Haringey divides broadly along the main railway line through Hornsey and Harringay. West of it, Highgate, Muswell Hill, Crouch End, Hornsey and Stroud Green are characterised by substantial Victorian and Edwardian houses, many on steep streets rising towards Alexandra Palace and the woods around Highgate. East of it, Harringay, West Green, Wood Green, Seven Sisters and Tottenham are more densely built, with long terraces, busy high streets and some of the largest regeneration schemes in North London around Tottenham Hale.
The defining feature for air conditioning in this borough is conversion. A large share of Haringey’s period houses have been divided into flats, and many of those flats have added loft rooms or rear extensions. These are exactly the rooms that overheat, yet they raise the hardest questions: who owns the external wall, whose garden the condenser would sit above, and whether the freeholder and other leaseholders must agree. The Harringay Ladder, with its parallel streets of closely packed terraces running between Green Lanes and Wightman Road, shows how much careful siting matters when rear windows are only a few metres apart.
Commercial life is just as varied, from independent cafés, restaurants and studios in Crouch End and Muswell Hill to the shopping centre and high street at Wood Green, offices and healthcare premises, and industrial units near the Lea. We serve every part of the borough and start every job with a survey of how the space is actually used.
