific engineer arrival window between 7.30am and 9.30am, with a small introduction to some of the local installers in my area.After choosing your installation date, you select your address from the dropdown box, confirm whether you’re the homeowner or renting the property and then move on to payment. You can pay the whole amount up front or across monthly instalments. Ultimately, the entire quotation process is simple. It’s all easy to work through, and explained in detail so I never got lost or confused. Boxt lists out all the prices in an easy-to-understand format and the questions are all accompanied by examples. Boxt air conditioning review: Preparing for installationOnce the order is confirmed, Boxt immediately emailed me a breakdown of the installation date, costs and next steps. The main thing I had to do was upload photos of my home for the technical review team. This meant taking photos of where I wanted my indoor units located, the outdoor installation area and my electric meter. Boxt warns that if the photos aren’t submitted before 3pm on the working day before the appointment, the installation date may need to be rescheduled, so I uploaded these pronto. Again, another really simple process – Boxt gives you examples of good and bad pictures, so you know what the company wants from you.Boxt needs those photos to be accurate because, unlike a traditional air conditioning installer, someone doesn’t need to come round and look at your home first. Boxt bases your installation entirely on these photos, and if it’s unsure of anything, the company will get back in touch to verify that the quote matches the reality of your property before the engineers arrive.You get all the details about your engineer the day before the installation (Alex Lee/The Independent)The day before the installation, Boxt sent over another email confirming that everything was ready to go, with my engineer’s name (Charlie), as well as his preferred drink and snack, which was very helpful indeed. Boxt also detailed his expected arrival window and an outline of what would happen during the installation process.Charlie rang me that same day to confirm what time he’d be arriving and to double check the piping colour I’d prefer for the guttering (white or black). Boxt kept me informed right throughout the process. For something as expensive and potentially disruptive as fitting home air conditioning, it was really reassuring to have the various updates and information prior to the installation visit.Boxt air conditioning review: Installation The engineer arrived promptly at 7.30am on the day of the installation, with the equipment itself arriving separately by courier not long afterwards. Before getting started, he walked me through exactly what would happen during the installation and made sure he knew where I’d like the indoor and outdoor units to sit.I was pretty nervous about the process, but it wasn’t as stressful as I first thought. Installing fixed air conditioning isn’t exactly a small job. There’s a lot of drilling, pipework being threaded down walls and the installation of an enormous outdoor unit that needs to be connected all up to the internal ones. Thankfully, it’s not as arduous as it sounds.Once the equipment arrived, Charlie immediately got to work on the upstairs bedroom unit first, measuring where the indoor unit would sit and drilling through the external wall for the pipework before assembling and mounting the unit itself. It took about an hour and a half to mount the first air conditioning unit. There’s a lot of mess, but the engineer vacuumed up and cleared things away as he worked – it looked as as if he’d never been there at all. The bedroom unit was the first to go up (Alex Lee/The Independent)After installing the bedroom AC, he went into the garden to install the outdoor condenser unit, which powers both indoor air conditioning units. Now, this thing is gigantic. What I’d say is that it takes up a lot of garden real estate, so I would recommend measuring the unit before you actually go ahead and book. You don’t want to regret installing AC once it’s done.If you care about the aesthetics of your garden, you might not appreciate the hulking outdoor machine taking up residency outdoors. Because I was getting two indoor units installed, I had to get the Bosch Climate 5000M 6.2kW – a multi-split system that is significantly bigger than the single split condenser, so keep that in mind if you opt for a multi-room system. Once that was in place, the engineer ran all of the piping from the upstairs bedroom down the side of the house and into the condenser, with the pipework neatly concealed inside external trunking. While it’s not a huge drop from the upstairs unit to the condenser, this bit definitely took the longest amount of time. There’s a bunch of insulated copper piping, electrical cabling and drainage pipes all needing to be routed down the outside of the house and connected back into the outdoor condenser. It’s a big job, and it did make me appreciate why it costs so much to install.The pipework took the longest amount of time (Alex Lee/The Independent)The living room unit was installed last, with the final pipework then connected back into the same outdoor condenser. Charlie took a great deal of care with the placement and routing throughout the process. He explained that the living room unit had to be positioned slightly closer to the curtain than originally planned because of electrical wiring hidden inside the wall. Like the first internal unit, the final indoor unit took about an hour and a half to install. The installation is definitely noisy, particularly when fitting the piping and drilling through external walls, but it’s a fairly clean process. Tools were kept organised and the engineer regularly cleaned and vacuumed as he worked, so the house never felt like I was living on a building site.Once both indoor units had been installed and connected, Charlie then spent a while outside tinkering with the Bosch Climate 5000M condenser unit before temporarily powering everything on to make sure the system was working properly. The living room unit was installed last (Alex Lee/The Independent)Thankfully, he didn’t vanish after it was all hooked up. Once he’d confirmed everything was working, he then walked me through how to actually use the system, including the remote controls, cooling modes, fan and heat settings and dehumidifier functions. This was hugely appreciated, given he’d already been at my house for a good eight hours at this point.The following day, an electrician arrived to permanently wire the system into my home’s electric meter. This was probably the most fiddly bit of the entire installation because of where my meter is located, tucked underneath the stairs. The cabling had to be routed through the staircase, into the downstairs toilet and then back outside towards the garden. A difficult installation indeed. Luckily, there weren’t any hitches after that, and after five hours, the family and I could happily indulge in some icy cold air conditioning.Boxt air conditioning review: Bosch Climate 3200i performance Of course, the most important question is whether the whole thing actually works (the answer is yes). Installed just in time for the heatwave, the two Bosch systems have been an absolute lifesaver in the burning heat.The indoor units aren’t big ugly grey blocks. Discreet, slim and compact, their glossy white exterior just blends into the wall. There’s also a hidden LED display built into the front of the unit. When the AC is running, the temperature lights up through the casing – really nice and subtle – as well as the timer indicators and eco mode. You can completely dim the display as well, which is handy for the bedroom unit when trying to sleep. The unit looks sleek in my living room (Alex Lee/The Independent)The biggest surprise for me is that, because the downstairs unit has been installed in an open-plan style living room that connects to the dining room and kitchen, the cooling actually spreads to the entire area. I assumed it would only really cool the living room, but the entire downstairs space actually cools as well, despite the awkward curved layout of my room. Set to around 19C, the Bosch Climate 3200i can cool my living room, dining room and kitchen within half an hour. Bosch actually recommends keeping the system between 22C and 24C for efficiency – like a portable AC, lowering it all the way down to 17C won’t cool the room faster, it’ll just use more electricity. If I wanted to just cool the living room, anything up to 22C was actually too cold. Setting it around 24C gave the perfect amount of chill to keep us all cool.The bedroom unit has probably made the biggest difference. My upstairs bedroom turns into an absolute furnace during summer, especially at night, and normally I just suffer through it with a fan pointed directly at my face while still sweating through the bedsheets. Now it gets cold within half an hour of me turning the machine on. Sitting in an ice-cold living room after coming home in blazing heat has been one of the best feelings of the entire summer. British homes just aren’t designed for prolonged hot weather, so it’s been absolute bliss to be able to stay cool.It operates really quietly so I can still sleep at night (Alex Lee/The Independent)As well as cooling and heating modes, there’s also a dehumidifier, plus multiple fan speeds and sleep mode. Plus, you can programme it so the fan doesn’t blow down at your face. Noise was another big concern of mine, particularly in the bedroom, but the Climate 3200i is absurdly quiet. I’ve tested enough portable air conditioners to know that these units can get so loud you need to wear noise-cancelling headphones. The Bosch is so quiet, you genuinely don’t even notice the unit is on and running. Bosch says the indoor unit can operate at as low as 20dB in silent mode, which is basically whisper quiet. I can comfortably sleep with it running overnight without it bothering me at all. The systems also include built-in air purification and filtration. Bosch says the units use a double-filtration system with an ioniser designed to help reduce dust, bacteria, mould and odours in the air. This is as well as an i-Clean sterilisation mode that heats the internal evaporator to remove bacteria buildup before blowing air back into the room. Obviously I can’t scientifically test all any of that myself, but it’s reassuring to know it’s not pulling in any allergens.The Climate 3200i can also connect to Bosch’s HomeCom Easy app if you buy the wifi accessory. It lets you control your air conditioning using Alexa or via the app, but I didn’t pay for this so it wasn’t something I could test. The outdoor unit isn’t the most aesthetically pleasing (Alex Lee/The Independent)In terms of the outdoor condenser? Given the size of the Bosch Climate 5000M, I expected it to sound like a jet engine every time I turned on the AC. While I can definitely hear it running when standing nearby in the garden, it’s not megaphone loud. From inside the house, I can’t hear it at all.That said, it's not exactly subtle. The unit is still a massive box in the garden, so you'll need to be comfortable sacrificing a bit of outdoor space in exchange for all that lovely cold air. The indoor units blend into the background, this thing doesn’t. Boxt air conditioning review: Operating costsThere’s an assumption that air conditioning is an absolute shock to your electricity bill. Obviously, it all really depends on how much you use your AC. Thankfully, the Bosch Climate 3200i is actually fairly efficient. Bosch rates it A++ for cooling and A+ for heating. The inverter system also automatically adjusts the compressor speed to avoid wasting unnecessary energy.Boxt estimates the 3.5kW Bosch Climate 3200i costs from £0.27 per hour to run. That can increase depending on outdoor temperatures and how much you’re trying to cool the room. I haven’t had the system installed long enough to accurately judge the long-term running costs, so watch this space.The only real downside is that, once you’ve experienced air conditioning during a heatwave, you can’t really go back. Sitting in my sister’s baking-hot living room has been even more torturous than before.It’s simply the cost that you have to consider. Not everyone needs fitted air conditioning, and if your home only gets uncomfortable for a handful of days each year, a fan or portable AC unit might make more financial sense. But while it might feel extravagant, as someone who always runs warm, I’d say it’s a worthwhile investment.Pros:Cools rooms incredibly quicklySimple online quotation processExcellent engineersGreat communication throughout installationWhisper-quiet operationHeating and dehumidifier modes includedCons:Expensive upfront investmentOutdoor condenser takes up a lot of spaceWifi control costs extraSo, is Boxt air conditioning worth it? Sitting in the icy cool right now, the only answer I have for you is: yes. This obviously isn’t a frivilous purchase. Spending more than £4,000 on air conditioning is a big investment. Boxt has actually been one of the most hassle-free installers to deal with. The process was easy from start to end, from generating the quote and choosing the system to uploading photos, booking the installation and getting everything fitted. I didn’t feel like I was trying to do a home improvement project on my own. The engineer and electrician I dealt with were both extremely knowledgable and speedy.The Bosch Climate system itself has absolutely been a game-changer over the past few weeks. It cools my rooms down fast, it runs quietly and I actually look forward to sleeping in a nice cold bedroom instead of dreading the humidity.Get a free quote now Key specificationsSystem tested: Two Bosch Climate 3200i 3.5kW indoor units, Bosch Climate 5000M 6.2kW outdoor condenserCooling capacity: 3.5kW per indoor unitHeating: Yes (air-to-air heat pump)Energy rating: A++ cooling, A+ heatingNoise level: As low as 20dB in silent modeRefrigerant: R32Filtration: Double-filtration system with ioniserControls: Remote control includedSmart home support: Optional via Bosch HomeCom Easy app and wifi accessoryWarranty: Five yearsInstallation cost: £4,610 for tested configurationRunning cost: From £0.27 per hour (Boxt estimate) For more, we’ve reviewed the best portable air conditioners