I was sitting in my living room last summer during that ridiculous heatwave, absolutely melting into my sofa and thinking, “This can’t be it. There’s got to be a better way to cool down without cranking up an energy-guzzling air conditioner.” It was 33°C outside, and my little terraced house in Leeds had turned into something resembling a brick oven. The irony wasn’t lost on me – here I was, sweating profusely while researching climate change impacts for the blog, actively contributing to the very problem I was writing about.
You know what’s maddening? The vicious cycle we’re stuck in. As temperatures rise due to climate change, more people buy air conditioners. These units consume massive amounts of energy and often use refrigerants with high global warming potential. So essentially, we’re cooling ourselves down while heating the planet up. It’s like trying to put out a fire by throwing small amounts of water and large amounts of petrol on it. Not exactly a winning strategy, is it?
I remember talking to my friend Raj about this last year at the community garden. He’d just returned from visiting family in Jaipur and was explaining how traditional Indian homes were designed to stay cool naturally. “The thick walls, the central courtyards, the way air circulates through specific window placements – it’s all intentional,” he told me while we were watering the tomatoes. “My grandmother’s house never had AC, and it stayed cooler than my cousin’s modern flat with two units running constantly.”
That conversation stuck with me. I started wondering how people managed before electricity, before freon and compressors and all the technology we now take for granted. They must have had solutions, right? No one was just sitting around thinking, “Well, I guess we’ll all be uncomfortable until someone invents air conditioning in the 1900s.”
So I began experimenting. My first attempt at creating a more climate-friendly cooling system was… well, let’s call it educational. I tried making a DIY evaporative cooler using a fan, some copper pipes, and ice water. The concept seemed sound – air blown across cold water should produce cooler air, yeah? What actually happened was a minor flood in my office and a dangerously precarious electrical setup that had my neighbor Marion (the retired chemistry teacher who’s basically my sustainability mentor) shaking her head in disapproval when she popped by with some extra runner beans from her garden.
“Before you electrocute yourself,” she said dryly, “why don’t you try some simpler approaches first?”
Marion, as usual, was right. I was overlooking the basics in my quest for a clever technical solution. So I backed up and started thinking more holistically about cooling.
First thing I tackled was preventing heat buildup in the first place. I installed reflective window film on my south-facing windows, which made an immediate difference. Cost me about £40 for the whole house, took an afternoon to apply (with several moments of swearing as I tried to smooth out bubbles), and dropped the indoor temperature by about 2°C on sunny days.
Then I invested in some exterior bamboo blinds for the same windows. Unlike interior blinds, these block the sun before it enters the house and heats up the glass. They were a bit pricey at £85 each, but they’ve been brilliant. I can roll them down during the day when the sun is strongest and roll them up in the evening to catch the cooler breeze.
Speaking of breezes – I’ve completely changed how I manage airflow in the house. I used to just open windows randomly, but now I’m strategic about it. In the morning when it’s cool, I open everything up. As soon as the outside temperature rises above the inside temperature (usually around 11 AM in summer), I close all windows and blinds to trap the cool air inside. Then in the evening, I create cross-ventilation by opening windows on opposite sides of the house.
I’ve also become obsessed with fans, but not in the way most people use them. A lot of folks (including past-me) just point a fan directly at themselves, which feels nice but doesn’t actually cool the room. Now I use fans to create air circulation patterns – positioning them to draw cooler air from the north side of the house and push hot air out the south windows. I’ve got a whole system worked out with my ceiling fan in the bedroom and strategic placement of two standing fans. My housemates think I’ve gone a bit mad, adjusting them throughout the day like some sort of airflow conductor.
The ceiling fan was another game-changer. I had it installed last year (about £120 including installation), and it’s brilliant for creating a wind-chill effect. The key thing I learned was to set it counter-clockwise in summer, which pushes air downward and creates that cooling sensation on your skin. In winter, I reverse it to run clockwise, which pulls cool air up and pushes warm air that’s collected near the ceiling back down into the room without creating a draft. Clever, right?
But my favorite climate-friendly cooling solution has been the most low-tech: plants. I’ve turned my living room into something of a jungle, with large-leafed monstera, ferns, and a peace lily that’s grown to ridiculous proportions. Plants cool through transpiration – they release moisture into the air, creating a natural evaporative cooling effect. Plus they improve air quality and just make the space feel more pleasant. I’ve measured about a 1°C temperature difference between my plant-filled living room and similarly-sized but plant-free spare bedroom on hot days.
I’ve also experimented with changing my own habits and expectations. I take cool showers in the afternoon during summer (refreshing and saves energy compared to heating water). I’ve switched to linen sheets and lightweight, natural-fiber clothing. I keep a spray bottle of water in the fridge and mist myself when it’s really hot – a surprisingly effective cooling method that costs virtually nothing.
For those really sweltering days, I’ve created “cooling stations” in the house – spots with a combination of shade, good airflow, and comfortable seating. My favorite is the reading nook in the corner of my office, positioned near the north-facing window, with a small USB-powered fan nearby. It’s become my retreat during heatwaves.
Of course, not all my experiments have been successful. The “sleep in the garden” night was a disaster involving unexpected rain, curious neighborhood cats, and more mosquito bites than I care to remember. And the “frozen hot water bottle” trick worked beautifully for about 15 minutes before turning into a soggy, leaky mess in my bed. You win some, you lose some.
For those with a bit more flexibility to make changes to their homes, there are some brilliant intermediate options between these simple approaches and traditional air conditioning. Heat pumps are becoming increasingly popular here in the UK – they can heat your home in winter and cool it in summer, all while using significantly less energy than separate heating and cooling systems. The upfront cost is substantial (mine was about £8,000 including installation), but the energy savings add up over time, and there are government grants available to help offset the cost.
Ground source heat pumps are even more efficient but require more space and higher initial investment. My friend Sam installed one when renovating his Victorian terrace last year, and he’s been evangelizing about it ever since. “It’s like printing money,” he told me recently, showing me his energy bills from last summer compared to previous years. The difference was impressive, I’ll admit.
Then there are more targeted cooling solutions like mini-split air conditioners. Unlike central AC systems, these can be used to cool just one or two rooms that get particularly hot, rather than the entire house. They’re much more energy-efficient than portable air conditioners, and many newer models use refrigerants with lower global warming potential.
Last week, I visited an architecture exhibition in Manchester that showcased passive cooling designs for UK homes. The concepts were fascinating – from “solar chimneys” that create natural air circulation to underground earth tubes that pre-cool incoming air. Some were quite futuristic, but others were simple adaptations of traditional designs from hot climates around the world. I left feeling both inspired and slightly frustrated that these approaches aren’t more mainstream in new construction here.
What I’ve learned through all this experimentation is that there’s no single silver bullet for climate-friendly cooling. It’s about layering solutions – some architectural, some technological, some behavioral – to create comfortable spaces without relying heavily on energy-intensive systems.
I’m not perfect, and I’ll confess that I do have a small portable evaporative cooler (not true air conditioning, but still an energy-using appliance) that I bring out during extreme heatwaves. But by implementing all these other strategies first, I only need to use it a few days a year rather than all summer long.
As our climate continues to warm, cooling is becoming a necessity rather than a luxury in the UK. The question isn’t whether we’ll need to cool our homes, but how we’ll do it. And I firmly believe we can choose approaches that keep us comfortable without making the problem worse. After all, what’s the point of staying cool today if it means an even hotter tomorrow?
