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.

We are very similar, we have a big wind out awning. Ours is 4m by 4m and gives a lot of shade at different points.

Am looking at a sail for a different elevation

Ask Argos to replace your broken gazebo and weigh down the new one with sandbags.
Good luck - the situation sounds insufferable.

Glad you had a pretty decent sleep OP.

We all get into this situations, where we just get so frustrated and need to take a time out.

I also live in a hot country, but the situation is just so completely different, as we are set up for these conditions. I see all the posts of people battling and houses like sweatboxes.

We are very much having the opposite problem though. We have been hit by a harsh winter and our houses are just not built to keep heat in. So inside our houses are actually colder than outside a lot of the time. I tend to go outside and sit on the step during the day to heat up. Or sit in the car.

Get the dc involved and make it a fun job by taping up whatever you can, but the sail shade idea from each wall sounds like a very good idea.

If you need to cut them to size width wise I recommend keeping them bundled up and using a bread knife or a saw. Cuts through easily without tearing.

Have a look at UV filtering/ sun blocking film for a more permanent solution. You could also get a room divider screen.

I have a sail shade on my south facing shed as I do pottery there and it cools the space down immensely. That was 10 euros. And I also have a large umbrella which winds up and down which I wind up in the morning which was 50 euros. Between them all sun gaps to the shed are closed off.

I do live in the South West of France and it gets searingly hot here.

Could you get a garden sail?

Set 4 fence posts in the ground to create the anchor points and you can add hooks at different heights to alter the angle.

That would allow you to shade the house when you wanted to and you can remove the sail and put string lights through the hooks in cooler weather.

You could get reflective film for the windows or perfect fit blinds that will reflect the light if you have UPVC windows.

Don't use newspaper. That is silly. People scrunch it up into balls and stuff it down their clothes to keep warm. That's because air gets trapped in the balls. A single sheet of it would be pretty rubbish and either blow away or get soaking wet mush when it rains. If you must hang up paper hang up tin foil or white paper which will at least act as a reflector.

Wow ,you poor thing .That's awful and I completely sympathise .The heat ,the glare and lack of air would have had me sobbing in the corner .
No way am I telling you to calm down!

Tin foil and sticky tape on the windows.

In your case I would literally tape a blackout curtain to the outside of the window as a temporary measure!

Our kitchen is East facing and the bedrooms west facing, so we have your kitchen problem in the bedrooms at night. I know everyone says shut the windows, curtains and blinds when the sun is on that side and open the shady side. We did that last week and it was even hotter. There's no through draught once the sun's gone down to get the heat out. When you're standing outside you can literally feel the heat resonating off the bricks from around 2 foot away.

Our kitchen is roasting in the morning but we have a side door which is north facing, which lets enough of a cooler breeze through. On exceptionally hot days I have put the patio parasol up outside the window and it definitely helped.

I do regularly find myself wearing sunglasses in the kitchen though! Next door have just installed an awning and I'm very tempted...

We were watching a video yesterday from France and they had the outside electric shutters on the windows. I said to my DH then that I can see more UK properties having those if these hot temperatures keep up.

As you say, the key point is stopping the heat getting to the glass in the first place, so shutters on the outside are so much better than inside black out blinds, etc, that are just trapping the hot air inside.

Just finished sticking up thick, grey bubble wrap on East facing glass. I need to lower the room temperature to under 25c to varnish painted furniture.
With a floor fan on, it's feeling better already.

Calm down and get some blinds. The ones that fit into the frame of UPVc windows and run up and down on strings.
Loads of places sell them online. You can even get thermal ones that will reflect heat out.

Or put some solar film on the glass.

Or build a pergola across the back of the house and grow a climber.

If you can’t afford that then pin a dark sheet up.

Perfect fit blinds will cover the glass.
A more robust awning, pergola or veranda to stop the sun hitting the glass in the first place. Could you fit a sail?

We have massive south-facing sliding doors and put one of those triangle IKEA awnings outside. It's bolted to the brickwork and the 3rd corner attached to a tent pole or telescopic washing line pole stuck in a ground spike (the kind for rotary airers). Cheap and does the trick for now.

The coolest part of my garden, though, is in deep shade under a tree, so I may plant trees nearer the house.

Stop cooking in extreme heat

Your son can survive on cold bits, buy him a french baguette and cheese and meats and crisps and dips and fruit and chicken bites etc. He can survive.

Cover the windows in foil. Your house eill lol like a crack den, but needs must. Foil will fully black out the light

Maybe get table outdoors, extension lead and use instant pot outside?

This
amzn.eu/d/clCU04i

I've spent too much time with teenagers. I thought this was going to be a thread asking people to come and bitch about something or someone with you

I haven’t time to RTFT so apologies if this has been suggested but we have this: https://amzn.eu/d/6eXutKD on our south facing patio outside our kitchen. Also on Prime sale at the moment

A more expensive fix is a retractable canopy attached to your house we had one fitted a few years ago. It was a worthwhile investment as it shades the double doors and most of the back of the house on sunny days. We also had blinds fitted to the UPVC windows as part of our update the house regime. These have the added benefit that in winter it provides an extra insulating layer to help keep in the warmth on cold dark nights.

I feel your pain! Do you have a table with an umbrella outside, or gazebo or anything like that?

I've currently got an old garden umbrella balanced on top of the open kitchen widows, and pillow cases over to opposing windows elsewhere in the house. Any shade that stops the heat before it gets into the house seems to make a real difference. I'm currently researching external window shades!

Do you have enough space to install an awning outside your kitchen to shield the room from the sun?