We will hopefully find out next week whether or not we may get an air conditioner installed this year. There are a few issues that need to be overcome first. Officially, we are not allowed to have the external part of the AC system placed on the road-facing side of our block of flats. Although other people have ignored this and gone ahead with installations, if equipment had to be pulled down, we would end up paying three times - once for the original installation, again for the removal, then a third time for relocating it elsewhere. If we are lucky, we may be able to install it on the back of the block of flats, but as our flat does not have any rooms on that side, we would need to feed the copper pipes through the communal hallway.
The last problem is access - we already know from not being able to repair a window in the spare room that a cherry picker crane is unlikely to be able to gain access to our floor, so we will have to hope the AC installation team can fit it whilst hanging out the window, or that they have a ladder rack on their vehicle, and a REALLY tall ladder!