An after school club is a burst of older children and staff from the end of the school day into the early evening, often in a hall or classroom that is empty or differently used at noon. Size that peak. This is not a baby bedroom, and it is not an all-day nursery. Staff still have to hear the room, so the indoor unit must be quiet enough for supervision. Fresh air is ventilation, separate from a recirculating split. An F-gas certified company should install the cooling. If the club cools a full-size hall and the effective rated output is more than 12 kW, the operator has the TM44 inspection duty on GOV.UK's air conditioning inspections page.
Pickup time in a room that was empty at 11
The room may look easy at survey because nobody is in it at 11am. The load arrives together: children, coats, a snack time and doors to a playground or a corridor. Ask for that headcount and that hour. A unit sized for an empty classroom will struggle at pickup and then sit idle all morning, which is a controls question as much as a kilowatt question. Survey at pickup because the room is often empty when it is convenient to visit. The heat arrives with the children in a short band of hours. That band is the load.
If the space is a school hall shared with other users, the club may not be allowed to own the only control. Agree who sets the temperature and who locks it. A system left at a cold setpoint overnight is a running-cost failure in a room that is empty. This is not a nursery bedroom and not a guide for one baby at home. It is a short peak of many children in a shared room. Size that occupancy. The hours that matter are the club hours, not the school day, unless the same plant must serve both.
Hearing the room in someone else's building
Children move and make noise. Staff still need to hear a problem. Select the indoor unit for the fan speed that holds a full room, not the silent figure on the lowest tick-over. Outdoor plant should not sit where it masks the door you supervise, or where children can climb it.
HSE workplace temperature guidance applies to the staff: reasonable comfort, no legal maximum. It is not a clinical setting for the children. A high wall unit or a cassette out of reach, with guards on sensors and no trailing drain, fits a room that is used energetically. Filter cleaning happens when the children are gone.
Clubs in schools, churches and community rooms inherit someone else's ceiling, power and landlord. Consent, safeguarding for contractors, and a drain that does not cross a fire escape are the constraints. There may be no ceiling void, so a cassette is often a fiction. A split recirculates. A packed hour still wants its ventilation path designed separately. Do not accept a sentence that says the air conditioner is the fresh air. An F-gas certified company should install the cooling. Fresh air should be named as in or out of scope, and the noise should be the figure at the working fan speed.
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How this guide was prepared
This guide was written by the Local AC Installers Editorial Team. We compare official guidance, legislation and established consumer information, separate general information from project-specific advice, and show publication dates and sources. We do not accept installer accreditation claims at face value.