A cool change is coming · United Kingdom

Everyone's sold out. Again.

Next summer, you won't be.

Reserve a proper plug-in split air conditioner for summer 2027. Delivered in May, gone in September. No engineer. No landlord's permission. No £1,000.

You're in line for the first thirty.

Reservations open this autumn — you'll get first pick, at the locked £90 rate.

You already know how this goes

It hits 32°C. You open the windows and let the heat in. You order a fan that arrives after the hot bit. You look up air conditioning at 1am, find everything sold out, and promise yourself you'll sort it properly next year.

Then you forget. And next July, you have this exact night again.

This is the bit where you actually sort it.

Aerial view of the Great Ocean Road winding along the Surf Coast near Lorne — teal water, rock shelves and coastal scrub.

38.46° S · SW swell · the cool change

Named for a place.

Aireys Inlet is a small town on Victoria's Great Ocean Road — a lighthouse, a pub, a beach, and the Southern Ocean stretching away toward Antarctica. My father was born up the road. My parents rest in the sea off that coast. The t-shirt I'm wearing as I write this is from the pub.

If you've never stood on Australia's southern coast in a heatwave, here's how it goes. It's 42°. The air doesn't move. The whole state holds its breath — and then, late in the afternoon, the wind swings south, straight off the water, and the temperature falls fifteen degrees in twenty minutes. Doors open. Everyone breathes out.

We call it the cool change.

I came to Britain more than twenty years ago, and it was cooler then — summers you could sleep through. Somewhere along the line the scorchers followed me here. And Britain, it turns out, gets the scorcher but never the change. Fans pointed at open windows. Everything sold out by lunchtime. Everyone just… waiting for September.

So this is the company: we deliver the cool change. A proper air conditioner, at your door in May, gone when the heat is. Named for the place that taught me what relief feels like when it finally arrives.

— Adam

The road in · near Lorne · Surf Coast

For the twenty-seven million

Renting? This was built for you.

Every other way to get air conditioning ends with a hole in someone else's wall. A certified engineer. A fixed unit bolted to the outside. A landlord who says no. And £2,000 you'll leave behind when you move.

The government's new £2,500 grant? It's for homeowners replacing a boiler. Not for you.

Aireys arrives on a Tuesday, plugs into a normal socket, and leaves in September. Nothing drilled. Nothing permanent. Nobody to ask.

The only air conditioning you can have without owning the walls.

A correction

You didn't hate air conditioning. You bought the wrong kind.

The box with one fat hose is fighting itself

It blows your room's air out of the window, so your flat sucks warm air back in through every gap and letterbox. It roars. It sweats. It disappoints. And then everyone decides air conditioning "doesn't really work in the UK."

A plug-in split is a different animal

The compressor — the hot, loud, hard-working part — sits outside. Only cold air comes in. It's sealed at the factory, so no engineer ever has to touch it, and it still runs off a normal 13-amp plug.

It's the machine people mean when they say they want air conditioning

Near the performance of a fixed wall system, without the wall. Quiet enough to sleep beside. Cools a room up to 42m², and warms it in the winter for a quarter of what a plug-in heater costs.

The kit

We rent one machine, and it's the best one.

Right now that's the Midea PortaSplit — the one TIME named a Best Invention of 2025. It's back-ordered almost everywhere in Britain. That's kind of the whole point.

A Midea PortaSplit air conditioner wearing our roundel, standing on its castors in a bright living room beside patio doors. Its hose runs out through the open door to a compact outdoor unit sitting on the terrace — no bracket, nothing fixed to the building. — The unit, wearing our roundel · outdoor half on the terrace, no bracket

Cooling capacity12,000 BTU · 3.5 kW

Cooling efficiencyA++ · SEER 6.1

Heating efficiencyA+ · SCOP 4.0

Noise, silent mode39 dB(A)

Room sizeup to 42 m²

Installationplug & play · no engineer

Warranty3 years

Running cost≈ £1.20 / night

Around £1.20 a night, or roughly £53 for the season — eight hours' cooling at Ofgem's July 2026 rate of 26.11p per kWh, from the unit's declared 203 kWh energy label. We'd rather show you our working than a headline.

What the PortaSplit has won

2025iF Design Award

2025German Innovation Award

2025TIME — Best Inventions of the Year

The best plug-in split money can buy. You just don't have to buy it.

The founding thirty get theirs factory-new — out of the box, into your flat, for the season. Delivered in May, taken away in September, and immaculate when it arrives.

The indoor unit sits in the room. Got a balcony or a door you can open? The outdoor half just stands on the floor — no bracket, nothing drilled. Window only? There's a bracket in the box.

How it works

Three steps and a summer off.

Save your place — free, today

Join the list. When reservations open this autumn, you get first pick: £25 holds a factory-new unit in your name, credited back against your first week.

May 2027, we deliver

We carry it in, set it up, and show you how it works. If you've a balcony or a door you can open, the outdoor half simply stands on the floor — nothing drilled, nothing fixed to anything.

September, we take it away

Cleaned, stored, gone. No box in your loft. No landfill.

The founding fleet

Thirty households. Summer 2027.

The first Aireys fleet is thirty units, and we'd like them to go to people who care what they're getting: award-winning kit, A++, and about £1.20 a night to run.

Reserving a unit

£25 REFUNDABLE · CREDITED IN FULL

Reservations open this autumn. The list gets first pick.

◆A factory-new unit held for you — first fleet, summer 2027. We buy them this winter; yours comes out of the box to your door.
◆£90 a week, locked. Spot rates will move with demand — yours won't. For reference: weaker hose-portables already hire for £65+ a week in London.
◆First pick of dates — before we open to anyone else
◆Delivery, setup and collection included — hire firms routinely charge £50+ each way, and again for stairs
◆Your £25 back — credited in full against your first week

Save my place

Batch one · open

30 units. £90/week, locked. Closes when we buy the fleet this winter.

Batch two · later

If demand justifies it. Later delivery, and the founding rate won't apply.

Summer 2027. That's the date.

We're building the first fleet this winter — thirty units, thirty households. Your £25 holds one in your name, and comes back the moment you ask.

We'd rather give you a date we'll keep than one you'd like to hear.

The guarantee

£25. And you can have it back whenever you like.

Any time. Any reason. Right up until we're knocking on your door with it. Ask, and it's back — no forms, no phone queue, no hard feelings.

And if we don't launch — if next summer never quite comes together — every penny comes back automatically. You won't have to ask, and you won't have to remember.

Aireys · reservations for summer 2027 · we cannot deliver before May 2027

Questions

The things you're already wondering.

Why rent when I could just buy one?

Because you'd use it three weeks a year and store it for forty-nine. The good units are around £1,000, they're heavy, and they're sold out exactly when you want one. We keep it, clean it, fix it, and store it. You just get the cold bit.

What will a summer actually cost me?

At the locked founding rate: two hot weeks, £180. Six weeks, £540. The whole May-to-September season is £1,440 — though most people want it for the heatwaves, not the calendar. Your £25 comes back off the first week, and delivery, setup and collection are included.

For reference, weaker single-hose portables already hire for £65+ a week in London — and that's before the delivery fees. This is the award-winning machine, brought to your door.

Why can't I have one now?

Honestly? Because we don't have any yet. We buy the first fleet this winter, for summer 2027. If we pretended otherwise you'd find out in about a week.

Will it actually cool my flat?

Yes — this is a real split system, not a portable box with a hose. 12,000 BTU handles rooms up to about 42m². If your space is bigger or unusual, tell us and we'll say so honestly.

I'm in a flat. Where does the outside bit go?

Got a balcony, a terrace, or a door you can open? You just stand it on the floor. No bracket. No fixings. Nothing drilled. That's genuinely the whole job.

If all you've got is a window, there's a bracket in the box that holds it outside instead. Either way it needs a spot within about two metres of the indoor unit, and nothing is permanent — it all leaves in September.

Some homes honestly don't suit it: an upper-floor flat with no balcony and no reachable ledge, for instance. We check that with you before we take a booking, not after.

Your rates "move with demand" — is that just surging me in a heatwave?

Straight answer: spot rates will be higher in a heatwave. Demand is real and we won't pretend otherwise — that's exactly why the founding rate exists. Lock £90 now and the weather can't touch your price. Book-ahead-to-save is the whole deal.

What does it cost to run?

About £1.20 a night — eight hours' cooling, at Ofgem's July 2026 rate of 26.11p per kWh, worked out from the unit's declared 203 kWh annual energy label. Call it £53 for a season.

In winter it's a heat pump, which is the interesting part: a plug-in electric heater turns one unit of electricity into one unit of heat, and this turns one into four. Same warmth, about a quarter of the running cost.

Is air conditioning not terrible for the planet?

It uses electricity — we're not going to pretend otherwise. Two honest points. This unit is A++ and sips about £53 of electricity across a season. And cooling peaks on hot, sunny afternoons — exactly when solar panels are producing most. Pair it with solar and the running cost and the carbon drop dramatically. We'll show you how.

What we won't tell you is that it's carbon-free, because it isn't.

What if I change my mind?

Then you get your £25 back. That's the entire policy.

It's 32° again next July.

The only question is whether you've sorted it. Thirty units — the list gets first pick when reservations open this autumn.

Save my place Still wondering something? →