Please tell me how to survive in a West facing kitchen

[Sunsetsarehellinmyhouse]

I'm losing the plot.
It's actual torture.
Every time it's time to cook dinner from June to early Sept I am on the brink of a meltdown after an hour in my west facing kitchen. The back wall that faces the sun is 8 foot wide and all glass. Glass back door. Glass big window. No actual wall.
The sink is underneath the window, facing the setting sun.
The length of my kitchen is 10 foot and there's nowhere I can stand to escape the sheer intense heat burning into my kitchen from 5pm onwards as the sun lowers until it is directly opposite my kitchen.
I sweat. I wince. I wear sunglasses inside. My legs get sunburn from standing at the hob or worktops as the sun penetrates in to the room.
I can't cope.
I can't cook and wash up earlier in the day cos I'm at work.
I can't cook later at 8pm once the torture is over because my young DC need dinner at 5 or 6 pm latest.
If I leave all the washing up till 8pm by then I'm doing bedtime with DC and don't get back downstairs till gone 9pm and by then I'm knackered with a headache due to the intense heat torture of the kitchen earlier on.
HTF does anyone cope with a tiny box sized west facing kitchen with a glass back wall?
Blinds don't make it any better because I need the glass door and window open for ventilation otherwise I can't even stand in there.
I feel like crying.
Never thought about this when we viewed the house in November.

My parents had big picture windows in a 1960s house with a wide canvas a striped awning ( it jutted out from the wall at least 6 ft like a shop awning plus venetian blinds and curtains over the top of the blinds . It still got still quite warm in the room, but kept the direct sun out and reduce the magnifying edge of the glass . If an awning g doesn't work because of the sun's position maybe you can o install a tall wide canvas screen ( a bit like a windbreak) on your patio to block out and reflect the sun before it reaches your windows.

In countries like Greece people cook their evening meal during the earlier hours of the morning . Don't use your big oven. If you want to bake or roast use an air fryer and/or microwave to minimise heat generated. .

Blackout blinds. Keep them closed during the day. Air conditioning. Depends what your budget is.

I have photophobia and have temporary blackout film on my kitchen windows for half the year. I also have blinds. Sometimes I wear a baseball cap indoors to protect my eyes.

Our awning definitely works for our west facing kitchen. Mind you, what also works now that the kids have left home and it’s only me and DP at home is getting a ready meal delivery service so I no longer cook.

I've never understood the hate for north facing gardens. In the spring/summer, you have shade as well as sun!

Get high LevelUV film fitted of the inside of all the windows, this will reduce the sun in the room hugely. Also why cook in this heat, give the kids a cold dinner, bread salad, cheese etc.

Thermal roller blinds for your window, and thermal vertical blinds for your back wall. They will cost a bit more money because the material is expensive but they keep most of the heat away.

I live in Sydney and have a huge window on top of the sink facing N/E. In Summer it receives full sun from 11am until about 4pm and trust me, the heat in Sydney in summer is relentless. It's the best money I've spent.

Also get air/con. With climate change and temperatures on the rise, air conditioning is not longer a luxury in Britain, it's a necessity.

I live in Queensland, where summer can be extremely hot, so know how you must be feeling!

Are your windows tinted? (They're standard where I am now but older houses don't have it and our last house you felt the difference) Also good insulation is important.

An awning or patio to block the direct sun without making it too dark. Then open the doors (ours are all screened). Lovely airflow without the intense heat. If not, thermal blocking blinds. Blockout blinds just make it hotter imo.

You need to stop the glass magnifying effect by stopping the direct sun being on the glass & directed into your house, if possible. The bricks retain heat as well.

You can UV tint the windows, makes a big difference.

We have a UV blind.
Lets light in but takes all the heat out. It’s brilliant.

Big tilting parasol, preferably on a heavy base WITH WHEELS. You can move it to block the sun on the outside of the window

That sounds miserable, especially when it hits at exactly the time of day you need to cook for children. We had a similar issue with a very sunny room and honestly opening windows didn't help much because the heat was already inside. What made the biggest difference was stopping the sun before it hit the glass, so external shading if that's an option, or reflective film on the glass. I'd also rely heavily on easier summer meals and anything that avoids standing over the hob for ages. It doesn't solve the room itself, but it does reduce the amount of time you have to spend fighting with it every evening.

Plant some nice trees or shrubs at the end of your garden. That will cool the garden, the house and stop the sun getting in your eyes.

As many pp have said there’s lots of ways to overcome this OP and solving it won’t be difficult. Have you thought of having a wooden pergola installed directly outside the kitchen? Strategically placed tubs with tall shrubs will filter the suns rays, climbing plants will soon cover part of the framework but awning on the top would work too in the short term whilst plants get established. Bamboo screening is also a consideration and I believe that isn’t expensive.
The pergola would also create a lovely outside seating are for al fresco dining or if you have children, a place to play in the shade.
Think on about the slow cooker, batch cooking, having salads, even a BBQ……with a little lateral thinking life isn’t so bad.

For ventilation we open the front and back door ( putting a child gate in front to keep the dog in)
Blackout blinds and curtains that we keep closed on the sunny side. We are East/West facing.

Batch cook at the weekends and just microwave
Sandwiches prepared in the morning
load dishwasher in the morning with the dishes from the night before
Screen the patio with bamboo
Tall plants in pots

I have a west facing kitchen. I have a big blind across the window and tend to open the back door a lot (dog wandering in and out) which seems to do the job. But then I'm quite heat-resistant.

Goodness, floor to ceiling windiws overlooking a concrete patio in a west facing kitchen - were the previous owners of your house actual lunatics?

Short term solution - black out blinds.

Longer term, get external shutters and/or and an awning fitted and dig up tht patio and plant it with shrubs and trees.

South-facing kitchen in SE of UK. We deliberately didn’t build a row of bi-fold doors as needed wall space. We keep Roman blinds on window and doors pulled down when hot and have blinds on velux windows on ceiling. The room ends up quite shaded. Your issue sounds horrendous but lots of options to help.

I remember when we bought ours .. we are south westerly although more westerly … we have two sets of bifolds… I’ve put some foil blankets on the outside for now… but electric awning will prob be the way forward

A cheap gazebo with sides, right up against the window, put the side down on the west facing edge

I’ve currently got duvet covers over my west facing kitchen windows. It does help. Looks awful though so next year I’ll have to do something different
my parents have a stripy wind out awning. Very retro but works

They’re expensive, but we have internal blinds within the bi-fold doors, so in between the 2 panes of glass. They have been a life saver in keeping the room cool especially with the lower early evening sun.
Also planning to buy a big tilting parasol on wheels.

take some concrete or slabs up, put a pergola in and put a vine or wisteria on it. Big, really big, containers and silvery birch.

Having lived in a south facing house for 25 years - everyone on my block put orangery style kitchen extensions on the back and then one by one everyone took then down again and rebuilt them as full brick extensions as they were too bloody hot.

So I had long experience of just how hot glass can be. I look at all these glass extensions and wonder “do builders/buyers not know how unbearable that will be”. I guess the answer is no & that something that is only learnt from personal experience.

In the short term you need exterior blinds that stop the sun hitting the glass and heating it up, and well as obviously aircon. But from my neighbours experience you need an awful lot of aircon to counteract the heat. And then there’s still the light.

If you’re staying long term the answer is unfortunately simply to rebuild it.