Coping with heat

Do you mean that you have no access to central air conditioning? Or are window units or portable units also not options for you? I have a window unit but since the electricity bill is so expensive I try to rely on other methods as much as possible.

Generally I try to keep the blinds shut and windows closed throughout the hottest parts of the day—trying to keep the cool air from the morning as long as possible.

As soon as the air outside gets a little cooler in the evening, crosswinds help a lot. You need to have two windows open, one for air to flow in, one for air to flow out. I generally check the direction of the wind on my phone so that the inflow is driven by the wind, and then I place a box fan facing out of the outflow window.
If done right this will create a constant breeze that pushes hotter air out of your home.
 
I also ended up buying one of those doggy cooling pads for my dog, but she hates sitting on it and it’s actually very effective for me just to lay down on top of during the day. It’s just a foam-filled mat that is meant to be refilled with cold water. It saps the heat from your skin and redistributes it to the surface on the other side of the mat to keep you cool. Very effective for those stifling heat days with no breeze.

https://www.chewy.com/kh-pet-products-coolin-dog-mat-blue-x/dp/140982
 
jnmaciuch said:
Do you mean that you have no access to central air conditioning? Or are window units or portable units also not options for you?
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We rent and with the type of windows we have it's hard to get a unit that fits. Even the kind with that big hose thing requires something fitted to block the window and I can't stick anything on. Plus it's a big expense since being unable to work.
 
I find fans surprisingly effective. I have several small cheap rechargeable ones, which don't create such a strong draught that it makes your skin sore and your mouth dry, but still work.

I made good use of my session fan last night. The pub was really warm and blowing into the whistle is quite effortful until you've got your diaphragm muscles working, so within 10 minutes I'd got sweat dripping off my chin. This one, which cost about £10 and runs a long time on one charge, can be wedged between your knees with the head tilted. It's perfect to blow cool air onto your neck.

Fan.jpg

I also use cool flannels on my chest when it's really hot. I have half a dozen of them, which I damp and keep in a box in the fridge. It's surprising how much difference a small square of cool fabric can make.
 
Also: in the first few days of hot weather, leaving the loft hatch open can make a difference. It allows heat from the bedrooms to escape into the roof space.

But once we've had about three days of really hot weather, the bricks of the house have warmed up. They can hold onto heat for two or three days even when the air temperature's dropped significantly, and there's much less of a temperature difference between the upper rooms and the roof space. At that point, it's fans, cool patches, cool showers if you can manage them, and as much bad language as you like.
 
Kitty said:
Also: in the first few days of hot weather, leaving the loft hatch open can make a difference. It allows heat from the bedrooms to escape into the roof space.

But once we've had about three days of really hot weather, the bricks of the house have warmed up. They can hold onto heat for two or three days even when the air temperature's dropped significantly, and there's much less of a temperature difference between the upper rooms and the roof space. At that point, it's fans, cool patches, cool showers if you can manage them, and as much bad language as you like.
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I'm going to start feeling my walls. I often feel somehow my house doesn't cool.
 
Yann04 said:
The technique my family does in summer is windows open at night. Closed during the day. Blinds shut when sun hits so we don’t become a super heated greenhouse.
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We recently bough a fully light-proof fabric that we hung over the large windows in the room next to my bedroom. It’s thin and light enough to let air blow past, but it stops a lot of heat from entering.

I believe it was from a fabric shop and it’s intended to be used for sowing curtains. We just use thumb tacks along the top for now.
 
I think I have issues with where our house is or something. Our house faces norh/south, but somehow the wind goes east/west past the windows rather than into them. Last year I even was putting the tower fan on the ledge and it didn't seem to bring anything in.

I am baffled by that. I'd love a nice draft!
 
PrairieLights said:
I think I have issues with where our house is or something. Our house faces norh/south, but somehow the wind goes east/west past the windows rather than into them. Last year I even was putting the tower fan on the ledge and it didn't seem to bring anything in.

I am baffled by that. I'd love a nice draft!
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If you can only place a fan on the inside of a room, I believe it’s better to push air out than to try to bring it in.

Due to physics, any air that is pushed out has to be replaced, so it sucks in air in the other end. Like how a straw works, just on a much larger scale.
 
PrairieLights said:
Heat is one of those things that leaves me struggling more. I have no access to air conditioning.

I thought maybe if there are others who also struggle we could share some tips or ideas that help us.

Last year I bought these window heat reflecting things for the window. I have them in my bedroom. They do reduce the temperature a bit in my room.

https://amzn.eu/d/avhjlAa
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Being in Melbourne heat in summer can easily reach 40 degrees c for a couple of days in a row. For me/cfs this is pretty tortuous so the best thing I ever invested in was a split system air conditioner. It is so quiet my issues with sound are not a problem. If you don’t own the building this can be difficult. Otherwise the only other thing I could do is put my head in a bucket of cold water (not joking).
 
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PrairieLights said:
I will do that and see next time!
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If you don't normally get a breeze, what @Utsikt describes will get a crosswind going. Just make sure that you only have one place for air to get in and other to get out--if you have multiple windows open, the air tends to just start diffusing instead of forming a current.

If I move to different parts of the house, I'll change which two windows are open. The idea is just to make it so that wherever you are sitting is in the "path" that the air follows between the two windows. The more you can push air out (I just get a big box fan and prop it up facing out), the more of a breeze you'll generate along that path.
 
PrairieLights said:
I'm going to start feeling my walls.
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They won't necessarily feel hot to the touch, it's more that they take a lot longer to cool than air does.

For instance, temperatures in Britain hit 40ºC for nearly a week a couple of years back. Everyone was desperate for the day to come round when it was forecast to cool to 27º, yet the palpable drop in air temperature made almost no difference indoors. The whole structure of the buildings had heated up, and brick and stone retain heat really well.

So houses can feel pleasantly cool in the first few days of a heatwave, but the effect disappears as the walls heat up. They convect some of that heat into rooms—it's especially obvious at night, when the bedroom still feels like a sauna even though the air outside's lovely and cool—and carry on releasing it until the temperature equalises.
 
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If someone could help you, tape tinfoil to outside of window — the trick is you have to stop the sun before it hits the glass. Once it hits the glass its heating inside air. We are looking into buying external blinds, but they’re expensive. A temporary cheap option would be the tinfoil..
 
Meaco air circulator fan is very quiet on lowest setting, it has a separate vertical rotation and horizontal rotation settings so can create a lot of air movement.


When we’ve had the very hot for uk spells Kitty mentioned I use the physio gel packs which come in different sizes. I freeze them and wrap in a scarf. Smaller ones good on the back of the neck helps cool the head helped me get to sleep, larger ones on stomach really help bring down body temperature.

Also for anyone who can manage to get into a bath leaving some water in the bath at night so it’s there if wake up due to heat to get into cool water will cool off pretty quickly.
 
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