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I heard a Brit say the other day it was scorching out. So I asked how hot it was, they said 25 degrees C. I laughed so hard I almost fell from my chair. Where I live it was 33 degrees at that time and had been 39 degrees earlier that week.
Dry or humid?
The problem with British heat is that it's very humid, which is a lot worse than a dry heat. I've hardly felt a dry European 40°, but anything over 27° at home (Sheffield) and I'm just flobbing about trying to cool down.
"at home (Sheffield)".
There's a small section of my brain that seems to be permanently reserved for mentally cheering whenever I stumble across someone from near where I hail from, even if I haven't lived there for many years now
Extremely humid, we were at 86% around then.
Fair enough. It's probably just what you're used to then. I remember being over in the Caribbean a few years ago, someone got out of the sea and went "it's cold". Cold I said? You come to England I'll show you cold.
Cue the northern Canadians scoffing at my definition of cold.
It's not often over 25° here so we're not used to it. Plus our houses are designed to keep the heat in and the cold wet out.
Troubleis , the UK is a massive sponge that spends 75% of the year soaking up all the rain, which it then gives back to us whenever the sun comes out.
The other commenter is right, but another problem is that our homes and cities are designed to trap a lot of heat in. So while it might say 25C on the weather apps, it can get up to 40C inside. Come to the UK during the summer and you will understand.
It's because you don't know how to manage it. For a short term, few hot days, the trick is to air all night and shut everything up early in the morning as soon as the temperature starts rising. Your house will trap cold just as well as warm. But British people think that open windows = colder so they mess this up every time. I lived in the UK for the last three summers, in a perfectly ordinary row house from the 70s. It was fine with normal heat management strategies that one would use in eg Germany. Yes, if a heatwave lasts a long time this strategy will start to fail, if you can't cool properly at night, but it works for at least three days of over 30°.
There's only so much that can do. I have the silver windscreen things on my windows, foil, white paper. Close the windows and curtains when it starts getting warmer outside than inside. Keep my bedroom door open to encourage air from the cooler part of the house to flow. Maybe it makes a difference, it's hard to tell. All I know is, even with the door open, the moment I step from the hallway into my room, it goes from mild to hot and stuffy. I've tried putting the fan in the doorway facing into my room to help suck the cooler air in, it makes little difference. A spray bottle and fan blowing directly on me is the only way to keep cool. Then in the evening, if we're lucky, all windows open.
I have a second floor (3rd floor to the Americans) bedroom facing almost directly south.
Also I heard, I think it was on a documentary some years ago, it takes about 2 weeks for the body to fully adjust to big changes in temperature, and we rarely get two weeks of consistency, so we can never adapt. I'll have to go look up if this is true.
Wow, well, you are doing the right things. Are you sure there's not some serious heat source inside your room? Gaming PC with a big monitor or something? Being on the south side is obviously not helping but it's surprising that it's that much hotter than the rest of the house, which is staying cooler.
Nope, no big heat sources. Just south facing and high up with terrible air flow. Doesn't help that everyone on our street is turning their lawns into patios and chopping down the trees. Next time we get a heat wave (I think we're due another soon), I'll measure the temp difference between my room, the hall and the next door room which faces north. It's probably only a degree or two, but it feels so much worse.
I had the same response when I went LA a few years ago. It was 24 and I thought it was boiling all the LA people roared with laughter