What is the difference between a split and a multi-split system?

Mechanically they are the same technology: refrigerant carries heat between the indoor coil and the outdoor condenser. The multi-split simply manifolds several indoor circuits into one larger outdoor unit. Each room keeps independent temperature control and its own remote; apps unify them where the brand supports it.

The single split's advantages are simplicity and independence: shortest pipe runs, cheapest entry price, and if the system ever faults, one room loses cooling rather than all of them. Where one room is the whole problem, a bedroom, an office, a glazed kitchen, the single split is the right answer and we fit far more of them than anything else.

The multi-split's advantage is concentrated outside: one condenser position, one consent conversation, one structural fixing, one service visit. In London that outweighs almost everything, because the scarce resource is not money or wall space inside, it is places a condenser can legally and neighbourly live outside.

The one genuine constraint worth knowing: all rooms on a multi-split share the outdoor unit's mode, so the system heats or cools at any moment, not both simultaneously in different rooms. In practice households never notice; it is the honest technical difference, so we state it.

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