{"id":518511,"date":"2026-06-25T23:08:15","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T23:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/518511\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T23:08:15","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T23:08:15","slug":"i-lived-through-40oc-heat-in-spain-these-are-the-tricks-i-use-now-back-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/518511\/","title":{"rendered":"I lived through 40oC heat in Spain – these are the tricks I use now back home"},"content":{"rendered":"

14:16, 25 Jun 2026Updated 14:18, 25 Jun 2026<\/p>\n

\"Vicky<\/p>\n

Despite temperature<\/a> readings across Ireland and the UK not reaching the same highs as our European neighbours, the naturally humid conditions here make the heat almost unbearable at times, and many are searching for ways to keep cool this week.<\/p>\n

One person who’s better prepared than most is Vicky Parry, who has spent plenty of summers in Madrid<\/a>, where temperatures comfortably exceed 40\u00b0C. Vicky lived in an apartment with no air conditioning for most of that time, and after returning to the UK, she’s shared a list of handy tips to help people survive the heatwave.<\/p>\n

Some of it is obvious, like drinking more water and keeping the sun out. Some of it is trial and error. And some of it is the sort of thing you only start doing when you’re genuinely desperate to cool down.<\/p>\n

In her own words, here are the heatwave habits Vicky swears by as temperatures across Ireland and the UK spike above 30\u00b0C today.<\/p>\n

Don’t open every window and hope for the best<\/p>\n

This is the biggest thing I learnt in Madrid: once your home is already baking, you’ve left it too late.<\/p>\n

In really hot weather, the trick is to air the house when the air outside is cooler than the air inside – usually early in the morning and later at night. Once the temperature starts climbing, shut things back down.<\/p>\n

That means closing curtains, blinds and shutters in any room getting direct sun , especially south-facing ones. It can feel completely wrong if you’re desperate for a breeze, but if the air outside is hotter than the air in your house, all you’re doing is letting the heat in.<\/p>\n

Go downstairs if you can<\/p>\n

It sounds basic, but it makes a huge difference.<\/p>\n

If you’ve got more than one floor, the downstairs is often the place to be. Heat rises, and upper bedrooms can become unbearable by late afternoon, while the lower part of the house can still feel vaguely survivable.<\/p>\n

When I lived in Spain, people were ruthless about this. If one room was cooler, that was where you sat. You didn’t try to heroically carry on sweating upstairs just because that’s where the sofa was.<\/p>\n

My least glamorous cooling trick genuinely works<\/p>\n

This is one of those things that sounds ridiculous until you’re overheated enough to try anything.<\/p>\n

If you cool your lower body quickly with cold water – whether that’s a bidet, a cool rinse, or even a cold flannel applied strategically – it can make your whole body temperature feel as if it’s dropped in seconds.<\/p>\n

It’s the same principle as running cool water over your wrists or feet, but stronger. It’s not elegant. It’s not Instagrammable. But if you’re melting and need quick relief, it really does help.<\/p>\n

\"VickyA cool bath helps – but so can a warm one<\/p>\n

If you’re absolutely roasting, a cool bath or shower is the obvious answer, and it does work.<\/p>\n

But one of the more surprising things I’ve found is that a warm bath can help too, especially before bed. Not because it cools you down in itself, but because when you get out into a slightly cooler room, the contrast can make the air feel dramatically fresher.<\/p>\n

The keyword here is warm, not boiling. You’re not trying to recreate a spa steam room in a heatwave.<\/p>\n

Hydration is boring advice because it’s true<\/p>\n

I know “drink water” is the least thrilling heatwave tip on earth, but it matters.<\/p>\n

When I lived in Madrid, hydration wasn’t a wellness thing – it was just survival. If you’re sweating more than normal, you need to keep drinking throughout the day rather than waiting until you feel awful.<\/p>\n

I always keep a bottle near me in hot weather, and I’m much more conscious of alcohol and too much caffeine, too, because both can leave you feeling worse when you’re already dehydrated.<\/p>\n

Cooling bedding can help – but only up to a point<\/p>\n

I’m slightly sceptical of anything marketed as a miracle cure for hot weather, but I do think some cooling bedding and sleep products can make a difference at the margins.<\/p>\n

Emma, Simba and Bedsure all do ranges of cooling products designed to help keep your temperature down at night, and I can absolutely see why people swear by them. If your room is just a bit too warm and you run hot anyway, a cooler-feeling pillow, topper or blanket can help take the edge off.<\/p>\n

But I do think there’s a limit. If you’re already boiling, the bedroom is stifling, and there’s no airflow at all, it can feel a bit like trying to solve a house-fire situation with a slightly colder pillowcase. Nice? Yes. Enough on its own? Probably not.<\/p>\n

My best heatwave buy is technically for my dog<\/p>\n

The thing I keep stealing in hot weather isn’t some luxury cooling blanket – it’s my dog’s cooling sheet that costs about a fiver from a pet shop. Don’t worry, he’s not deprived of it – we have two.<\/p>\n

But it’s honestly brilliant. Somehow, it stays cool, while wet towels and all the other soggy, clammy heatwave ideas just don’t. It doesn’t leave you feeling damp, it doesn’t warm up instantly, and if I’m really overheating, I will absolutely lie on the dog’s cooling mat with no shame whatsoever.<\/p>\n

Handheld fans are romantic in theory – less so in reality<\/p>\n

I love the idea of a handheld fan because it reminds me of the Madrid metro, where there was always someone fanning themselves in a way that looked incredibly chic. The reality is less glamorous.<\/p>\n

After a while, vigorously fanning yourself just starts to feel like cardio, which is not what anyone needs when it’s 34C and the train’s delayed. A small, handheld electric fan is much better, in my opinion, because it does the work for you. I’ve got a Groov-e one that comes out every single time I’m on public transport or stuck in a boiling waiting room at this time of year, and I’m very fond of it.<\/p>\n

However, they’re not a miracle cure either. If the air around you is already hot and stale, a fan can just end up blowing warm air back at your face, which can make everything feel stuffier.<\/p>\n

If you do want a fan, the running costs are thankfully not terrifying<\/p>\n

If I were spending money on one thing in a heatwave, it would probably be a fan rather than going straight to air con – partly because they’re much cheaper to run.<\/p>\n

I’ve looked at everything from the premium Dyson options to more straightforward pedestal fans and the newer smart circulator ones, and the good news is that even the pricier models are still relatively cheap to have on overnight compared with portable air conditioning.<\/p>\n

For example, Dyson says its Cool CF1 uses 30 watts at maximum speed, which works out to less than 10c for an entire night. If you go for a bigger tower fan, such as the Dyson AM07, that’s more like 56 watts, which can cost between 15c and 22c depending on your rate.<\/p>\n

That’s why I think fans are worth being realistic about. They can make you feel much cooler, and they don’t cost a fortune to keep going. But they’re still moving hot air around rather than actually lowering the room temperature, so if your bedroom is already boiling and there’s no airflow at all, even a good fan can start to feel like it’s just wafting warm soup at you.<\/p>\n

Fans cool you – not the room<\/p>\n

This is the bit worth remembering before you panic-buy anything in a heatwave. A fan doesn’t lower the temperature of a room. What it does is move air over your skin, so you feel cooler. Sometimes that’s enough. Sometimes, especially at night, it absolutely is not.<\/p>\n

If your bedroom has spent all day absorbing heat and now feels like a loft conversion in hell, a fan can help make it more bearable – but it won’t actually chill the room down.<\/p>\n

Portable air con is the dream – but it’s the expensive dream. I completely understand the urge to buy an air conditioner the minute your bedroom becomes uninhabitable.<\/p>\n

And to be fair, portable air conditioning does do something a fan can’t: it can actually bring the room temperature down. But there are a few catches.<\/p>\n

First, it’s much more expensive to run than a fan. A standing or tower fan is generally pretty cheap to leave on overnight. Portable air con is not. Depending on the unit, you can easily get into the territory of tens of cents per hour, and much more over a run of hot nights.<\/p>\n

Second, portable units are often noisy, bulky, and require proper venting out a window, which is not always as straightforward as it sounds in an Irish bedroom. So yes, air con can be brilliant – but I’d treat it as the bigger, pricier option rather than the automatic answer.<\/p>\n

The biggest lesson I learnt in Spain cost absolutely nothing<\/p>\n

The truth is that most of the habits that got me through 40\u00b0C Madrid summers were free.<\/p>\n

Shut the sun out before it gets in. Open the house at the right time. Move downstairs if that’s the coolest place. Drink more water than you think you need. Cool your body, not just the room.<\/p>\n

And if all else fails, do not underestimate the power of sitting in the darkest part of the house with a cold flannel, a fan pointed in your general direction, and absolutely no intention of moving until September.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"14:16, 25 Jun 2026Updated 14:18, 25 Jun 2026 Despite temperature readings across Ireland and the UK not reaching…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":518512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[72,61,60,767],"class_list":["post-518511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518511","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=518511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/518511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/518512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=518511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=518511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=518511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}