30^o^ abroad: Civilised humidity
30^o^ in the UK: Might as well be under water, being gently simmered into broth.
this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2026
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Casual UK
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It's the humidity that makes it so unbearable
It only goes to 43 though (we officially had 43.8 yesterday).
...and then combined with our entire architecture, diet, clothing and lifestyles being based around centuries of keeping out the cold, wind and damp.
If your house keeps out the cold, wind and damp, it will keep out the heat. There is no special way for walls, windows and insulation to let heat or hot air pass only in one direction.
Everything is insulated and sealed shut. There are heaters inside the house. The sun comes through the window and heats the room up. The heat cannot escape.
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The issue is thermal mass. Buildings are designed to absorb heat in the winter. Obviously when you aren't using heat they'll absorb whatever the temperature is.
First 2 days of a heatwave the building holds a cooler temperature. After that the walls begin to heat and it is simply too hot at night to dissipate all the heat the building has absorbed
Since I've explained this about twenty times today already, why don't you tell me what you think the temperature is like in a building with lower thermal mass?
Sure I can do that, I grew up in a trailer and we had the AC go out one summer in the southern USA.
Mid day was hot as fuck. Once the sun went down and we opened the windows it cooled off very quickly to the outside temperature and it was easy to sleep.
I would usually shut my windows around 12 to 1 am. Then I could sleep comfortably until about 10 or 11.
Here when I shut my windows to sleep I'm hot again by about 7am and feel the walls radiating heat.
So overall the peak of the day is better, but nighttime is significantly worse. Honestly I'd rather be a few degrees warmer during the day and sleep well than being consistently hot all the time
Well if we're reducing it to anecdotes, here in my house with thick brick walls, we open the windows as soon as the outside temperature drops below inside, use fans to exhaust heat, and end up with a bedroom in which it is comfortable to sleep. So I guess we're at an impasse, unless we're able to work out some general principle that doesn't rely on personal experience.
I don't think either of us have our building schematics on hand to run the math on this. If your room is cooling that effectively I suspect you have very favorable window placement and significantly less thick walls. Or perhaps just a smaller building. I'm in large apartment complex so I'm just surrounded by a lot of progressively warming concrete
I think in your apartment complex you're probably affected by a bunch of other people who are keeping their curtains open in the day and not ventilating in the evening, so you'll be screwed whatever. Your trailer will have been roasting in the day, but will also have been small and so easy to fully ventilate.
I think your suspicion misses other important variables: for example, I might just live somewhere cooler than what you're thinking about. That's why I don't think this personal experience swapping is very productive.
In contrast, the science is pretty simple: all other things being equal, a building with high thermal mass will maintain the same average temperature as one with low thermal mass. You may well be more comfortable during the worst nights, but you'll be less comfortable during the worst days. But special attention to cooling sleeping areas that can be performed in any house can mitigate that, but can't mitigate peak temperatures.
In contrast, the science is pretty simple: all other things being equal, a building with high thermal mass will maintain the same average temperature as one with low thermal mass.
This statement. Makes me unsure you know what thermal mass is. If all things are the same they will have the same thermal mass.
If you left a 10kg block of steel on the pavement and a 5kg block of steel on the pavement all day which would become cooler to the touch faster once the sun has set? Obviously the 5kg block of steel.
I said ”all other things being equal"
Okay so you've invented materials that can be exactly the same and have different thermal properties through sheer will alone. Honestly good for you, get that to market and you will be very wealthy
There is no special way for walls, windows and insulation to let heat or hot air pass only in one direction.
Hot air, no, but heat from sun, very much yes. That's a one-way kind of transaction
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We have the oldest housing stock in europe and some of the most leaky. In the winter the heat bleeds out and in the summer the cold does too.
Yes, that is true, but that is not the popular myth that the person I replied to was expressing: that "because our houses are designed to be warm, they overheat in summer." This is not true. The thing you're saying, "because our houses are actually quite shit at being warm, they overheat in summer" is true but different.
The bricks and wall thickness are designed to absorb heat and release them in the evening though. Not sure if it can work the other way around.
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You speak with a lot of confidence for one who is not well travelled.
We use the Dehumidify option on our units, it uses less energy (also less €) and makes the place fresh as can be.
Source: in Spain with my nuts stuck to my leg from May-October
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30° here in Iceland is a national emergency
Edit: Probably should have said, "would be". It's not 30°C here
It's just 'land' now.
Is it still very windy because that would at least help.
I'm lying in bed between two fans just to survive on a top floor apartment.
All the media: extreeeeem!!!
30° in Slavic countries is called the apocalypse.
If you paid a months salary for the chance to go to Sainsbury’s you’d bloody well take it in 30°
I need my AC unit upstairs to sleep, but I need it downstairs so that I'm not peeling myself off of my chair every 5 minutes while working. The struggle is real.
Genuinely considering buying a second, despite barely having the space.
I'm sure I'm stating the obvious here, but have you considered
- working upstairs?
- sleeping downstairs?
- lugging the unit up and down the stairs?
Those are very sensible suggestions tbf; it's just that my house is really small! I live alone, renting. My room upstairs doesn't fit any more than my bed and the AC (floor unit). The only way I can work up there is with a laptop on my bed, which is an ergonomic nightmare that will have me cramping in about 10 minutes.
I have a small sofa that is comfortable enough to sleep on downstairs, that I would probably use if I did not have the AC
I can lug the AC up and down the stairs but one of those 2 areas will be so warm that by the time I've moved it I'm immediately in need of another shower... and then again when I move it back.
Don't know about their unit, but my one is 48KG, so lugging it isn't the easiest.
I would've though have it setup at the bottom of the house, have it running and only open a window at the top of the house...
Assuming no major air leaks in the house, the cold will displace the heat starting at the bottom, the rising heat then able to escape out of a cracked window at the top of the house,
Otherwise have it at the top of the stairs and hope that the falling cold will displace the heat
You would want it at the top of the house if it's purely for cooling. Cool air at the top of the house will sink down to the bottom. Rising hot air will then be cooled by the A/C unit. If you put it at the bottom, all that cool air will just sit there and never move upstairs. The open window upstairs will allow hot air out... if it's cooler outside than inside, otherwise it will allow hot air in. In either case, that won't promote much mixing of the upstairs and downstairs air, so your A/C won't improve the temperature upstairs much.
Yeah, if running it isn't too expensive then using it to boost the old 'diagonal air exchange' strategy seems like a good plan
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Just been to Tesco. Was in there about 15 mins. When I got back into the car, the dash board said 41 🥵 Now parked up waiting to collect wife from work and it’s a pleasant 33 😒
Hmm, both feel acute to me.
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