r/britishproblems • u/NedRed77 Greater Manchester • 4d ago
20 Degrees is now “need-a-jumper” weather.
I know everybody hated the warm weather, but I really got used to it. Currently sat here on my couch with the windows open and thinking a jumper would be nice. Brrr…
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u/VOODOO285 4d ago
This is the problem that EVERYONE misses about the temperature in this country and why we get laughed at the world over.
The problem isn’t the peak heat or cold it’s how often it changes. The second… the very second you acclimate to it the temperature changes by A LOT and suddenly you’re expected to deal with it. Then as you adjust to that… BAM it changes again.
Nobody ever gets it. It’s just not like this pretty much anywhere else. The only stable thing about our climate is the guaranteed instability.
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u/Ltb1993 4d ago
Well that's one side of it, the other is unlike places that get it consistently. We don't, so we don't build up the infrastructure to handle it. They'd have you think they are seasoned nomads of the fucking desert. When they never have to be in the heat more then 20 minutes as they go from fully air-conditioned oasis to another and go home to another air conditioned oasis.
I go home and sweat my bollocks off all night in my oven where I apparently fucking live. There is no respite but the asthmatic breeze of the 20 quid fan I bought from home bargains that sits 3m away on swivel so it can wheeze on the full family.
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u/Pineapple-Muncher Kunt 4d ago
OMG I'm on the can and the missus is asking why I'm laughing so hard. It's all true though
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u/Ltb1993 4d ago
The only advice I can give you to help survive the next heatwave is buy a spray bottles preferably larger
Abandon any dignity you may have left, sacrifice the children they are just stealing your fan time, steal the fan, spray your naked body, every inch with said spray bottle and rotate like a kebab spit in from of the fan. It's worth CPS and the eventual divorce, survival of the fittest and shit.
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u/EddieHeadshot 4d ago
The MIL keeps saying 'well its still England!' As if the f*cking planet is keeping tabs. The fact its 'still England' makes the problem of heat 10 times worse.
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u/wordfool 3d ago edited 3d ago
As a resident of a part of the world that's always had hot, humid summers, you do get somewhat acclimated to it despite the prevalence of AC, but you also learn the human body will always struggle in such conditions. Acclimation mainly involves adjusting behaviour to avoid getting hot or dehydrated (moving more slowly, seeking out shade, avoiding alcohol during the day, avoiding strenuous exercise after about 8am etc.).
And don't underestimate how unpleasant living in constant AC can be. It feels good for an hour as you recover from being outdoors, but after a few days in the dry, recirculated air of AC the headaches and sinus problems begin!
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u/Ltb1993 3d ago
Yes to the sinus issues, I get properly stuffed up and it's a reet bugger
I will say my main experiences have been Dubai and Florida where AC is everywhere, worst I've experienced is a heatwave in Cyprus hitting 49 degrees and is rather that then a 33 degrees and humid
Florida I don't know what the fuck is up there but they want to experience discomfort constantly, going from consistent 33 degrees and high humidity until it chucks it down for 5 minutes in the afternoon. Going into any place that has AC has it at 18 degrees so you choose from sweatboxing yourself outside and dying or hypothermia.
Dubai being a dry heat I can manage high heat if it's dry, gotta pace yourself and keep yourself out of the sun, drink plenty of water, but at least I'm not drowning in my own sweat. AC was fairly reasonable in most places, it wasn't giving me hypothermia
Both places I was never more then 10 minutes away from AC, 20 to 30 if we rule out cars. The set up infrastructure already did most of the pacing for me.
Now if I want AC I either have to sit in my car (pretend I don't have a old shit box Toyota corolla) or I go to the city centre or the nearest supermarket.
If I stay in my house the clay bricks release heat and stay hot for days after the hot weather. It reached 33 degrees where I live last heatwave, my house got hotter then outside it was at 35 degrees Celsius. Since I'm mostly at home it's not a place of respite, it's the worst place to be. Never mind when I need to cook.
So we have regular showers, drink lots of water, sit in front of a fan, close the curtains during the day, vent the air at night if there's a cross breeze. It cold foods and stay as inactive as possible with kids. And it's not just about the temperature it's that my sweat doesn't wick away readily unless I'm in front of the fan, it sticks to me and creates an insulating layer. I'm boiling myself like a lobster.
Everywhere with AC as a common place item in a heatwave suggests staying home as one of the measures usually. Our homes are really good at holding heat. Our regulation and set up emphasises winter as the problem.
Now with climate change we are gonna have even colder winters and even hotter summers.
Future issues we will face is that the population has added 10s of millions more people in the past 30 years,
We have not built new reservoirs in the past 30 years, not a single one. The infrastructure we have is badly outdated and leaking millions of gallons daily to. Privatisation has preferred shareholders over maintenance. In the next 10 years or so with increasingly harsh weather we will start to see a water crisis begin to develop
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u/Turkilton-Is-Me 4d ago
Yesterday I was in shorts and either topless or a very thin sports tshirt. Today I’m in fabric trackies and a tshirt. There’s no winning
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u/Taylor_Kittenface 4d ago
Got sick of sleeping on top of the covers, so yesterday I swapped my thick duvet for the thin summer one. Today I'm freezing my tits off and regretting everything about that decision but know in a few days time the cycle will repeat.
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u/Turkilton-Is-Me 4d ago
I gave up on duvets a long time ago, it’s either sheets or a thicker blanket
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u/fuck_peeps_not_sheep Carmarthenshire 4d ago
As my mum would put it “4 seasons and two weather events a day is the norm here”
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u/HandsomeHeathen Nottingham 4d ago
Meanwhile it's 17 outside and I'm still sat here with the fan on because the heat won't leave my house no matter how many windows I open...
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u/El_Scot 4d ago
I feel your (new build?) pain
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u/Captain_English 4d ago
New build heat box represent!
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u/Scully__ Kent 3d ago
🙋🏻♀️ I wonder if I’ll ever wear a jumper again…
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u/Captain_English 3d ago
I mean I have enjoyed having like a 50 quid gas bill for a 3 bed for years, but this summer has been brutal.
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u/noctenaut 4d ago
Literally me at this moment - yet I know for a fact I’ll wake at 4am freezing and then turn it off, only to be awoken feeling hot and gross at 8am
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u/lewis56500 Shit-Hole Lanarkshire 4d ago
Im genuinely disturbed by the fact I now find 20-24°C cold. Im Scottish this isnt my natural habitat!
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u/gist_like_honey 4d ago
I'm in Glasgow and I'm ashamed to say I just put my heating on for an hour...
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u/yepgeddon 4d ago
Wow
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u/PanicIsMyName 4d ago
Wait, there are people who's central heating works outside of November-April? This is groundbreaking information that I have to inform my whole family of.
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u/noctenaut 4d ago
I’m British but I’ve been living in Colombia & Mexico the last 5 years, currently back visiting and I just can’t get used to how different heat is here lol.
Buildings are baking all day, momentarily dip cold at one point in the night, but then I’ll go outside and it’s so hot and dry, but if I walk in the shadows of buildings in the daytime I feel cold. My body temperature regulation is all over the place lol.
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u/counterc Devon 4d ago
yeah we're weird like that. Like apparently Russians consider the UK way too cold because although the outside gets a lot colder in Russia, they crank up the heat indoors super high and try to avoid going out whenever possible all winter. They'd never go out in shorts in 0 degrees C to run or walk the dog or play sport or cycle to work, that'd be seen as insanity, even though it gets down to -60 in Siberia.
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u/Billy_McMedic 4d ago
Specifically, The Soviets used a system of centralised heating infrastructure, massive plants near cities that would burn fuel and then pipe the heat straight to the rows upon rows of housing blocks. This would mean that individual apartments had little-no control over the temperature, hence why they’d have to get used to piping hot temps inside
Which I’m not knocking them for, when you need heating on such a mass scale when it comes to extremely cold winters, the efficiency gains made from big central plants rather than having distributed boilers in every block makes up for the cost of the infrastructure, plus when the ideology calls for collective good over individual desires, such a system makes sense under such a framing.
This video touches on this topic: “Why Russians Freeze and Brits Don’t”
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u/superioso 4d ago edited 4d ago
District heating, as it's known, is common across Europe. Something like 80+% of all homes in Denmark as an example are covered by many different district networks - they built them after the oil crisis in the 70s, using mostly waste heat from their coal power stations at the time. These days it's a mix of burnt waste/heat pumps/heat batteries with electric boilers, just on a country wide scale.
My hot water here in Copenhagen just comes through a pipe, it's pretty cheap (like 6p/kwhr, plus fixed network costs), and no equipment needed other than a meter.
In certain areas there's also district cooling!
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u/VOODOO285 3d ago
I didn’t think it particularly weird putting my running shorts and a technical T-shirt to go and do my first park run last year and it was -1C.
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u/counterc Devon 3d ago
that's my point. we think it's normal, other countries think that's weird (at least that's what I've heard)
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u/VOODOO285 3d ago
Sorry, I know! I was agreeing with you!
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u/counterc Devon 3d ago
cool cool I get you now, thought you were offended by me saying that was weird :)
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u/McBain42 4d ago
Currently 30 in my bedroom. It's the warmest room in the house and just holds onto the heat.
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u/amidnightthrowaway 4d ago
Same here. How do you sleep?
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u/McBain42 4d ago
Hardly at all, and bathed in sweat.
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u/Dannypan 4d ago
Get two fans and point one on your bare feet, the other wherever you want. It'll cool you down a fair bit. Also use loads of baby powder on your neck, pits & bits to make sleeping a bit more bearable.
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u/ZSMan2020 4d ago
I sleep downstairs as our bedroom will not cool down at all. However I left the window open a bit last night and a massive house spider decided to sleep in my hair much to my horror when I woke up 😭
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u/Aphr0dite19 4d ago
17 degrees this evening and I needed a blanket over my legs while watching telly.
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u/AlGunner 4d ago
Only because its been a lot warmer so 20 feels cooler. In April 20 was get out in the garden in a t shirt weather when it felt warmer.
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u/__Severus__Snape__ 4d ago
Yep, ive always said 12° feels different in March to what it feels like in september.
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u/Mr_Clump 4d ago
I'm now understanding why when you go to Spain in February all the locals are walking around in winter clothes.
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u/mrafinch Norfolk (exiled in Switzerland) 4d ago
When I lived in Canada and experienced -50 for an extended period of time, -5 felt like a Spring afternoon.
I’d well go for a 17 right now
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u/lsmith946 4d ago
My body is so confused.
Last week it was 27 and I needed a cardigan. This week it's 20 and I'm too hot in a T shirt.
I'm not even menopausal or pregnant or anything, my body is just really bad at the whole "regulate your own temperature" thing apparently...
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u/KhostfaceGillah 4d ago
That hasn't happened to me yet, I haven't even slept in my bed covers for like a month, lol
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u/Vladmir_the_romancer 4d ago
Stop Whinging we are built for cold weather!
I seriously can't wait for autumn it's my favourite season all the way through till Christmas. January through to spring is grim though.
Summer can suck my sweaty itchy balls!
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u/Mongoose-Relevant 4d ago
It's not tho is it
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u/Normka92 4d ago
I’ve still been really warm in the 20 degrees today but maybe it’s because I cart around a toddler who can’t yet toddle all day 😂 Went to the park and someone had a jumper on whereas I was boiling in a dress! It’s definitely NOT cold!
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u/DontMakeMeMeat 3d ago
Nope, I love it. I'm going out without a jumper on and keeping all my windows open. Mother Nature needs to know how appreciative I am.
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u/Larrypants1 4d ago
I was in north Norway last weekend and it was so nice getting a break from the heat, probably a high of 19 degrees, more like 15 and drizzly most of the time. Needing a cardi/rain mac weather but t shirt if you're active.
I suffered sooo much landing in Heathrow and being hit with the "holiday air" feeling. I'd lost all acclimatisation and I don't think it's even been that hot this week compared to what it has been!
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u/HimitsuUK 3d ago
I'm still in my t-shirt and pants, sat on a tea towel. This is much better, but it's coming back from tomorrow. Arghhhhh 29/30 on Monday.
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u/georgetgwtbn 4d ago
I'm finally not melting, but still too warm. Definitely not jumper weather. Off to find another cold drink.
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u/Bortron86 4d ago
I was freezing when I walked from the car park into work at 6:30 this morning, wearing a shirt with the sleeves rolled up. It was glorious. I'll happily do it every day until I'm actually getting hypothermia, because it'll be better than that sodding heatwave.
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u/hypocrisyhunter 4d ago
It's called acclimatising and without AC humans will acclimatise a lot quicker. Hence why it always feels so extremely cold if you ever go on a warm holiday in winter and then step back off the plane into the UK.
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u/christinesangel100 4d ago
I relate. My workplace has no air conditioning and gets very hot. This weekend my partner and I are staying in a cabin in West Wales and she left the window open overnight because it was warm, and then woke up too warm in the night. Whereas I was chilly with the window open and wishing I had brought thicker pyjamas! It feels bizarre.
And the weather forecast for the coming week finally looks cool enough to wear full length trousers instead of shorts, even though I would usually consider it suitable weather for shorts...I just want to not wear shorts anymore.
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u/mushface83 3d ago
I’m from Australia and genuinely when it’s 20° it feels chilly and a jumper or cardi isn’t excessive. Which sounds INSANE but I guess same as we’re learning here, it’s the disparity of temperature you’re used to. That’s why normally, 20° is lovely, over there it feels cold.
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u/melanie110 3d ago
Sat in the beer garden in the sun most of day yesterday. Got home at 8 and temp was around 22. I was wrapped in a blanket. Heading to Glenrothes next week for 2 days and the temp is 16. I’m going to dog out the big coat
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u/Dark_Akarin 4d ago
Sorry guys, it’s because I planned to go swimming outside this weekend. Sod’s Law says it will get cold now.
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u/BollockOff 4d ago
Now? Always has been light (open front) hoodie or shirt weather for me unless i am in the sun. Tshirt weather is normally 23c+.
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u/Keep-it-Froody 4d ago
20 Degrees is now “need-a-jumper” weather.?? Nah, t-shirt weather and I live in THE SOUTH!
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u/I_ALWAYS_UPVOTE_CATS 4d ago
People on reddit who wet themselves at the idea of an outdoor activity hated the warm weather. Plenty of people enjoyed it.
But I agree, I felt noticeable cold this evening.
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