Aircon in a goshiwon — per room or central?

Almost always a unit in your own room that you control. Central aircon is rare in goshiwon.

The standard setup: a wall-mounted split unit in each room, usually the same unit that provides heat in winter. You have the remote and you run it when you want.

The three things to actually check, in order:

1. **Is it in the room, and does it work?** Turn it on during the viewing, in any season. Ten seconds.
2. **Is it included or metered?** A minority of older buildings charge for cooling — coin, card, or a flat summer supplement of 20,000 to 30,000 won a month. Ask: "에어컨 따로 돈 내요?"
3. **Is there a curfew on it?** A very small number of buildings switch cooling off overnight to control costs. Rare, and worth knowing.

On Seoul summer, since you are coming from the Philippines: the temperature will not shock you, but the combination will. July and August run 30 to 35 degrees with humidity above 80 percent, plus 장마 (monsoon) where it rains for days and nothing dries. It is heat you cannot escape by standing in shade, and a small concrete room without cooling becomes unusable.

So treat working aircon as a requirement rather than a preference. It is standard in almost every building — this is a question of confirming, not of hunting.

One related thing worth doing: a small dehumidifier or moisture absorbers (제습제, about 2,000 won each at any supermarket) for your wardrobe during monsoon season. Clothes and shoes in a small humid room genuinely develop mould in July, and this is the cheap prevention that everyone learns about a year too late.