Are you doing anything specific to prepare for the heat next week?

[QuirkyLirky]

I was chatting to friends and a few were prepping for this. Ideas they came up with:
Checking the car so less chance of breaking down
Several bottles of water in the car and snacks
Reflective blanket for windscreen when parked at work
Buying extra water in case supply temporarily shut off
Filling the baths with water for repeated quick dips
Opening the loft hatch
Putting parasol in front of patio doors to give more shade to a room
Planning 'no-cook' meals for a few days
Ice blocks to put in front of fans
Frozen water bottles to take to school

All I could add was that I had made sure my ice cube trays were full in the freezer and I had a stock of ice pops frozen and some lollies to pop round to an older neighbour with as a good excuse to check on her.

I have good system for which windows and curtains to open and close throughout the day when I am at home but am working full days so will be out 7.00am - 6.30pm, so not really much use as they will all be closed).

I am trying to get my house as cold as possible now as it really holds on to heat or cool once its got it, so we can enter the heatwave without stored heat in the house and hopefully it will take longer to turn into an oven.

Is anyone else making specific plans to ease the days next week?

We have an ancient wooden conservatory so I'm going to set up our parasol so that it creates some shade for it and I might even try and swag some fabric in the rafter part near the roof.

It gets so hot in there and my exercise bike actually melted (some plastic casing that covers the gears) a couple of years back and it wasn't even during a heatwave. Dread to think what could happen on Tuesday.

I think it was another poster who asked, I couldn't afford to run one!

@RockandRollsuicide

We brought this one:
www.appliancesdirect.co.uk/p/p12c/electriq-p12c

Price varies by BTUs. Ours was like £400 I think.

More BTUs = more cool air. They can generally cool about half the space they claim to.

It works well. The heat has not been a problem. It will only cool one room. But its quiet enough to sleep.

Thank you!
Also thanks to the earlier poster who pointed out, one can freeze ice and also bag it up and get the ice cube maker going again!

I've stocked up on ice lollies and those ice cubes bags where you fill them yourself. Made a turkey bolagnese in the slow cooker on Friday, that's in the freezer ready for Monday/Tuesday, bought the fixings for fruit skewers/crackers/cheese etc for dinner one night.
Have all blinds shut from this morning.
That's it though, not sticking tinfoil on the windows

Thank you @Svara

Makes perfect sense now.

Fans, for the average 40cm model cost 1-2p per hour to run, so if you have one on for 24 hours constantly it will cost £1 for the two hottest days.