Hot Home Syndrome sufferer Jonathan, from Buckinghamshire, describes the lengths he goes to to cool down his flat during the summer months.
Some 4.5 millions Brits have fallen ill due to high temperatures inside their homes during periods of hot weather. Report by Alibhaiz. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
Some 4.5 millions Brits have fallen ill due to high temperatures inside their homes during periods of hot weather. Report by Alibhaiz. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn
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00:00This west-facing window, the sun beats in here and it's basically like a greenhouse in here in
00:05the afternoon, so it became unbearably hot. So I thought, what a nightmare, can I actually live
00:10here? I also work from home, so I realised it was a really big problem. From about midday,
00:17I need to close these curtains and actually I've got special thermal curtains that cut out the
00:22heat, so that's kind of the key thing, is to protect it. What I discovered is that windows
00:28in the UK are designed to let the heat in, which is obviously a nightmare in the summer,
00:33so it is very much like a greenhouse. And then when it got really hot, I also stuck tinfoil
00:40over the windows during the whole hot period, so basically just blocked out anything and used the
00:45thermal curtains as well, and that kind of enabled me to survive the really hot times.
00:49So my bedroom basically is east-facing, so I just keep the curtains closed completely in the
00:57morning, because in the morning that's when the sun comes through, so I just block out the sun
01:01in my bedroom to keep that cool. And then in the kitchen, when it's really hot, I also put the foil
01:10over those windows as well. I mean, this summer hasn't been as bad. You shouldn't have to like
01:16live like this. I'm trying to work, I'm trying to sleep. Sleeping is a problem as well when it's hot,
01:21so it's a constant battle. And government also needs to think about people that live in flats,
01:25because all its focus is on people that live in houses, who get lots and lots of support with
01:30free solar panels and these kind of things, but we don't get any of that,
01:34so I think they also need to make it fair for people that live in flats.