Commercial air conditioning in Dartford
Are customers walking out of your Dartford shop or café because it is too hot to linger? Shops, salons, cafés, bars and restaurants across the borough are our commercial work, from the High Street and the Priory Centre to the parades at Stone, Swanscombe and Longfield. Cooler customers, calmer staff, and the planning and the people upstairs sorted before a drill comes out.
Price a commercial system
Three details and we call you back with the next step.
- Customers stay longer in a cool shop
- The flat upstairs is part of the design
- Leak checks and inspections kept on the calendar
What makes a shop harder than an office?
The street keeps coming in. Each time the door opens a slice of outdoor air arrives with the customer, and in a busy café that is hundreds of times a day. Display lighting, chillers that throw their waste heat into the sales floor, dryers in a salon or an espresso machine on the counter add a load that has nothing to do with the forecast. We size for the customer area with the door swinging, and we speak to whoever looks after your kitchen extract, because cooling the dining room does not replace it.
Will the council have to approve a unit on a shop?
Plan on it. For non-domestic buildings the Planning Portal says an air source heat pump is likely to need a planning application. Where the shop is listed, listed building consent is a separate requirement that planning permission does not satisfy, and a law firm reviewing the position in July 2026 noted that an enforcement notice can require the unit to come off and the building to be put back. One phone call to the council before ordering avoids all of that. Sources: Planning Portal; Mishcon de Reya.
Who lives above your premises?
Someone whose bedroom window may be the nearest to your outdoor unit. The 2021 Census counted 243 households in Dartford living in commercial buildings, most of them above shops, and 1,166 across the boundary in Bexley. That window matters twice over: in the sound calculation and in your relationship with the people behind it. We choose the position and the model with them in mind, and we ask about your hours, because a restaurant serving until midnight presents a different case from a shop that closes at half past five. Our air conditioning in Dartford page gives the rest of the housing picture. Sources: Census 2021, Dartford; Census 2021, Bexley.
Which trades ring us most?
- Restaurants and cafés, where the kitchen heats the room the customers sit in.
- Hairdressers and beauty salons, with dryers and lamps on all day.
- Convenience stores whose open chillers warm the aisles.
- Pharmacies and clinics with stock that must be kept within a temperature range.
- Gyms and dance studios, where the heat comes from the people.
None of them shares a design. A 3.5kW unit that cools a small boutique will not hold a dining room with a kitchen behind it.
What are you responsible for once it is in?
Two recurring duties. If the systems you control total more than 12kW, a TM44 energy inspection is due at least every five years and you must keep the report. Refrigerant leak checks are compulsory from a charge of 5 tonnes of CO2 equivalent, which GOV.UK equates to 2.4kg of R410A, at least every 12 months, rising to every 6 months from 50 tonnes. A service agreement puts both dates in the diary for you. Sources: GOV.UK; GOV.UK.
Questions people ask
Do we have to close while it is fitted?
Rarely. Coring and the outdoor work are done outside trading hours and the indoor fitting during your quiet spells. We agree the plan with you first.
What will our landlord want to see?
A description of the work, the unit specifications and the proposed outdoor position. We prepare those; the conversation under the lease is yours to have.
Our system was installed by another company. Will you look after it?
Yes. We service and repair systems fitted by others, and we tell you plainly when replacing one is the better use of money.
Sources we checked
- Planning Portal: air source heat pumps on non-domestic buildings
- Mishcon de Reya: the legal checks before installing air conditioning (8 July 2026)
- Census 2021: accommodation type, Dartford
- Census 2021: accommodation type, Bexley
- GOV.UK: the guide to air conditioning inspections (TM44)
- GOV.UK: how often F gas equipment must be checked for leaks
Worth knowing before you ring
With these we can usually tell you on the first call whether the job is simple.
- The postcode
- Whether it is a house, a flat or business premises, and roughly its age
- If you rent or lease, who owns the external wall
- Which room, how big, and the direction its window faces
- Any management company, conservation area or listing that applies
Commercial air conditioning outside Dartford
Looking for air conditioning for shops in one of the towns around us? Each page below sets out that place's own housing and planning position, and our air conditioning in Dartford page gives the full picture.
Worth reading first
Air conditioning and planning permission: the rules for England
Every permitted development condition in one table, then the twists Dartford's new estates and conservation areas add.
How to check an air conditioning installer on the F-gas register
The company certificate, the engineer's category and where to look them up.
What does air conditioning cost to fit and to run?
Where the money goes: the unit, the labour, the wiring, the electricity, and the extras a flat or a new estate brings.
Jobs that often go with this one
Office air conditioning
Offices from a room above a shop to a floor on a business park, with the heat rules and the landlord dealt with.
Server room cooling
Dedicated cooling for the rack, calculated from the wattage on the plugs and running when the office is dark.
The rest of what we do
Air conditioning installation
The whole job from the first measurement to the handover of the remote, with every consent checked on the way.
Home air conditioning
The back bedroom, the new flat with the glass wall, the loft nobody can sleep in: cooled in summer, warmed in winter.
Air-to-air heat pumps
The same wall unit, run the other way: a room heated for pence an hour, with the summer cooling thrown in.
Multi-split air conditioning
Several rooms, one box in the garden. The design that fits inside a semi's single permitted outdoor unit.
Conservatory air conditioning
For the glass room that is a greenhouse in July and a fridge in January, and the garden office beside it.
Air conditioning servicing
An annual visit for any system by any installer, with the legal leak check where the charge demands one.
Air conditioning repairs
Warm air, a puddle under the indoor unit, ice on the pipes or a blinking code: the cause found before anything is ordered.
Want us to ring you?
A name, a number and a postcode is enough. Say which room if you can. Or ring 01322 952910.