Beat the heat: U.K. residents get creative on country’s hottest day

With the recorded temperature surpassing 40 C, people in the United Kingdom are coming up with home solutions to stay cool.

On the U.K.’s hottest day ever recorded, a teacher in Buckinghamshire, England, is using a $1.5 hack to beat the heat as the recorded temperature surpassed 40 C for the first time in the country.

To cool the house down, Jay Virdee has been hanging thermal foil blankets behind the blinds on her windows. This has helped reflect the heat and keep a comfortable 26.3 C inside the house, she said.

“It’s a temporary solution to something that we are possibly going to face long-term here,” Virdee told Global News.

The intense heat is forcing residents, like Virdee, to be creative in a country ill-prepared for such extremes.

Those with access to air conditioning had an easier time on Tuesday.

Tom Elliot said he was going into the office because it is “nice and cool.”

“I’m cycling around instead of taking the Tube,” he told The Associated Press after taking a swim.

Before Tuesday, the highest temperature recorded in Britain was 38.7 C (101.7 F), set in 2019. By later afternoon, 29 places in the U.K. had broken the record.