Where can the outdoor unit go?
Anywhere with airflow, structure and neighbourly sound: ground level on a base, wall brackets on a rear elevation, a flat roof, a balcony, a lightwell or a roof valley. In London the position is usually the survey's main question, constrained by pipe length to the rooms served, planning discretion and keeping night-time noise away from bedroom windows, yours and next door's.
The condenser needs four things: air moving freely through its coil (not sealed in a cupboard or smothered by planting), a structure that takes its weight and vibration (anti-vibration mounts always), a pipe run to the indoor units within the manufacturer's length and height limits, and a position that respects planning and neighbours. Everything else is preference.
London's housing stock supplies recurring answers. Terraces: the rear-addition flat roof or side-return wall, invisible from the street. Semis and detached houses: ground level behind a side gate or garden screening, the gentlest install of all. Mansion blocks: rear lightwells or the communal roof, with the freeholder's consent. Towers and new-builds: the balcony, on isolation mounts with drained condensate, in whatever design the managing agent has approved before.
The discipline that prevents trouble: never on a front elevation, never below a bedroom window when an alternative exists, party-wall mounting only with isolation, and in tight terraced gardens we consider the houses behind as well as beside. A modern condenser at 45 to 55 dB(A) is quiet, but placement decides whether quiet is quiet enough at 2am.
Positions that fail the survey honestly fail it: a sealed lightwell too small to shed heat, a wall that cannot take the load, a conservation-area frontage with no rear alternative. We would rather redesign around a multi-split from one workable position than bolt a future dispute to your wall.
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