Can you beat the heat? There are many tried and tested ways to keep you and your home cool. Photograph: MementoJpeg/Getty Images View image in fullscreen Can you beat the heat? There are many tried and tested ways to keep you and your home cool. Photograph: MementoJpeg/Getty Images The Filter Homes I’m Australian, so I know how to cope with heatwaves: here are my tips for keeping cool As parts of the UK swelter, try these low-energy ways to cool down – from fly screens and no-cook meals to air coolers that use a fraction of the electricity of aircon
Alyx Gorman Tue 23 Jun 2026 16.24 CEST Share Prefer the Guardian on Google The Guardian’s journalism is independent. We will earn a commission if you buy something through an affiliate link. Learn more .
W here I grew up, snow days were a foreign concept. Instead, children looked to the other end of the thermometer when hoping for a day off school. Playground rumour had it that when the temperature reached more than 40C, classes would be cancelled.
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I finished primary school at the turn of the century, so never saw that theory tested. But as the climate crisis intensifies, throughout much of south-eastern Australia, we’ve come to expect at least one 40C day each summer. That means subsequent cohorts of Australian children are learning that temperature triggers for school closure were only ever an urban legend . Instead, in many schools, hot weather means staying indoors during break and lunch.
Meanwhile, Australians barely break a sweat at a string of 28C days, the UK Met Office’s highest threshold for a heatwave . This isn’t because our bodies are different, says Prof Ollie Jay, director of the Heat and Health Research Centre at the University of Sydney. It’s because we’ve learned to adapt our behaviour.
Many of us also rely on air conditioning, and thanks to solar panels and batteries, some of us don’t even pay for it . Given air conditioning is energy-guzzling, I’ve focused on other, more environmentally friendly, ways to keep cool. However, for some people, aircon can quite literally save lives, so I’ve included details at the end about it.
With temperature records likely to break in parts of Britain this week , here’s how to handle the heat like an Australian.
How are you coping with the heat? Let us know your best tips by emailing thefilter@theguardian.com .
View image in fullscreen Liquid solution: hydration is just one of many essentials for dealing with heatwave life. Photograph: ugurhan/Getty Images Draw the curtains View image in fullscreen You shall not pass! Keep heat out by drawing the curtains early. Photograph: Jan Enkelmann/Getty Images Keeping a home comfortable in hot weather means keeping heat out when temperatures peak, then bringing cool air in when they fall. Stuart Walker, a research fellow in sustainability assessment at the University of Sheffield, suggests closing the curtains on hot days.
“If the sun enters a room over a period of time, it will heat up and then it will stay hot,” Walker says. “So don’t respond when the room is already hot. You need to have responded nine hours ago when the sun was first shining in that room.”
Shielding your home from direct sunlight is a daily routine in Australia. As soon as the sun comes in – or before that if we’ll be out for the day – we close the blinds; the habit is ingrained.
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