Staying cool in this hot weather

seraphina

I have a stash of damp flannels in the freezer which I've got draped around me:D Not helped here by being pregnant -I'd love a big long heavy cooling thunderstorm right now!

I'm also downing ice lollies by the half-dozen (not ice cream - water or fruit-juice based ones). Would be very easy to make your own from sqaush but a lot of the supermarkets have them on offers atm.

Andybez38

At night I open the loft hatch, open my toilet & bedroom windows to get any breeze to go through. Seems to help when sleeping

Seakay

most of what makes you feel ill in this country is the humidity rather than the temperature, so a dehumidifier is better than a fan (and you can use it to get washing dry in winter!) make sure you get a dessicant dehumidifier rather than compressor driven.

lostinrates

Caterina wrote: »

Don't drink ice cold drinks if you can avoid it. I come from a hot country (Italy) and my sister lives in an even hotter one (Spain. Seville at the moment has had a max of 49 Degrees C in the sun). The best thing to do to stay hydrated is to drink lots of water, or weak tea (lemon and mint are a favourite of ours!) at room temperature, this means almost lukewarm, but it means you avoid potential cramps in the stomach from ingesting cold drinks and giving the system a shock. This is received wisdom from past years in my country, I do not have any scientific basis but empirically it seems to work for me as well as most of the people I know.

Same principle with showers, don't have a freezing cold one as you will feel the heat more when you come out, have a barely lukewarm one and you will feel very refreshed (for a while).

HTH

Edited to say: I worked in an office (in the UK) a few years ago during a heatwave and we were told by the techies that using a fan actually WARMS UP the air, it moves it around giving the impression of coolness but the actual air gets hotter by the workings of the machine.

I moved to italy in an August, and was so ill my second week, i remember lying on the bathroom floor sweatipng and sobbing and trying to stay cool then shivering. Dh (italian) called the doctor who arrived and shrugged and said ...'she is English'. Tell her to leave the aircon on the lowest setting and to not go out, drink lots of BLACK tea. Pasta in bianco for five days.

Depressingly, he was right, the irony is.....i was brough up mainly in far hotter climes opin carribean and pwest indies:rotfl: i should have known far better but was so excited to be in italy at last i had been going in and out of the heat too much at the worst time of year.

Thankfully i have never got out of the habit of never having ice in water. Ice is for cocktails, only.:D

Crocswearer

Another vote for cold water bottles - VERY effective. I put "hot" water bottles in the freezer. Held under the arm or my chest with my wrist - its very cheap and it works!

My bottles have fleece covers on them - I'm not sure how comfortable it would be to hold cold rubber without the cover.

I got a pack of 3 from the 99p store.

[Deleted User]

Seakay wrote: »

most of what makes you feel ill in this country is the humidity rather than the temperature, so a dehumidifier is better than a fan (and you can use it to get washing dry in winter!) make sure you get a dessicant dehumidifier rather than compressor driven.

I have been using a compressor de humidifier, mitsubishi and it works very effectively at making the room more comfortable. However the temperature rises by 1 or 2 degrees and I watch the electric meter ramping up the kwh, so I switched off and I turned to manual methods today

Windows open all over as long as the outside temperature was lower than inside and the solar blinds (ordinary blinds with some solar blocking) came down as soon as the sun touched the house. When outside got hotter than inside, I closed all the windows on the south side, leaving north open. Later when I could not stand the heat, I put the fans on. We have a real eco house but it retains heat too effectively and it has solar shading but that doesn`t stop the humidity so I am trying to work around the problem. It has a mechanical ventilation system but it does not remove humidity in these conditions.

I found some info on dessicant de-humidifiers, I see that the expected rise in temperature is 10 degrees above room temperature
http://www.meaco.com/guide.asp

Rainy-Days

Not very good with the heat myself after having had Sun (heat) stroke as a child. I always thought why can't I tollerate the heat and sit outside sunning myself - but I just cannot. Maybe that is why I love Northumberland so much cooler climate and without the hot, sweaty, humid heat we get in the south.

I keep out of the sun for most of the middle part of the day. I cut the lawns at 6.30 this evening and I tend to do the housework such as vacc'ing up about 8pmish. I also keep the front room curtains closed as well, keeps the sun off my furniture and it keeps the room cool as well. Anything that is natural fibres will help as well, I also have cotton sheets on the bed. I am one of those that needs to have a sheet covering me at night no matter what so a light cotton sheet is the job.

Aril

I work as a cleaner so obviously the heat is a factor for me too. I pace myself when cleaning, drink loads of water and regularly splash cold water onto my face and onto my wrists. I also try to wear loose, floaty clothing. We keep a bottle of tapwater topped up in the fridge and have on occasion used the coldwater in hotwater bottle trick. Another one for having curtains closed here.

Arilx

zippychick

as this has dropped down the old style board, ive moved it to health and beauty to see if you get some other ideas over here

Zip

Martin’s asked me to post this in these circumstances: I’ve asked Board Guides to move threads if they’ll receive a better response elsewhere (please see this rule) so this post/thread has been moved to another board, where it should get more replies. If you have any questions about this policy please email [EMAIL="forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com"]forumteam@moneysavingexpert.com[/EMAIL].

Rochdale_Guy

Put your underwear in the fridge