Mitcham's history, homes and hills
An early village
Mitcham was created as a village on 12 May 1853, separate from Adelaide, beside a South Australia Company sheep station on Brown Hill Creek. It's the seat of the City of Mitcham.
A State Heritage Area in the council
The AIF Mitcham training camp, set up in 1915, became the suburb of Colonel Light Gardens, now a State Heritage Area and also part of the City of Mitcham.
More flats than you'd expect
At the 2021 Census, 19.9% of Mitcham's occupied homes were flats or apartments, 17.2% semis, row houses or townhouses and 61.7% separate houses. 23.0% were rented.
Cooler as you climb
The City of Mitcham sits in the foothills of southern Adelaide and takes in suburbs such as Belair, Blackwood and Eden Hills. Belair, at 305 m, averages a January high of 26.7 degrees, and frosts are common in Hills valleys.
Heritage homes: where can the outdoor unit go?
If your house is heritage listed, or in a heritage area, ask the City of Mitcham before work starts whether an outdoor unit or pipework that can be seen from the street needs approval. It's much easier to settle that before you sign a quote than after the unit is on the front wall.
Side and rear walls usually give the most choice. A ducted system hides almost everything, as Mitsubishi Electric notes only the vents are visible, though the outdoor unit still needs a spot with air around it.
Flats: the body corporate comes first
In a block of flats, the outdoor unit usually ends up on common property: a balcony, an external wall or the roof. That needs the strata or community corporation's written approval before an installer can go ahead. Our page on apartments and strata walks through what to ask for.
Heating in the foothills
The higher Mitcham suburbs run cooler than the plains, so choose a reverse cycle system on its heating capacity at 2 degrees, not just its cooling stars. For a bigger family home up the hill, ducted air conditioning in Adelaide covers how zoning keeps it efficient.
What we'd do
Our call
Before collecting quotes, we'd find out whether the home sits in a heritage area and, for a flat, get the body corporate's approval in writing. Then we'd ask a split system specialist to put the outdoor unit at the side or back, out of the street's view, and to size it for a cold foothills night as well as a hot afternoon.
Tell us what you need and your postcode. Installers whose licences we've checked, and who do this kind of job near Mitcham, can see it, and only the one who takes it gets your details. Should nobody near Mitcham take it within 48 hours, installers further afield in South Australia may see it too.
