United Kingdom

Climate change can mean more extreme temperatures. We need to be able to keep warm, and keep cool. The better you insulate a house, the better it can keep cool after cooling down at night, and keep the heat out when you do use air conditioning.

One thing helping with this is airtightness, and MVHR. Couple that with good insulation (keeps hot out, as well as in), and things like shades above south facing windows to block the sun when it's at it's highest/hottest, and we see a lot of improvements. MVHR especially helps to distribute heat between rooms, and provide fresh air without completely heating/cooling the house.

A portable AC unit for the bedroom is one of the best purchase I’ve ever made. We put a hole in the wall for the vent which can just be closed when we don’t need it.

I can deal with the rest of the house being hot as long as I can get a half decent night sleep.

Bought it during the winter though as in the summer they are either out of stock or have a massively inflated price (or both!)

Houses, public and commercial buildings, everything needs to be rethought. Currently visiting the UK from a much warmer and more humid climate in the states. It's bizarre that it's pleasant outside but almost uniformly uncomfortably warm (and frankly, more important humid) inside. Out hotel room is supposedly air conditioned but stays a uniform 25-26c no matter what the thermostat is set on. It's "working appropriately" according to management and their 3 different maintenance staff that have "adjusted" it, but it is not handling the humidity well. The only saving grace is one of the windows will open ~6in to allow us to open it at night. The bigger picture is how this heat and humidity are going to effect the buildings and their contents. It doesn't take all that long a time for humidity and high indoor temps to allow serious mold issues to start taking hold. People forget the original use of ac wasn't for human comfort but to keep goods (specifically paper) dry so it didn't curl and become unusable by a printing company.

I live in a block of flats (on the top) and the temperature is fucking insane.

I see lots of folks round our way with the windows open on hot days. I've been keeping all the windows closed and blinds down during the day, open it all up in the evening and morning to get the heat right down for the next day, works like a charm. If it does ramp up from this over the next few decades, we're definitely going to have to put the infrastructure in place for the AC load and decent insulation.

As someone who isn't made for the heat, I am finding the past couple of summers horrendous. Having good blinds and the windows shut helps, but for how long? Things just keep getting hotter.

Thought for a while i need some kind of window shutters. Seems obvious to stop the sun getting to the windows keeps house cooler

Yes! I visit almost every year and coming from America with constant A/C and newer houses it's very jarring. But the brits I've asked about it have been (characteristically) very stubborn about this.

I've got an old old house (1790 I think) I'm thinking of adding shutters. In summer, it makes a huge difference to shut windows and curtains for the day time, and open in cool of the evening. But shutters would be even better than curtains.

I've never understood why we don't build more houses from timber.

I wouldn't call the UK "a hot country", outside of maybe 2-3 months of the year at most. Having said that, we do need more thought given to how to deal with the heat, There are a couple of issues with widespread AC though. 1) Electricity prices and 2) environmental impact of increased pressure on the grid when it's hot (i/e needing coal or gas power plants more).