– I paid PLN 4.4 thousand for this relief. zloty. And I don’t regret either the money or the decision. The air conditioning works for the second season. But I basically turn it on twenty days a year. So far, and it’s early August, I’ve turned the blower on maybe ten times. It doesn’t matter how many times I do it. It’s important for me to have thermal comfort, the man says.
I ask if it was really worth installing it for these several hot days of the year. There are other home remedies for surviving the short-term heat. If hanging wet sheets on the door or putting your feet in a bowl of cold water seems like an anachronistic invention of previous generations, there are portable fans and small office fans. Paweł listens, but shakes his head. – A mobile air conditioner was out of the question. It’s a half-measure for the end. You’ll buy a “cabinet” and it will stand under your feet and clutter up your apartment. And the wall-mounted air conditioner doesn’t take up space and looks aesthetically pleasing. Such a stylish hanging piece of furniture – Paweł praises his purchase.
Elegance has meaning. The man admits that he has succumbed a bit to the fashion for luxury. Almost all of his friends have installed air conditioning in their homes. Is it a question of personal coolness or elegant comfort to appear a little bigger in the eyes of guests at your home? – Well, in addition to thermal comfort, I value social comfort. Air conditioning probably determines to some extent belonging to high society – just like a nanny, a cleaning lady or a coffee machine – Paweł smiles triumphantly, convinced that he has found a universal argument for his investment.
Standard or luxury
Artur Sudenis, owner of ComfortOn, sees a growing demand for air conditioning in apartments. Especially when the first bright sun appears. And we have sixty-six sunny and warm days a year in Poland.
– The urge to install air conditioning usually comes in the summer. This is the time when customers make decisions. Poles don’t wait for autumn, they don’t think about it in winter, but only in spring they face the dilemma: “should we go on holiday or should we install air conditioning?” If a customer calls today, they will have an appointment scheduled for October, says Sudenis.
As a rule, he does not deal with impulsive clients who need help right away, and also want it quickly and cheaply. Recently, he went to a client’s house on a recommendation and said that the cost of the service would be PLN 7,000. PLN, the woman grabbed her head. After all, they arranged it for the neighbor for half the price.
– Our minimum offer is PLN 5.5 thousand zlotys. Of course, you can go to the supermarket and buy a device for PLN 2-3 thousand and find an electrician or chimney sweep who will install it. And this, unfortunately, is what is happening. The price works wonders. And then people ask for help. A doctor friend of mine complained that the air conditioning in his office was not working. What happened? The air conditioning was pulling air between the ceiling and the roof, instead of taking it from the entire room and cooling it. This is the result of chance and low cost, – says Sudenis.
His company installs approximately 300-400 air conditioning units per year. He doesn’t consider it a luxury for housing. Quite standard. Although customers are becoming more and more demanding. Up to 70 percent of all orders come from people who decide to use the premium service. For better brands, wall-mounted devices are available in white, black or silver. And Toshiba even offers a special cover for the panel, available in more than fifty colors. It can be freely put on and taken off when a certain color suits the user. An ideal option for those who want to keep their home cooler and not go out of fashion.
Cold calculation in the summer heat
Marek lives in an apartment building on the fourth floor. There is only a roof above him. It heats up from the roof because it is exposed to sunlight and provides warmth to the family members. The windows face east and south, which is unbearable in the summer. He and his wife came to the conclusion that air conditioning was a necessity. – We paid about PLN 6,000 for the blower installed in the living room. zloty. Not the height of technology. But it provides a little cooling, and that is priceless, Marek explains to me.
He admits that he was skeptical about the installation. He is thrifty by nature and does not like to spend money, but having a blower in the house was a burden on the budget. And a family with a preschooler counts every penny. There are more urgent needs than an air conditioner – a private kindergarten, a nanny for a four-year-old, a used car. The holidays were approaching, so they had to plan expenses for the upcoming summer, and the couple faced the problem mentioned above – vacation under palm trees or hot July and August at home under air conditioning.
Common sense prevailed. – Although, when the heat comes from the sky, it is difficult to make calculations about the cold – Marek jokes and repeats: – I didn’t want to install a blower. But in the end, I welcomed the idea. We turn on the air supply in May, when the sun starts to warm up. The blower works non-stop during the holidays, we almost never turn it off. You sit at home, it’s raining outside and it’s windy. And he says the others are nice.
He emphasizes that this good feeling has nothing to do with a sense of superiority, ostentation or snobbery. Although – in his opinion – air conditioning in homes is still considered, if not synonymous with luxury, at least with class extravagance. – Friends come and say with admiration: “I would use it too…” But I look out the window and see that when new people move into the block, first the renovation team arrives and then the company that installs the air conditioning. There are fans hanging on every second balcony. Luxury? I think it is gradually becoming the norm – my interlocutor wonders.
Tenants want air conditioning
Air conditioning in homes has become commonplace. Owners of rental apartments are aware of this. If they have not installed a blower to cool the air, they may soon lose tenants. So they make up for this business oversight.
– We have noticed this investment trend among landlords – confirms Sudenis. – Those who buy another apartment know that in order to get a better rate from the tenant, they should install air conditioning before finishing the room. And they really do this. This apartment increases in value. Because if the client has a choice: to live in a place where he will suffocate in the summer heat or in one that can be ventilated without problems, he will choose this comfortable option. Prudent landlords win at the beginning – they do not need to install air conditioning if they already have it. Those who have not yet done so should know that it will not make up for the loss overnight. The waiting time for installation is long – emphasizes the owner of ComfortOn, who has received many requests from landlords this year.
Real estate market experts agree with these words. An increasingly common criterion for property seekers is the equipment of the premises, including air conditioning. This is due to the increasingly popular nature of work, with many people doing it remotely. According to the latest edition of the report “Happy Home. Apartment on the timeline”, more than one in six Polish residents surveyed still works from home. This percentage is highest in the age group of people between 26 and 35 years old – a quarter of them work at least partly from home. And they need ideal working conditions, just like in the office.
– Our observations show that tenants are primarily interested in air conditioning in their apartments. For buyers, the issue of finding an apartment with this type of amenity is secondary, since the premises can be equipped with such an installation after purchase. In the first half of this year, apartments for rent with air conditioning were searched for almost 40% more often than those for sale. The demand for properties with air conditioning has been gradually growing since 2019, especially in late spring and summer – along with the outside temperature. At the beginning of June, we recorded a 10% increase in the number of views of apartments with air conditioning than a year ago, – says Agata Stachowiak, real estate market expert at the Otodom real estate portal in Poland.
Tourist tax for the apartment
Three years ago, Paulina and her husband moved into a rented apartment. It was a large space in a high-rise housing estate in the Ochota district of Warsaw. The facilities met almost all the tenants’ requirements. Except for one thing. “There was no air conditioning,” Paulina recalls. “We told the landlord that we were interested, but on one condition: he would install air conditioning. He couldn’t resist because he had already thought of this solution. Our pressure accelerated his decision.
It cost the owner a lot. For technical reasons, it was not possible to install a “cheap” air conditioner. A flat roof structure was needed. The installation cost approximately 8,000 zlotys. The owner offered to split the costs. “For two years we paid an extra hundred zlotys in rent. And the owner took care of the remaining costs,” says Paulina.
Apartments for rent with air conditioning are easier to find in large cities such as Warsaw, Krakow or Wrocław or in smaller coastal towns. Integrated cooling systems improve the standard of the premises. And greater comfort means a higher purchase or rental price. – This convenience increases the price of the apartment by an average of 3-4%. – Stachowiak estimates. – In the Tricity, those looking for air-conditioned premises should take into account an increase in the rate of up to PLN 6 per square meter, that is, by about 10%. higher rental rates. For comparison, equipping a rental apartment with a dishwasher has a smaller impact on the price, which increases the rent by 2-3 percent, and a kitchenette (more desired by users than a separate kitchen) translates into an increase in the rental rate by an average of 1-2 percent.
But rising rents for air-conditioned apartments are not a hard and fast rule. Dona Ágata installed a blower to cool the air just this year, but she did not raise rents for tenants because of it.
– I made a big increase last year in another apartment, which resulted in someone terminating my lease. Learning from experience, I decided to increase the standard of the facilities without increasing the price. The current tenants have been with me for three years. I wouldn’t want them to give up the lease because of the price, says Ms. Ágata.
She has a total of three apartments that will be used for her future retirement. And I get a lot of questions about air conditioning. People are interested in places that meet their expectations, regardless of the season and the weather outside. They don’t want to move into apartments where the only escape from the sun is waiting for the heat to pass in an air-conditioned office or shopping mall.
