Some advice.
Firstly, the night before, get as much of the heat out of your home as you can, for as long as you can. Bricks have a lot of thermal mass. They take a while to cool down, but also to heat back up. If you can, open an upper most window, and a lower window or door. It creates a chimney effect that pulls the hot air up and out.
Once the temperature starts to rise, close up your home! You want to keep the hot air out, and the cool air in.
I would also recommend getting some super foil insulation. It’s like a stiff, metallic bubble wrap. Put it in your sun facing windows and it will keep the heat out amazingly. I brought some suction cups with a wing nut on the other side. They make mounting and removing it a lot easier.
Lastly, lower the humidity. The humidity turns warm into brain melting. It stops your sweat from being as effective. Don’t use an electric dehumidifier, since they put out heat. The single use ones are more effective. At least for a small room. The lower humidity will make it a lot more comfortable.
For comparison, working in the middle east, I could keep working through a 45°C mid day. In the UK I start to have issues closer to 25°C. The main difference was humidity.
These bits can also help make a portable Aircon unit a LOT more effective. During the 40°C+ heatwave the other year, I needed it for only 1 hour in the afternoon to keep the temperature comfortable for me and my dog.
Once the temperature starts to rise, close up your home! You want to keep the hot air out, and the cool air in.
This. Use a fan to move air - don’t rely on the (probably non-existent, too-hot) breeze.
Plenty of water.
Use your windows to create wind tunnels.
Put something up against the windows if there’s no breeze to stop the sun beaming in.
Watermelon is cheap at the mo.
Take cold showers in the middle of the day.
Freeze a few small ziplock bags of water. Wrap a dry flannel around them and put them on the back of your neck, your feet etc.
UK folks I’m here to help, growing up poor in the American south has left me with a specific set of skills and knowledge.
I know a bunch of yalls houses if not most of em don’t have central A/C if even a window unit. I’ve been to your country in the summer and know it’s humid as hell. You’re gonna need a box fan, some ice, a bucket, and a drill with a hole boring drill bit. Bore four holes in the sides of the bucket, dump in the ice and then secure the box fan to the top, we always used duct tape. That’ll cool shit off pretty well until the ice melts at least for the room you’re currently in. Filling up any sinks with ice can help too if there’s no airflow to the bathroom.
It ain’t perfect but it’s better than nothing. Just a tip from your friendly neighborhood hillbilly!
Even worse, in the 2000s it was the done thing to install cavity wall insulation and loft insulation to keep the heat in. There were subsidies.
Hooray.
Insulation also keeps heat out.
And yet net zero has been pushed back and scaled down repeatedly 🫠
35C is not ‘extreme heat’
It’s called summer.
For the UK anything over 30 is extreme heat.
The fact we have been getting more and more of them is the reason it’s started to be seen as “normal”.
It doesn’t matter where you are, or that it has occurred more.
It’s relative to what humans feel.
30C was never uncommon in the summer.
Even for UK calling that ‘extreme’ is sensationalism.
Extreme would be closer to 40CI’ve just been looking at a graph of historical peak summer temperatures. In the 70s the peak was 35.9°C, with a majority being below 30°C. Back then 30°C was extremely hot.
A lot of homes were already standing back then, with most modern homes built on the same ethos.
https://www.metjam.co.uk/blog/hottest-day-of-each-year-from-1875-onwards/
Highest were over 30C regularly in the 1800’s and later a peak under 30C was rare.
35C is NOT ‘extreme’ for humans or an exceptional temperature.
Yes it’s hot. But nothing more than that.Lets play “How Hot is too hot for Bloomcole”, 30C at 90% humidity? Or hows 40C at 70%? How about 100% humidity?? Nobody has ever died from heat before, everyone has AC!
another ridiculous embarrassing comment on top of missing the point
Well then you had a bad point, sorry to bear the bad news.
I’m from Australia, where I remember multiple times in my life where we’ve had a week of over 40 degrees.
I’ve been to the UK during one of their heatwaves and I can tell you that 36 degrees over there is dangerous. I don’t know if it’s something to do with the humidity or whatever, but it’s way worse than 40 degrees in Australia.
I can take 45C on holiday if it’s dry heat.
But 24C and humid feels horrible.
But ‘dangerous’ is as exaggerated as ‘extreme’
Unless you’re old or have health issues.A lot of the UK do not have air conditioning and their houses are build to keep heat.
Dangerous is exactly what it is for health vulnerable people and places that don’t take adequate health and safety measures. These are heatwaves that the country is not used to having, especially at the frequency we are now seeing, and people are dying because of this heat.
Maybe they should stop being among the most obese people in Europe then if they care so much about their health?
20% of the UK population is over 65.
then going down stairs or riding a bike is ‘extreme’
Kind of makes you want to prod Trump. Bring on the nuclear winter.
Ah a nice summer temperature.
