I have spent today in my London gaff feeling tired and slowly dying from heat exhaustion.

Obv I have no heating on and indoor temp reading is 25 Celcius throughout afternoon.

Anyone use air conditioning at home? Recommendations?

I read reviews on BandQ site of their units and they are all noisy.

portable ones arent to bad. louder than a fan but you can still watch telly with one on.
get on ebay you will pick one up for under fifty pounds.

I've got 2, 1 for bedroom and 1 for living room, made by Levante and knocks out 12000 Btu's. Hose out the window, empty the condenser container when it beeps at me, nice and cool.

PS

Could you possibly post a link to the Levante model that u have? I don't have a clue about the market.

Meanwhile... whilst I was travelling far afield earlier this month, even at night the temperature was 26 Celcius. I had dinner on a fourth floor open top restaurant on the roof of a hotel. Thanks to the height, there was a strong cooling breeze from outside, making it into a pleasantly bearable lower temperature. An American couple arrived in the breezy open topped restaurant and immediately shared their concerns with the waiter: "is it air conditioned?"

Sure, it's a LEV12000AC...but I can find minimal reference to it on google searches, either they've gone bust since I bought them from CEF (City Electrical Factors) about 3 years ago, or are no longer distributing in the UK so doesn't like you can get that model. Memory serves they were about £450 each though. The thing to focus on is the BTU's, that's the unit of power as I understand it, the more, the bigger a room it can chill the faster. 12000 is plenty of punch for a large living room or bedroom. I'd bet the ones in B&Q/Focus are shit so you want an aircon specialist shop or somewhere like CEF's. Just tell them you want a proper one not some anaemic mass market fart machine and they'll steer you right. Grab one pronto once the public realise it's summer it can be a pain in the arse to find decent ones. I'm tempted to get proper aircon installed in the bedroom so i can close the window to keep the road noise out too, likely to be dear but I can't sleep when it's hot!

PS

When I get my own place, air con is DEFINITELY something I am investing in!

Have you just tried a standalone high powered fan to start with, thats what i use, i have a small one next to my bed too-- i find the noise relaxing now it helps me sleep

A few years back I got took to hospital for suspected liver damage, on the way to the specialist center in Leeds I was in the back of an ambulance having cool oxygen given in a face mask, it felt like heaven.

Ever since then I have a high power fan next to my bed for falling asleep.