SHADE NEEDED

[ClematisPurple]

Please help, I'm dying of heat stress.
The back of my house is WEST FACING.
It is sheer hell in this heat.
The kitchen is in the back of the house.
I'm going to pieces unable to cope with the blinding tortuous sun beaming directly in through my kitchen window and back door (next to window) every single solitary day when I'm trying to make dinner.
It's so hellishly, tortuously, insanely bright and intense that I get sunburn whilst standing at my kitchen worktop preparing a meal, the backs of my calves actually burn, and I have to wear sunglasses in my kitchen, and still I am squinting like mad and getting migraines from the intensity of the sun shining in to my eyes as it shines directly in to my kitchen at 5pm, 6pm, 7pm.
My kitchen sink faces the west facing window.
My kitchen is a shitty little tiny box kitchen 10ft long x 7.5ft wide and the back wall of the kitchen is all glass because the massive window and 100% top to bottom glass door take up the full width of the entire wall of the kitchen that faces west, and I HATE IT.
We are elevated on a hill, with no natural sun screen i.e. no trees. We are completely exposed to the elements.
I feel like I'm going insane.
I can't use my kitchen between 4pm - 8pm every day in this heat.
Outside my kitchen is our tiny patio only 18 feet wide and we are boxed in by tall brick walls since my next door neighbour that we are joined on to got a 4 metre rear extension which has created a breeze less sun trap at the back of our house. I hate it. We used to have air circulating at the back of our house bit their massive rear extension has stopped this.
Today, preparing dinner for DC at 5pm made me feel sick. I still feel ill now. I got sunburnt whilst cooking at my hob/oven becausethe sun hits my oven as it drops down lower in the sky. I got a migraine from standing at the kitchen sink washing up because the sun sank lower in the sky until it was straight opposite my window above the sink.
I bought a gazebo from argos and stood it against the back of the house. It helped. It lasted 4 days then we had a windy day on Saturday and the frame snapped and it collapsed.
What should I do?
Please advise me on what is better for this situation - another gazebo or a patio awning?
What is best?
I feel ill with heat stress even now at nearly 10pm, after getting in such a state in the kitchen earlier.

Yup. Back of our house where the kids sleep is west facing. Their room is like a furnace and blinding without blackouts.

We have similar. I struggle with migraines so can’t do anything in the kitchen on a hot bright day.
i have covered my bifold with blackout blinds that are clipped on the glass with reflective backs. It keeps the heat down and brightness down too.
also invested in a really good fan which slightly helps. Evenings I open my doors and let the cooler air in (post 8pm) but until then it’s practically a sauna (now a dark one) 🤣

Oops forgot to mention 2 gazebos outside which act like cheap awning and make a huge difference.

all my west facing windows have the reflective blinds + blackout roller blinds + curtains. It’s madness!

I’m no expert but presumably you could suspend blinds from the ceiling? At this point, I would call in a professional to show you options as to what can be done. DIY isn’t going to cut it.

Cheap solution - drench a towel and drape over your shoulders, repeat as often as you need, it’ll cool you like nothing else. Thank me later

Pricey long term solution - free standing air conditioning unit. If kitchen is small put it outside of kitchen whilst aiming into kitchen. I bought mine off Amazon for 199 last year, they’re around 250 now but you won’t believe how amazing they are. I live in a south facing garden, new build so my house is unbearable and like an oven - inside it was 34 degrees until I turned the air con unit on.

Someone mentioned the Schotiss blinds on amazon from IKEA.

DS and I are autistic, light and heat sensitive and these are what we use on our large west facing window.

I also have 2 fans. An 18" industrial fan sat on a north facing window, though a south facing window is also fine, facing outwards, window open, blowing the hot air out.

We have a second rechargeable fan that is higher powered that we use facing us.

We freeze 2l bottles of water and put them behind it to cool the air down as it is pulled through, and rotate bottles so as soon as one is melted it goes back in the freezer and another one comes out.

Less advisable, as you cannot reuse them for hot water in winter due to risk of splitting, but we freeze water in hot water bottles, wrap them in a towel and they come with us where ever we go in the house. Sofa, bed, etc. I even shove them down my top when it's just us in the house, and walk round like I've got an ice-baby.

We have those handheld mini dyson looking neck fan things. The one with the lanyard, and adjustable neck. £8 each off tiktok but can probably get them anywhere online.

Crazier things I've tried in desperation in past years include aloe vera gel sanitary towels, like the ones you make for postpartum, frozen, then down each bra cup. Be careful not to give yourself freezer burn. Freezer bags with wet sponges in them, frozen, then wrapped in a thin cloth, still in the freezer bag, and stuffed where ever you need it.

Invest in some loose fitting, long sleeved, long legged linen clothes for precisely this sort of weather to protect your skin, wick sweat away, and give space for evaporative cooling. I know long sleeved isn't what you'd choose in this heat but it does help, especially if you have East and West facing windows.

I love a shop bought quiche. Whey would they sell them if no one ever bought them?

Do you still have the broken gazebo?

See if the frame can be fixed temporarily using tape or cable ties. I know cable ties work as this is how mine is still operating.
It won't fold down with them on but use what you can from it.
Or use the cover and just tape it over parts of the window.

Sandwiches are perfectly okay meals. Or even beans on toast, or something equally quick. What about buying a rotisserie chicken and have with salad.

Just do what you can to get through this. I doesn't matter what it looks like at this point. Then plan for next year by getting a portable air con perhaps.

Duct tape.

Same here, wallpaper over the outside of the lounge window at the moment, also West facing. It's such a small lounge so any sign of a heatwave coming I put it up, just with tape.
Also I just get food in to make salads and cold dinners but I appreciate that may be too late for you now.

Worst advice. You will have a very hot curtain inside your room. Hang a white sheet outside your window.

@ClematisPurple is there a gutter running along the top of the door/window wall outside? I have used pegs to attach a bed sheet to the gutter so it hangs down in front of the glass and gives some screening. Doesn’t quite reach the floor but it helped keep the worst out yesterday.

Long term an awning is the answer. We have one over our patio doors and it’s the best thing we’ve done. It makes the back of the house and patio useable as it is in shade all day.

What others said - tape cardboard or a sheet up, or buy a Gro-Blind with suction. And my go to dinner rec is a rotisserie chicken from the supermarket with cous cous and a few cucumber slices.

Remember this is a temporary problem, so it only needs a temporary solution. I'd suggest you stop cooking in the evenings. Either cold food only or cook in the very early morning and reheat in the microwave later. You need to block the window with something. In the heat wave 2 years ago I taped sheets to my window with gaffer tape. Looked like a squat, but worked! Then table fans with bowls of ice in front of them on the kitchen counters. If it's unavoidable to be in there, neck fan and ice gel pack fastened round the back of your neck will help. As will standing in a bowl of ice water. I know it's sounds mad, but, remember temporary so whatever gets you through. Longer term, can you get some tall plants in pots to move in front of the window on the patio when it's hot?

Why are you choosing to cook though? OPs have lots of suggestions of cold meals just for a couple of days?

Same set up here. We’ve got a blind at the window which is down all day if no one is going to be in in the afternoon to pull down and easy fit blinds on the patio doors.

Are you near IKEA ? These black out paper blinds can be cut to size with scissors and self stick. I have put them on our pvc patio doors (the white ones).

They are a bit faffy and rip easy so I wrap a piece of strong tape on the bottom bit which has stopped them ripping when I open them
(although sounds like you might keep yours closed!)

I can pm you a photo how they look on patio doors?

I think other shops may sell similar ones too if your not near ikea, like dunelm maybe

They are not as nice as proper blinds but I did as a cheap fix until we get blinds.

www.ikea.com/gb/en/p/schottis-block-out-pleated-blind-dark-grey-90369507/#content

Make up a bowl of salad and a plate of cold meats in the morning and just leave it in the fridge. Take away the need to be in there at all.

Put a wet towel in front of the open window to cool the air coming in.

Shade the outside first - we've got a rectangular parasol outside our south facing kitchen windows and a shade sail above the patio doors and they really help to cool the air that's hitting the outside of the glass.

Then move on to inside shade on the glass if you need more - newspaper and cardboard will work if you have no budget for anything

OMG just woken up this morning and read through all your amazing relies! Thank you!!
Right, I've slept for 7 hours and my brain has cooled down and re-set back to normal.
I was having a meltdown last night, crying with sheer inability to cope with roasting and staring in to the sun every afternoon.
Now I'm calm again (my usual state is calm! It takes a lot for me to have a meltdown like I was last night!) I am going to research all your ideas.
Thank you all so much!
To those asking why I'm cooking, I have a ravenous 14 year old boy who isn't sated by salad and cold meats/quiche!
Even a salad for myself and DD still requires me to get sunburnt what standing up at the kitchen worktop preparing it!
And just general kitchen stuff that I need to do when I get in from work, not just cooking, but washing up, laundry (washing machine is in our cupboard sized kitchen), drinks, putting food shopping away, loads of family based kitchen chores - I cant leave it all till 9pm when the kitchen finally cools down! I'm exhausted by then!

I live in a hot country. The way we cope (without air con) is shutters. We have the shutters closed on any side of the house where the sun shines and we generally open and close with the sun. Open your windows wide in the fresh morning and close everything as soon as it heats up (usually around 9am) and don’t open again until the cool air of the evening (7pm-ish). If you can’t get shutters fitted then blinds is the next option. Or even towels or a sheet as pp have mentioned. An awning would help if it stops the sun shining straight into the kitchen but wouldn’t act to isolate from the hot air outside.

The truth is that the UK is not well set up for hot temperatures, but truly your only option is to stop the sun from coming into the room.

We often feel like we’re living in a cave most of the summer, but we manage up to 40 degree temperatures in a flat with no air con so it can be done if you can keep the light out.

If you have a small garden surrounded by high brick walls, the answer is sail shades. One of our neighbours has done this so their kids can run about mostly shaded and not wearing anything in the garden.

I asked her how she did it and she drilled some hooks into the side of the house and the garden walls, and clips up the shades during heatwaves to cover almost the entire (small) garden. Apparently it also keeps the downstairs cool as it keeps the sun off the side of the house.

Get a kids stick on black out blind.eg

https://www.argos.co.uk/product/9434055 (they also do regular size)