Norwood's homes
Mostly attached
At the 2021 Census, 50.0% of Norwood's occupied homes were semi-detached, row or terrace houses or townhouses, 34.5% separate houses and 14.5% flats or apartments. The average home had 2.5 bedrooms.
Lots of renters
44.3% of homes were rented, 30.7% owned outright and 20.5% owned with a mortgage.
Old streets
Norwood was first laid out as a village in 1847, about 4 km east of the city centre, and its old council was South Australia's oldest municipality. Norwood Town Hall and the Norwood Hotel are both on the South Australian Heritage Register.
Stone and brick
By 1891, 68% of Adelaide's houses were built of stone, and most up to the 1970s were double brick. In an old Norwood cottage, expect solid walls that need coring for the pipes.
Fitting a system into a narrow house
In a semi or terrace, the front room, the back living area and the bedrooms are often strung along one side passage. A single split rarely reaches them all. Two or three splits work, but so does a multi-split system, which runs several indoor units from one outdoor unit, so you only need one spot outside.
Mitsubishi Electric says every indoor unit on a multi-split has to share a mode, heating or cooling, though each can run at its own temperature. That's rarely a problem in a small house where the whole household wants the same thing.
The outdoor unit, the neighbours and the street
The back courtyard is usually the best place for the outdoor unit, away from the street and the neighbour's bedroom. In South Australia, noise from fixed machinery like an air conditioner can be a local nuisance if it reaches a neighbour's habitable room, courtyard or entertaining area, and in Norwood those are seldom far from your side fence.
If you rent, the owner has to agree to a fixed unit. If the home is heritage listed or in a heritage area, ask the City of Norwood Payneham & St Peters whether a visible unit needs approval.
What we'd do
If it were our home
In a Norwood semi we'd put one reverse cycle split in the room we live in, with the outdoor unit in the back courtyard on a wall bracket or a low stand, well clear of the neighbour's windows. If the bedrooms needed heating too, we'd ask a multi-split specialist to quote one outdoor unit for the lot rather than squeezing three into a narrow side passage.
Tell us what you need and your postcode. Installers near Norwood who specialise in that work, and whose licences we've checked, can see the job, and the one who takes it is the only one who gets your details. If no one near Norwood takes it within 48 hours, installers in other parts of South Australia may see it too.
