What are the main types of air conditioning units in the UK?
The cheapest of the four main types of fixed air conditioning unit is the wall-mounted split: Checkatrade's cost table, last updated May 2026, puts a 12,000 BTU unit at about £750 plus about £1,150 labour, while a ducted unit of the same size is about £990 plus £1,750 before any ductwork. Floor-standing consoles and ceiling cassettes sit between those two.
All four are split systems. Each has an indoor unit in the room, an outdoor unit on a wall or the ground, and refrigerant pipes between them. The "type" is really the shape and position of the indoor unit. For the same capacity, the outdoor unit, the planning rules and the running cost are much the same across all four, because the refrigeration inside is the same inverter heat pump. What changes is where the unit goes, what has to be built around it and how long the fitting takes.
Two related comparisons have their own pages, so they only get a mention here. If you are weighing a plug-in unit against a fixed one, read portable vs fixed air conditioning. If the question is one outdoor unit per room or one for several rooms, see single split vs multi-split. Any of the four indoor types below can run from either kind of outdoor unit.
Types of air conditioning units at a glance
A quick reference before the detail. Prices are national figures from named sources, explained in each section below, and none of them is a Leeds quote.
- A wall-mounted split is a slim unit about a metre wide fixed high on a wall. It is the easiest retrofit, and Checkatrade averages £750 for a 12,000 BTU unit plus £1,150 labour.
- A floor-standing console is a low cabinet roughly the size of a radiator. Daikin's Perfera floor unit measures 600 x 750 x 238 mm, and published fitted prices sit close to a wall unit.
- A ceiling cassette is a square unit recessed into the ceiling that blows air four ways. Daikin's 600 x 600 Fully Flat cassette body is 260 mm deep, so the ceiling needs a void.
- A ducted unit hides in a loft or ceiling void and feeds grilles through ducts. Checkatrade averages £990 for a 12,000 BTU unit plus £1,750 labour, with ductwork extra.
Wall mounted air conditioning: the default for most rooms
Wall mounted air conditioning is what most people picture, with pipes going straight out through the wall behind the indoor unit to the outdoor unit. Checkatrade calls it the most popular type in UK homes. Its May 2026 table gives national averages of £750 for a 12,000 BTU unit fixed to a masonry wall, £940 for 18,000 BTU and £1,090 for 24,000 BTU, with labour averaging £1,150 per unit. For the 12,000 BTU size it quotes £620 to £890 for the unit and £960 to £1,380 for labour.
It is the cheapest because there is so little to build. The indoor unit hangs on a bracket. The pipe hole is a single core drill, and on a back wall the outdoor unit can often sit almost directly behind the indoor one. Checkatrade says a single unit takes roughly one day to fit.
The drawbacks are about position. You need about a metre of clear wall high up, away from curtain poles and tall wardrobes, ideally on an outside wall for the shortest pipe run. Air comes from high on one side of the room. That suits cooling well, though warm air from a high unit tends to stay near the ceiling unless the louvres and fan speed are set to push it down.
The Energy Saving Trust gives a separate national figure for the same kind of kit used mainly for heating: about £1,900 to heat a single room and around £3,700 for a three-bedroom semi. That lines up closely with Checkatrade's £750 plus £1,150 for one room.
Floor standing air conditioning: when there is no wall space up high
Floor standing air conditioning uses a low console, usually under a window or where a radiator used to be. Daikin's Perfera floor-standing unit is 600 mm high, 750 mm wide and 238 mm deep, close to a radiator in footprint, and Daikin lists the range at up to 5.8 kW heating and 5.0 kW cooling. Daikin markets a floor-warming function on this model, because a low unit can push warm air across the floor where people sit.
That makes a console a strong pick for heating-led rooms, rooms with sloping ceilings and rooms where the only free wall is under a window. It also suits rooms with floor-to-ceiling glass, since there is no high wall to fix to.
Checkatrade does not list consoles separately, so the most useful figures are installers' published fitted prices. Airomax, based in Stockton-on-Tees, lists a 2.5 kW Mitsubishi low wall console at £1,890 fitted and its cheapest 2.5 kW wall unit, a Daikin Sensira, at £2,000. On that list the brand moves the price more than the shape does. In Sussex, Eaglereach publishes £1,900 to £2,500 for a floor console against £1,350 to £2,500 for a wall-mounted split. Neither is a Leeds price. What they show is that the premium for a console of the same size is small or nil.
Two practical points. A console uses floor space you might want for a sofa or desk. Its intake grille also sits near floor level, so the filters collect dust faster and want cleaning more often than those on a high wall unit.
Cassette air conditioning: for big rooms with a ceiling void
Cassette air conditioning hides the unit above the ceiling and leaves a square grille flush with it, throwing air out in four directions. In a large open room that gives a more even spread than a unit on one wall, and every wall stays clear for cupboards or glazing.
The catch is depth. Daikin's 600 x 600 Fully Flat cassette (the FFA range) has a body 260 mm deep, or 306 mm including the decoration panel, according to the Daikin UK data sheet. Plasterboard fixed straight to joists does not leave that much room, so in a house a cassette is usually planned when a ceiling is being built or lowered.
Cassettes are sold mainly for offices and shops, which is why national cost guides rarely price them for homes. Checkatrade's table has no cassette line at all. Airomax lists a compact ceiling cassette from £2,100 fitted, and Eaglereach only prices them after a survey. Treat any number as a starting point until someone has looked in your ceiling void and worked out where the pipes and condensate can go.
On paper a small cassette is quiet. The same Daikin data sheet lists the 2.5 kW FFA at 25 to 31 dB(A) sound pressure indoors. Condensate has to get out of the ceiling, normally by a small pump, so ask where the drain runs and how the pump is reached for servicing.
Ducted air conditioning: hidden, but the dearest to fit
Ducted air conditioning puts a concealed fan unit in a loft, eaves or ceiling void and moves air to one or more rooms through ducts. Indoors you see a supply grille and a return grille and nothing else. Daikin's slim ducted FDXM-F9 is 200 mm high, and Daikin says it can be mounted in a ceiling void of only 240 mm.
Checkatrade's May 2026 table lists ducted ceiling-mounted units at £990 for 12,000 BTU, £1,250 for 18,000 BTU and £1,450 for 24,000 BTU, with labour averaging £1,750 per unit. It says ductwork and fittings must be added on top and prices them separately: ductwork at £180 per metre, fittings such as tees and bends at £280, a plenum box at £300 and a 450 x 450 mm grille with damper at £280. Published fitted prices start higher than for wall units too. Airomax lists ducted for one to three rooms from £3,600, and Eaglereach starts at £3,500.
Checkatrade describes ducted as the most discreet option and the most expensive to install, and warns that not every property has the ceiling space. In a finished house, most of the cost is the labour of getting ducts through joists and making good afterwards.
Comparing wall-mounted and ducted costs like for like
You can rebuild a fair comparison from Checkatrade's own line items. Take one room needing 12,000 BTU, the same capacity for both types, and add the extras its table says are needed.
- Wall-mounted: £750 unit + £1,150 labour = £1,900.
- Ducted unit and labour: £990 + £1,750 = £2,740.
- Ducted extras, assuming 6 metres of duct, one plenum box, one supply grille, one return grille and one set of fittings: (6 x £180) + £300 + (2 x £280) + £280 = £2,220.
- Ducted total before electrics: £2,740 + £2,220 = £4,960.
- Electrics for either type: Checkatrade puts a fused spur inside and an IP-rated switch outside at £400 to £700.
That gives £2,300 to £2,600 for the wall unit and £5,360 to £5,660 for the ducted room, a little over double. The 6 metre duct length is our own illustrative assumption. A short drop from a loft straight into the bedroom below may need less, and a run across the width of a house will need more, so swap in your own length and redo the sum.
VAT does not change the gap. HMRC VAT Notice 708/6 zero-rates the installation of qualifying energy-saving materials in homes until 31 March 2027, and air source heat pumps are on its list. HMRC adds that its "understanding is that most air conditioning units are air source heat pumps", as long as they are permanently fixed, and the rate reverts to 5% from 1 April 2027. Our partner installers zero-rate VAT on domestic installs, so check that any quote shows 0% VAT on the installed system.
For what else goes into a real Leeds quote, such as scaffold, long pipe runs and electrical upgrades, see our air conditioning installation cost guide for Leeds.
Which type suits your Leeds house?
Start from the building and then pick the indoor unit. These are the common Leeds and West Yorkshire house types and the type that usually fits each one.
Back-to-back terraces
Leeds still has about 19,500 pre-1919 back-to-back houses in use, according to the Leeds Housing Strategy. The rear wall is shared with the house behind, so the only outside wall usually faces the street. Wall-mounted is almost always the answer indoors, with a short pipe run straight through the front wall. There is nowhere for a ducted unit and rarely a ceiling void for a cassette.
Planning is the harder part. Leeds City Council lists 80 conservation areas, and inside one, the permitted development right in Class G does not cover an outdoor unit on any wall or roof fronting a highway. Our terraced and back-to-back guide goes through the siting options.
Through terraces and stone-built Pennine houses
A through terrace gives you a rear wall and often a yard, which makes a wall unit in the back bedroom with the outdoor unit below it the cheapest layout. For the front room, a floor console under the bay window keeps the chimney breast wall free and can take over from the radiator in winter. Thick stone walls in older houses in places like Otley or Pudsey add drilling time, but the choice of type stays the same.
1930s semis with a usable loft
The interwar semis common in areas such as Moortown, Cross Gates and Horsforth have a loft over the bedrooms. This is the one common Leeds case where ducted makes sense in an existing house. The concealed unit sits in the loft and short ducts drop to grilles in two or three bedroom ceilings, all from one outdoor unit. Check loft headroom, joist direction and insulation depth first, and price it against a multi-split of wall units, which will usually come in lower.
Loft conversions
Converted lofts have low knee walls and sloping ceilings, so a high wall unit often has nowhere to go. A floor console against a knee wall, or a slim ducted unit hidden in the eaves void feeding one grille, both work. Rooms right under the roof tend to heat up first on a hot day, so lofts are often where people start.
Open-plan kitchen extensions
A single-storey extension at the back of a semi or detached house is where cassettes earn their price. If the extension is still being built, ask for a ceiling void deep enough for a 600 x 600 cassette (306 mm with panel for the Daikin FFA) and a route for pipes and condensate. One cassette in the middle of a long kitchen-diner spreads air better than a wall unit at one end. On a flat roof, Class G needs the outdoor unit at least 1 metre from the roof edge.
City-centre flats
In a flat at Leeds Dock, Holbeck or near the station, a concrete ceiling usually leaves no void, so wall-mounted is the normal choice, or a floor console where the glazing runs floor to ceiling. The outdoor unit is the sticking point. Class G allows only one air source heat pump on a block of flats, capped at 0.6 cubic metres, and most leases need the freeholder's written consent. Read our city-centre flats guide and our planning permission guide before paying a deposit.
Do the types cost different amounts to run?
Not much, for the same capacity and efficiency. The type changes where the air comes out. The refrigerant circuit inside works the same way. Running cost follows the unit's seasonal efficiency figures (SEER for cooling, SCOP for heating) and how many hours you use it.
Here is a worked example you can repeat with any energy label. The Daikin data sheet gives the 2.5 kW FFA cassette an annual cooling consumption of 142 kWh and an annual heating consumption of 762 kWh on the standard EU test basis. At the Ofgem price cap Direct Debit average for 1 October to 31 December 2026 of 26.32p per kWh, cooling comes to 142 x £0.2632 = £37.37 a year and heating to 762 x £0.2632 = £200.56. Find the same two kWh figures on a wall, floor or ducted unit's label and the sum is identical. Your own hours will differ from the test basis, so use the result to compare one unit against another.
Questions to answer before you pick a type
Run through these before asking for quotes. Each one rules a type in or out.
- Which outside wall can take the outdoor unit, and does it front a highway inside a conservation area?
- How deep is the gap between the ceiling and the floor or roof above? A slim ducted unit needs about 240 mm and a 600 x 600 cassette about 306 mm with its panel.
- Is the room mainly for summer cooling or winter heating? Heating-led rooms favour a low console.
- Where will the condensate drain, and will it need a pump?
- Do you own the walls? Leaseholders need the freeholder's consent before any drilling.
- Does the quote name the unit model, show 0% VAT and come from an F-Gas certified installer?
When you know the rooms and roughly which type, ask for quotes from our MCS certified partner installers covering Leeds, Bradford, Wakefield, Harrogate and Huddersfield. Mention your house type and the ceiling void depth in the form, and the installer can say on the first call whether a cassette or ducted unit is possible.