Air conditioning unit on side of neighbour's house - best approach?

Doozergirl

Hugh_Jarce said:

lookstraightahead said:

Doc_N said:

ispookie666 said:

A bit late. 
I recently installed 2 Aircon in our house. Applied for planning permission, discussed with the neighbours. I had to remove the larger 7.1kw unit as the planning officer/environmental agency required Noise assessment. 

Planning permission is not needed if you are only installing one unit, the unit size is less than 0.60cubic m, not in a conservation area. The installers had no clue about this, the council were mewh.. 

One thing to note - these are very very quiet units but as time goes, anything with a fan can become noisy. 

Adding a few more lengths of coppertubing should not be problem, but it is likely that they would not want to do this, lower condenser would be close to things in the garden. The only thing I could suggest is some sort of two sided enclosure to cover the ugly thing. 

A useful post for a change, which might help the OP with his question. Getting a bit dull and boring here with all the moaners and whingers constantly carping on because they haven't a clue what it's like to live somewhere outside a city, a town, or a huge housing estate.

Interesting comments on noise, though I don't think the OP has said much about noise so far? I'd assumed they were noisy, but maybe not from what you say.

As you'll see from various posts above though, you still need permission, even for one unit - the exemption you mention is for heat pumps - not AC units. The confusion has been caused by AC sellers deliberately misleading people.

Why do you assume this? 

I live in a "postman pat" type village but can't fathom out the attitude of the op, and now yourself, who seem to think people should behave differently.

in my village, generally everyone is flexible to peoples needs and wants. Maybe it's because they've got enough in their lives to occupy them?

There are villages everywhere in the country - did you know that?

I don't recognise these 'rules' at all. I think it's a false sense of understanding village life. 

Maybe the only solution is to move to an area of listed buildings.

^
This all day long.

And all night. 

RelievedSheff

Martian2035 said:

lookstraightahead said:

Doc_N said:

ispookie666 said:

A bit late. 
I recently installed 2 Aircon in our house. Applied for planning permission, discussed with the neighbours. I had to remove the larger 7.1kw unit as the planning officer/environmental agency required Noise assessment. 

Planning permission is not needed if you are only installing one unit, the unit size is less than 0.60cubic m, not in a conservation area. The installers had no clue about this, the council were mewh.. 

One thing to note - these are very very quiet units but as time goes, anything with a fan can become noisy. 

Adding a few more lengths of coppertubing should not be problem, but it is likely that they would not want to do this, lower condenser would be close to things in the garden. The only thing I could suggest is some sort of two sided enclosure to cover the ugly thing. 

A useful post for a change, which might help the OP with his question. Getting a bit dull and boring here with all the moaners and whingers constantly carping on because they haven't a clue what it's like to live somewhere outside a city, a town, or a huge housing estate.

Interesting comments on noise, though I don't think the OP has said much about noise so far? I'd assumed they were noisy, but maybe not from what you say.

As you'll see from various posts above though, you still need permission, even for one unit - the exemption you mention is for heat pumps - not AC units. The confusion has been caused by AC sellers deliberately misleading people.

Why do you assume this? 

I live in a "postman pat" type village but can't fathom out the attitude of the op, and now yourself, who seem to think people should behave differently.

in my village, generally everyone is flexible to peoples needs and wants. Maybe it's because they've got enough in their lives to occupy them?

There are villages everywhere in the country - did you know that?

I don't recognise these 'rules' at all. I think it's a false sense of understanding village life. 

Maybe the only solution is to move to an area of listed buildings.

just to support this - I have lived in a city, but he up in and moved back to a very small D very rural town in the middle of nowhere with a strong community and collective spirit

We have lived in small village very similar sounding to the OP's where everyone decided that your business was theirs. Didn't like it so moved to a city. Lived there for 15 years or so quite happily but decided we missed certain things about countryside living so have made a compromise and have moved to a small commuter town about half an hour out of the city. 

There is a much better sense of community where we are now then there ever was in the small village where there was more back stabbing, gossiping and snobbery than we have ever known. The city estate we lived on had more sense of community then the village.

AdrianC

It might be an opportune moment to remind ourselves of this early reply from the OP...

metron said:

They might well get PP of course, retrospectively, but shifting it might be a simpler option from their point of view, and they do seem to have limitless funds (tens of thousands spent replacing items in a house built just 5 years ago for example).  

swingaloo2

I find it strange that the OP seems to know all about these neighbours finances, medical conditions etc and has a good relationship with them and yet he hasn't been able to have a simple discussion with them about the 'problem'.
Instead he has to call the council who are apparantly begging him to make a complaint and whinge about it all on here.

SuperHung

AdrianC said:

It might be an opportune moment to remind ourselves of this early reply from the OP...

metron said:

They might well get PP of course, retrospectively, but shifting it might be a simpler option from their point of view, and they do seem to have limitless funds (tens of thousands spent replacing items in a house built just 5 years ago for example).  

OP next project is to report neighbours to HMRC and ask if they paid the correct amount of taxes. If HMRC cleared them, neighbours will then be subjected to speed cameras every 10m to ensure road safety to other villagers. Finally they will need written permission every 24hrs to breathe as the sound might upset OP's wife.

Doc_N

I’ve been on MSE for quite a few years. It’s changed for the worse lately, sadly. Once, people could post questions and get reasoned responses. Most were pleasant and helpful. Very few members resorted to personal attacks. It was the spirit of Martin Lewis - supportive and helpful.

This guy has posted a problem about a neighbour. His wife is upset. The neighbour has illegally installed an AC unit without planning. It sounds to be an area where people care about the way things look and the general environment. I get that, because we live somewhere similar. Most people here know each other, and certainly neighbours will always know each other very well. Whole roads will, in fact.

I’d be horrified to see one of these monstrosities go up, and so I suspect would most people - they look awful, they damage the environment, add to climate change, and just spoil a village setting. That’s precisely why they need planning permission - which this guy chose not to bother with.

Instead of attacking the OP and his partner, why not criticise the law breaker? 

You’re a nasty lot, with a very small number of honourable exceptions - presumably you’d rather support a crack dealer or a burglar than the guy who actually dobbed them in.

If you can add something useful to the thread, Martin Lewis style, that would be good. Otherwise, why not stop trolling and being so unpleasant. Maybe follow the forum rules? 

AdrianC

Doc_N said:

This guy has posted a problem about a neighbour. ... The neighbour has illegally installed an AC unit without planning.

Yes, he has. Despite the various diversions into misunderstanding of what is covered by PD, that is not in any doubt. Given this is clearly a newish development, PD rights may even have been removed in the original planning.

And the OP has been advised many, many times through the thread to involve the local authority's planning enforcement team.

He doesn't want to do that, despite it being the ONLY way forward to comply with planning law.

He wants to ask the neighbour nicely (but hasn't done so yet, despite them apparently being on friendly terms, itself despite moaning about almost everything the neighbour and people of their ilk have done since moving in).

But, of course, even if the neighbour does move it to a mutually acceptable location, then - without a retrospective application - it won't magically come into compliance with planning law, which he repeatedly states is the primary motivation.

There doesn't appear to actually be a question to answer.
If there was, it was answered in the first couple of posts - the choices are talk to the neighbour, talk to the council, or accept it. Two of those have been dismissed, and the third is being prevaricated.

There appears to be a massive reluctance to provide the one piece of information - a contextual photograph - that will help give an indication of the likelihood of a retrospective application's success.

Aspiration

Only skimmed the 15 pages, but is the OP sure it’s an air con and not an ASHP? 

We checked with planning and as long as it’s not on the elevation that faces the  highway (in a conservation area) it doesn’t need it planning.

Every council has diff planning/article 4 restrictions but critical it definitely is air con and not an ASHP.

TripleH

I zoned out of this..

After 15 pages, the main options seem to be :

1. Complain formally

2. Ignore and live with the fan

3. Ignore and put something up to hide the view of them from his house

There may be other options, but the Op is the only one that can take action as the rest of us are unaffected (to the best of my knowledge) by the installation.

The details about the neighbours' finances and health are irrelevant to the key concern here.

This needs a formal decision and conclusion one way or another or it will fester inside and eat away at you mentally and could lead to a small slight blowing up to a full grown argument.

Doc_N

AdrianC said:

Doc_N said:

This guy has posted a problem about a neighbour. ... The neighbour has illegally installed an AC unit without planning.

Yes, he has. Despite the various diversions into misunderstanding of what is covered by PD, that is not in any doubt. Given this is clearly a newish development, PD rights may even have been removed in the original planning.

And the OP has been advised many, many times through the thread to involve the local authority's planning enforcement team.

He doesn't want to do that, despite it being the ONLY way forward to comply with planning law.

He wants to ask the neighbour nicely (but hasn't done so yet, despite them apparently being on friendly terms, itself despite moaning about almost everything the neighbour and people of their ilk have done since moving in).

But, of course, even if the neighbour does move it to a mutually acceptable location, then - without a retrospective application - it won't magically come into compliance with planning law, which he repeatedly states is the primary motivation.

There doesn't appear to actually be a question to answer.
If there was, it was answered in the first couple of posts - the choices are talk to the neighbour, talk to the council, or accept it. Two of those have been dismissed, and the third is being prevaricated.

There appears to be a massive reluctance to provide the one piece of information - a contextual photograph - that will help give an indication of the likelihood of a retrospective application's success.

I think people are reading far more into this than is actually there, and choosing to miss out what they want to miss out. It’s not for me to defend the OP, who seems to have reached the conclusion he was looking for anyway and moved on, unlike the trolls (not you) missing their mark, but it grieves me to see such pathetic behaviour from a bunch of people just displaying envy at people having what they clearly don’t have.

For instance, do we know it’s a newish development? Or a development at all? And he’s said that he HAS contacted the planners, who’ve actually made it clear they will enforce. As for the photo, that’s his choice - not ours. Is there some compulsion? He didn’t ask for views on what it looks like. And the primary motivation looks to be to move an AC unit 2 metres down a wall to put it out of view - so unreasonable, given that the planners may have it removed altogether if it’s in a sensitive village location.

The OP looks to have left the room - this thread now consists almost entirely of sad people with nothing to add but bile because, presumably, there’s nothing better to do in their sad little lives.