Met office RED WARNING for extreme heat.

[OhYouBadBadKitten]

General discussion is www.mumsnet.com/talk/weather/4583720-we-need-to-talk-about-the-weather-and-the-potential-for-extreme-heat but I wanted this to be seen by as many people as possible.
www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/warnings-and-advice/uk-warnings#?date=2022-07-18

Exactly, Lived many years of my life in Rio. Above 40 degrees most days during the Summer. 😂

The loft hatch thing is controversial. This i my understanding:

Only open the loft hatch if it is cooler up there than it is in the rest of the house.
Especially don't open it up if it is warmer up there and you are having to keep windows are closed because it is so hot outside. That would achieve little, except making your house hotter and dustier I'm afraid.

The reason behind that, is that, yes hot air rises, but it has to have somewhere to rise to. If the hot air isn't escaping the loft already then you can't just pack more and more air into the loft.

@OliverBabish if you compare the synoptic charts for Monday and Wednesday, you can see we have a combination the low pressure, which is currently to the south of us, drawing up the heat from southern Europe (and before that northern Africa) and we also have the high pressure to the east compressing that very hot air which increases the surface heat. We have very dry soil, which means less of that heat is 'used up' in evaporating soil moisture. It's the ultimate recipe really for creating hot weather over us.

Now look at Wednesdays chart - the high pressure dominating our weather moves north eastwards and we have a cooler airmass arrive from the west, eventually bringing relief for all.

I am glad the younger people of today get it!

I was alive in 1976 and get it perfectly well thanks. Can we cut the ageist crap?

We open up our loft overhead windows overnight only , once the outside ambient temperature drops below what we have inside the house...definitely vents the hot loft air out and as a result then starts to draw cooler air into the house via the lower floors as long as those windows are open.

Have to remember to close up (including shades) in the AM though.

Meant to say thank you to @OhYouBadBadKitten for this thread and her sensible advice

This is a good way to do it (as long as you can avoid concussing yourself on the hatch )

Our loft is very thoroughly insulated so opening the hatch does nothing for us. We do have skylights elsewhere which we open as much as possible to let both heat and insects out.

Thanks for info here re attic window. Will close when outside temp starts to climb higher than indoor one.

Thanks all!

Should have added an important rider to my comment about loft windows:

You obviously (?) don't open them up in an evening until external ambient temperature is lower than the temp inside your house....if the house has stayed cool all day the opening the loft may not be a good thing to do, so it's a judgement call.

Unfortunately there is no higher temperature limit. Madness isn't it

Thanks @Marmite0nToast

Great tips here. Love the water bottle in the hutches one

In the seventies we had a heatwave and had to use standpipes for water , there was a hosepipe ban . It went on for weeks not just a few days. Our primary school opened and closed earlier , we went home after lunch . Other than that we were just sensible . People aren’t generally stupid so I don’t know why the media are trying to drive everyone into panic mode .

People aren’t generally stupid
Really? The opposite of this!

Temperatures are set to be around 5 degrees hotter than the highest recorded temperature in 1976. This is the reason.

Sorry, I don’t particularly understand the loft hatch thing? Yes, we have insulation in the floor of the loft, but our loft space itself has to have good ventilation or the roof beams would rot - so plenty of air flow and opportunities for heat to keep rising and leave the house once it has got there, as only the floor to the loft is insulated, to stop heat getting into the loft in the winter when we are using central heating. Why would hot air therefore get “trapped” in the loft and make the inside of the house hotter still if the loft hatch were opened? Surely that would only happen if you had, eg, converted your loft into a living space and therefore insulated the whole lot, rather than just the floor space? Why does opening the loft hatch not just provide a welcome gap in the insulation that is preventing the hot air from escaping through the ceiling of the floor below?

Anyway, I have certainly noticed a massive reduction in the temperature on our landing since I started leaving the loft hatch open all day, so it definitely works for some house set ups in this weather.

I have a south facing garden and conservatory.there are bi fold doors into it. Like most conservatory's it is cold in the winter and hot in the summer. I have a tall garden parasol and I put it up in the conservatory yesterday. It kept the sun off the bi fold doors. We had the sky light open some side windows and the outside door open but closed the bi fold doors to keep the heat out.

Time to batten down the hatches here. I'm hopeful that my external "curtain" of heavy white blackout fabric will help. Will let you know!

Perhaps it's a case of set up and if it works for you over the next couple of days, great. Our loft gets extremely hot with or without the hatch closed and windows downstairs closed, so clearly we don't have that airflow you seem to be getting. I have experimented with this in our house to try it out and ours didn't cool down.

I got up at 6 this morning to trap thethe cold air in shutting the windows, temporary blinds and curtains.

I'd best step out of the loft hatch debate. It is a controversial one and I'd rather not get tangled up in it too much at the moment.
If anyone finds any official data on it, I'd be interested and happy to be proven wrong.

@OhYouBadBadKitten Thank you for your wise advice, may I ask a question please? I store Christmas decorations in plastic boxes and tree in my loft. Obviously we're baking in red zone. Should I be moving them out or will they cope with the temps? Not sure I want a plastic blob but equally in 2020 when it reached 39deg I didn't even think about them and all was fine come December. TIA

Mass hysteria and panic posing a much bigger health risk than the weather

Where? I have a very low tolerance for MN hysteria and hid the entire Covid topic early in the pandemic but this thread seems very measured and sensible.

@Tomnooktoldmeto you were 4 or 5 in 1976 and you remember people moaning? I think not