Hot stuff … readers share their favourite ways to stay cool when the heat becomes too much. Photograph: demaerre/Getty View image in fullscreen Hot stuff … readers share their favourite ways to stay cool when the heat becomes too much. Photograph: demaerre/Getty The Filter Summer ‘A godsend on a hot train’: your top tips for beating the heat this summer From thermal blinds to putting your knickers in the fridge, here are the clever – and surprising – ways Filter readers are keeping cool as the UK swelters
Lily Smith Thu 9 Jul 2026 16.00 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 .
A fter record-breaking June temperatures , parts of the UK are in the throes of another heatwave. So with more uncomfortably hot days and sweaty, sleepless nights in store, we asked how you keep cool when the temperatures soar.
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Some of you shared tips for keeping your homes cool, others on avoiding overheating on the go, and some on ways to exercise safely. From thermal blinds and fans to sunscreens and UV-protective hats, here are your, and our, favourite hacks to beat the heat – and some of them are free. (And no, none of you has any commercial links to these companies or products – we always check.)
Vertical blinds closed. All curtains are blackout. Air circulated via a through draft. Elizabeth
Ikea makes a nice, cost-effective range of thermal blinds, and they are doing a great job in my bedrooms. It’s a south/south-east facing house with the sun rising at 4am – that’s a lot of heat coming in. Karen
View image in fullscreen Room-darkening cellular blind
My “office” and lounge windows are southerly facing and get the sun until about 3.30pm, by which time my lounge temperature is 38C or more.
I bought some green sun shade screening and cut it to cover the windows and attached it using hoop-and-loop tape to the outside of the window frames.
The room is magically cooler, and it’s far better than simply closing the curtains. Andy
View image in fullscreen Sun shade netting
View image in fullscreen Hook-and-loop tape
Get a reliable fan “Even though fans don’t change the temperature, air movement across the body ‘can massively increase the capacity for evaporation’, and evaporation is how human bodies stay cool,” says Alyx Gorman in her guide to staying cool during a heatwave .
Rated the best for cooling in Caramel Quin ’s test of the best fans , “the Dreo has a six-litre water tank and can add a fine mist to the air”. Caramel was impressed with how well it cooled the air with relatively low running costs.
View image in fullscreen Dreo TurboCool misting fan 765S
Cool your air Evaporative coolers – fans that use cold water to cool the air – are hard to come by right now, but Caramel Quin recently tested this portable version that’s still in stock. It’s USB-rechargeable, so can even be taken on camping holidays, and is small enough to sit on a desktop. Don’t expect air-con levels of cooling, and the noise it makes – while fairly quiet – can be a little irritating. But it dropped the temperature by just over a degree in Caramel’s tests, and you can even add ice to the water tank.
View image in fullscreen Morphy Richards Flexi Freeze mini personal air cooler
£69.99 at Amazon Cool yourself I practise s…