What do people with home offices do with heat?

[reluctantbrit]

I had no real issues with working from home and heat but the last 2 years it was really awful. My blood pressure is dropping, I start feeling faint and have issues concentrating. I had hopes that me loosing weight helps but unfortunately no.

I do a lot already, airing from 6am onwards to around 8am when the sun starts getting into the room. Dark roller blinds and open door. I can open the window only after 3pm but then the air outside is hardly better, it‘s just oxygen with hot air. A fan also just moves the hot air around.

I can’t change rooms as I need a complex set-up with a large screen, it‘s not that I can just move a laptop around.

It has to be fairly quiet as I have regular calls.

I also go to the office but that includes a train ride back home and I am often ill in the evening from travelling. I am also under work adjustments to do hybrid due to an injury which will run until end of August.

No plans to install air con permanently currently, we have enough going on with the house for this year already, and I am wondering if a portable one with a hose is actually doing anything as it requires to have a window open.

I am happy to throw money at the problem for a decent solution which doesn‘t include building work.

I got myself a shark fan, it’s brilliant for keeping cool

We have a portable air con unit, it’s incredibly effective. Not quiet though!

We have a portable AC unit. I don't use it in my office but it's incredibly useful for cooling down the bedrooms before bedtime. I think mine was approx £150 from Screwfix

Cold shower in the morning, at lunch and after work. Sensible clothing for anything that might be on camera and otherwise minimal clothing. Feet in a bowl of ice water. Keep hydrated.

Feet in ice water actually works really well, if you can stand the initial shock of it.

I've got a portable aircon for when it's unbearable.

Usually a fan and cool drinks suffice. You can wet a gauzy scarf for round your neck too.

I’m in the same position so following with interest. Dreading the next few days’ work. Good luck to you, me and the rest of us.

I love our portable air con unit. Works really well. Paid £400 for it about six years ago and it gets used every summer so has been well worth the price!

These are all good tips - I will be WFH tomorrow in 33+ degrees. Fortunately, my office faces NE, so it gets morning sun that is gone by noon. The back of the house is much hotter.

We have casement windows so I don’t think we’d be able to seal around an opening for the hose on a portable unit - unless you and others have found a way to do this you could share?

We have a proper wall mounted aircon unit. So hat the exterior box isn't attached to the front of the house they ran all the ducting through the ceiling into the loft and then out through the side wall down to where the units are mounted. (I say units as we also have aircon in the bedroom.) As wel as the normal heating and coolong modes it has an eco mode so cools but uses less powered and is quiet, a night mode (very quiet) and a turbo feature for when you want to cool the room really quickly - very loud 😂 Never used it for heating that room as the numerous screens, PC, UPS and server ensure it's nice and toasty in the winter!

We have casement windows. You just get a Velcro window kit.

https://amzn.eu/d/0isja3mF

Works a treat although we do have to replace every couple of years as they sometimes end up ripped if you’re opening and closing the window a lot with it attached.

We don't have casement windows but our windows would also be very difficult to fix a seal around them for the hose to go outside, especially if you want to open the window overnight.

If you have an exterior wall, you can have a portable unit with an outlet cut through the external wall with a small louvered flap on the outside and a fixing kit that sits inside the wall and fixes to the hose.

B & Q and other retailers do the kits:

I don't know whether there are building regs for how far from a neighbours house the vent has to be placed if you are in a semi or terrace.

Brilliant - will pursue this. Our bedroom is like an oven too, so we would want to move it between at least 2 rooms, probably 3, as DH also works at home 3/5 days, and his little office faces south-west so is unbearable too.

We’re detached and DH is a planner, so no issues getting building regs right, but as above we’d need to move the unit from room to room so a permanent vent wouldn’t work for us - though hopefully it’ll be useful for someone else on the thread!

We used to have one of those Velcro kits around the window. Then it ripped and we haven’t yet replaced it (plus it looked awful and we move the unit between 4/5 different rooms now!) Unit still works well without. In fact it’s currently sticking out of a French window and the room is beautifully cool.

I already do all of this apart from the ice foot bath as it can cause havoc with my blood pressure.

Thanks, I will look at portable units and a Velcro kit.
a permanent solution is cure not possible but I think we will look into it long term.

Live in old house. They stay cool. I have been working most of today.

Yes we use it mainly in bedroom, it's so much nicer sleeping at 18 degrees than 28! Worth it for a good night's sleep for sure. Ours is on wheels but it is quite heavy if you wanted to put it up and down stairs.

Fill an empty 2 litre soft drinks bottle with water, freeze it solid then place in front of a fan. Works surprisingly well to cool the air in the room down. A sort of poor man’s air conditioning unit.

Obviously you need air con. Only solution that will really work.

We used cardboard and duct tape to seal off the gap caused by the air con hose. Cheap and effective.

We have air conditioning units with the hose out of the window. They work really well. At the moment, it’s apparently 31 degrees where we are and rooms in our house without air conditioning units on are around 33 degrees whereas rooms with air con units in are 23 degrees. I would recommend them OP. We have Meaco ones, which come with window kits.

Cold water in dishes at a cracked open window. Keep the water cold and you should get a cooling breeze.