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Heat wave problems.

B

Bedford 1

Active Member
Relationship to Diabetes
Type 2
How many others are being badly affected by this heat? I find it more and more difficult to sleep at night. Managing to drink plenty of water. Eating enough is more difficult. Unable to concentrate on much at all.
 
@Bedford 1 I used to love the sun and heat, but as I've got older not so much.
Our back garden in South facing and the master bedroom is at the back of the house, about 10 years ago we install a ceiling fan, because the bedroom was like a sauna at night.
We keep the curtains drawn all day and the ceiling fan on all night and it is much more bearable.

I am now thinking a single air con unit

Alan
 
A fan only helps if you have some cold air to "mix in". This could be achieved by putting a bowl of ice in front of the fan but that is a bit easier to do with floor fans than ceiling fans.
 
I keep windows and curtains closed on hot days to keep the heat out and I move into the spare room which is downstairs as my main bedroom is upstairs in the roof space which is half south facing, so gets too hot. It helps having an old stone house with thick walls though.

I think many people don't realise how effective it is keeping the curtains drawn and windows shut all day, at preventing the heat coming in.
 
helli said:
A fan only helps if you have some cold air to "mix in". This could be achieved by putting a bowl of ice in front of the fan but that is a bit easier to do with floor fans than ceiling fans.
Click to expand...
I disagree, fans do work even without a source of cool air as they increase convective heat transfer above what would happen through natural convection in an otherwise relatively still room.

Obviously adding cold air in makes things even better, but a fan blowing warm air is better than sitting in still warm air!
 
I don’t think it’s just getting older. The kind of heat has changed too. Now we almost always have very heavy, oppressive thundery heat in the Summer rather than normal heat. I find that heat more difficult to deal with.

@Bedford 1 When it’s really hot, I find taking a large A4 size ice pack to bed helps. I wrap it in a few plastic bags and put it at my feet. It’s the only thing that helps extreme heat. Even with it near but not touching, you’d be surprised how much it helps. I also have thermal blackout curtains. I keep these drawn that helps too. Getting a through-draft through the house helps as well, which you can do by opening front and back doors and windows so any breeze can go through.

Do make sure to drink enough and to eat enough salt in hotter weather. I’ve even used rehydration sachets in extreme weather (eg Dioralyte, etc).
 
I planted a couple of semi-dwarf apple trees to shade the south facing end of the house, the kitchen window and the conservatory. It does make a big difference to the amount of heat impacting that end of the house. In the early years placing the butter dish on the end counter was to get a puddle of molten fat, and only cacti could survive the conservatory staging. It does mean that in a good year I have bags and bags of apples to give away.
 
I don't like the very hot weather, say anything above 25 degrees C and I start to feel uncomfortable.
Even when I was younger I did not really like the hot weather.
I think I read somewhere that as you get older, you can then struggle to regulate your own body temperature, but not sure what age range that starts at though, or why that might happen?

As per the advice above, I tend to stay indoors as much as possible, drink lots of water, and keep the doors and windows closed.

We do have a large portable air con unit, (From machine mart, eg: Clarkes, cost about £300) with a long flexible vent, with a narrow slot at the end, which you place through a window, (its narrow so the window does not need to be opened much to allow the hot air out). We tend to place that in our dining room, facing our lounge through a pair of open double doors. Once its cranked up, and if we leave all the downstairs internal doors open, it keeps the ground floor nice and cool.

Only problem is its a bit loud, which is why we place it in another room a bit further away, and you do have to empty its water tray about once every couple of days, (only takes a minute or so). It is amazing how much heat it drags out though if you put your hand on the external vent while its running!

Upstairs in a our main bedroom, we have a large ceiling fan, which helps a bit, as the upstairs does tend to get a bit hotter than the downstairs, heat rises I suppose? But when its really hot it just tends to push warm air around, does not really cool the air. But you do get some movement of air which helps a bit.

We also have a couple of those large tower fans which can oscillate and have several speeds. We tend to use those mostly in the summer as they can be easily moved around and are ok for when its not boiling hot.
We tend to reserve using the air con only for those very hot days.

Our house is quite new, its about 7 years old now, so is very well insulated to a high standard, so it does seem to keep the heat in well during the winter months, and the heat out in the summer months.
But give me the nice cool weather anyday.....
 
pjgtech said:
I don't like the very hot weather, say anything above 25 degrees C and I start to feel uncomfortable.
Even when I was younger I did not really like the hot weather.
I think I read somewhere that as you get older, you can then struggle to regulate your own body temperature, but not sure what age range that starts at though, or why that might happen?

As per the advice above, I tend to stay indoors as much as possible, drink lots of water, and keep the doors and windows closed.

We do have a large portable air con unit, (From machine mart, eg: Clarkes, cost about £300) with a long flexible vent, with a narrow slot at the end, which you place through a window, (its narrow so the window does not need to be opened much to allow the hot air out). We tend to place that in our dining room, facing our lounge through a pair of open double doors. Once its cranked up, and if we leave all the downstairs internal doors open, it keeps the ground floor nice and cool.

Only problem is its a bit loud, which is why we place it in another room a bit further away, and you do have to empty its water tray about once every couple of days, (only takes a minute or so). It is amazing how much heat it drags out though if you put your hand on the external vent while its running!

Upstairs in a our main bedroom, we have a large ceiling fan, which helps a bit, as the upstairs does tend to get a bit hotter than the downstairs, heat rises I suppose? But when its really hot it just tends to push warm air around, does not really cool the air. But you do get some movement of air which helps a bit.

We also have a couple of those large tower fans which can oscillate and have several speeds. We tend to use those mostly in the summer as they can be easily moved around and are ok for when its not boiling hot.
We tend to reserve using the air con only for those very hot days.

Our house is quite new, its about 7 years old now, so is very well insulated to a high standard, so it does seem to keep the heat in well during the winter months, and the heat out in the summer months.
But give me the nice cool weather anyday.....
Click to expand...

Are those air con units expensive to run, seriously thinking about buying one as we can't stand this heat recently.
 
The biggest problem we have with the heat is keeping the dogs cool and hydrated.

The cool collars are good and ice cubes in their water helps
 
nonethewiser said:
Are those air con units expensive to run, seriously thinking about buying one as we can't stand this heat recently.
Click to expand...
Erm dunno mate, it just plugs into the mains via 13A socket, let me see if I have any info on it....
 
Its a Clarkes AC13020 unit. Comes with remote control and operates as a fan and a AC unit and a dehumidifier.
You vent via the flexible hose out of a window, the hose is about 1m long so needs to be near a window.
You drain the water tank about once every two days, usually only about 250ml or so comes out, theres a small drain plug at the rear. Or, you can connect a suitable pipe and drain it directly to a sink or gully, etc if you want to.
I think its a 3.5kw unit, see technical spec below.
We bought this one in 2020 so it five years old now, but we only use it for the few very hot days every year, so its not had heavy use, but still works great.
Currently £380 on Machine Mart website, but may be cheaper similar ones elsewhere?


ac unit.jpg
AC unit tech spec.jpg
 
I need to save up for an AC, I can't bear it! Phew.
 
We have looked at getting an air-conditioning unit fitted in our office area when we insulate it properly and redo the floor and ceiling. It's next to the lounge and only separated by an archway. We generate enough excess solar energy in this hot weather that it will run the AC instead of being exported to the National Grid.
 
Bedford 1 said:
How many others are being badly affected by this heat? I find it more and more difficult to sleep at night. Managing to drink plenty of water. Eating enough is more difficult. Unable to concentrate on much at all.
Click to expand...
Despite living in Scotland , have had a similar issue for a few years , purchased a personal air cooler cube from Amazon ( £30 ) to see how effective they were before buying a more expensive one , however , once filled with water and a few frozen liquid filled plastic ice cubes , the cool airflow over my bed makes it a bit more bearable
 
I have a fan, it blows the warm air around but it's better than nothing. The problem I have with this level of heat is speeded up metabolism, I've cut my Novorapid by 25% and Levemir by 10% which has helped. Trouble is that tomorrow is going to be cooler so I'll be out of whack again.

I think some parts of the country are just warm, London is hot and airless.
 
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