What portable air conditioner do you have?

Just open the fridge door

We've had ours probably about 20 years now - ex. B&Q - condenser type that blows the hot air out of a pipe. Works well enough to cool upstairs, but they are quite noisy.

 The only cool part of the house is the cupboard under the stairs and I’m too long to sleep in it.

You are NOT harry Potter and i claim my £5...

I was looking into these last night too.. in a veluxed south facing room with an outside wall that heats up all day..

Toasty... Trouble is i've no where outside the house to vent the hose air..

DrP

Step 1 - Windows open overnight to let hot air out and cool air in.

Step 2 - As the sun comes up, shut the windows and curtains - I have to peg a blanket over the landing window.

Did that today for the first time this year and gobsmacked at how much difference it makes - been almost cool this morning, and stunned at how hot it was when I went outside for lunch.

Open the loft hatch at night too if you have one.

We don't have a loft hatch, the loft is the master bedroom. I put reflective chrome tint on the Velux windows in the roof which stops the whole unit from blasting out heat like a radiator. We've got white venetian blinds everywhere else which stay closed all day.

We open the windows at night and close them in the morning. I feel like we've already done everything that we can reasonably achieve and it's made a big difference but it's not enough.

We just can't shed the heat during the night. The whole house is boiling all day long and it retains the temperature all night. The air in the bedrooms feels like soup. It's really awful.

I'm lying awake all night thinking that it's only June and we could have another 3 months of this. We're currently nowhere near last years temperatures. I slept on a camping mat in the kitchen for about a week last year (with the fridge door closed).

IndyBest have a recent review of the Best portable air conditioners may have some helpful recommendations

I had a unit installed that's fixed to the (west facing) main bedroom wall. It was - remarkably; cheaper to install than two new wider opening windows.

Plus I'm married to a Canadian. Air con and the ability to dispense an unlimited supply of ice are basic human rights as far as she's concerned.

I have thought about this a few times and then discount every time as it really is the most Darwin Award thing any of us can do.

Also in a loft bedroom and I just have a generic one from Screwfix which is at least ten years old now but still going strong. I only use it once the outside temperature has fallen below 21C, so it pumps hot air out of the house but also sucks in cooler air via the other side of the window.

And before anyone goes down the "Darwin Award" thing, it's run off batteries which charge from solar panels. Which in turn go some way towards stopping the sun baking the roof.

IndyBest have a recent review of the Best portable air conditioners may have some helpful recommendations

Thanks for that it's actually a useful read.

I had A/C installed over the winter, it's a bit of an indulgence given how infrequently we have heatwaves currently in the UK but I've already used it a few times and it's great - def recommend it to anyone thinking about it vs making do with portable A/C or other methods.

House was built in the 1850s and is rather thick stone...I just moved to the side of the house opposite the sun and it is very cool...until about 7pm then the stonework radiates heat throughout the house!

Fans are better than air-con.

I have thought about this a few times and then discount every time as it really is the most Darwin Award thing any of us can do

Mmm indeed. That's exactly what I was saying:

Just open the fridge door

I find that a simple fan can do a reasonable job in the heat. Obviously, it’s not at all the same. But the movement of the air still seems make sleeping much more comfortable. Even when I lived in a very hot climate, I preferred ceiling fans to ACs in general.

paddling pool inflated in the garden 😀

FunkyDunc

Free Member

I have thought about this a few times and then discount every time as it really is the most Darwin Award thing any of us can do.

Again

Even when I lived in a very hot climate, I preferred ceiling fans to ACs in general.

IME the difference is that houses in 'very hot climates' are built to suit the needs of the climate rather than being built for the UK's middling 10-18(ish) degree norm. As a result those houses don't turn into mini-furnaces when it's a bit warm outside, so the fans are a good solution. I've tried fans, closed windows and curtains etc but at times our house is still less comfortable to sleep in than some (a/c free) places I've stayed in the tropics.

paddling pool inflated in the garden

Same here but I work from home and my employer is starting to question the number of water damaged laptops.

Have you tried:
Through the day close south facing windows, hang a bedsheet over the glass outside the house and close the curtains inside.
Create shade in any way you can if you have a patio/had ground to the south of the house - tarp, umbrella etc can reduce the heating and heat reflection of hard surfaces.

It can really help with peak heat in a house.

(Long term, and with a rapidly changing climate in mind, I think many of us are going to have to invest in a LOT of shading for the south of houses, reflective membranes on roofs, lots of green infrastructure (i.e. plants, shrubs, trees), window shutters/external blinds etc)

We just keep the window open, and have a fan on each side of the bed. Don't buy a cheap one  (they're noisy and rattle). Look for one with a DC motor as they are often a lot quieter and balanced. Cost perhaps a hundred quid, rather than a many hundred quid. All for just a few days a year.

Have you tried:

- insulation

Win win cooler in the summer warmer in the winter

Plant misting spray and a small fan. We have a portable aircon unit that is too noisy and too expensive. There is a reason why they are mounted to the outside of buildings!

I just wash n go.

I did hill reps, got extremely hot and sweaty. Then once home and showered, the heat was comparatively cool.

Go ride.

Fans are better than air-con.

Clearly they are not. Brainless comment.

I'm also looking for an AC Unit as sleeping during hot nights has become an issue over the past few years and doesn't seem to be a one off hot summer now. I always look for one, then get put off by the prices and the fact that many need to run a hose out of a window like a dryer does. I hate those hoses, they're crap and don't last long at all

I’ve a fair amount of experience in hot countries. I’ve lived and worked in Thailand, Malaysia and Australia (a hot part).
AC can be ok, but has real weaknesses. Fans are versatile, cheap, effective, and the don’t use huge amounts of power.

if you use AC you don’t acclimatise to the heat, and when you have to do without it (go outside, or go somewhere that doesn’t have it) your body cannot cope. Fans let your body remember that it’s hot.

position them well and they work as well as AC

i was going to be polite, but what the hell: Your comment is brainless and ignorant.

2 nights in on evaporative coolers, certainly working well enough when they blow over the bed, granted, its likely to get hotter soon..Can't justify the electrical and environmental cost of AC at home

Again in the same boat, even if we got a proper AC unit, the (noisy) outside unit would be meter from our neighbours windows, which is far from fair.

Anyone got an opinion on those evaporator fans? We already have normal fans but they only work so well, our dogs are really struggling with this heat

Edit: Hmm, what unit did you buy @Alan1977 ?

Evaporative stuff works best when the air is dry (I worked for an Australian company that sold them, I think that's a better climate for them than here). We tend to have more humid heat so there is less evaporation and therefore less cooling. Still better than a regular fan though, and they use less energy than a proper AC unit.

I wonder if an evaporative cooler and a dehumidifier would work together?

if you use AC you don’t acclimatise to the heat

Yeah but, a typical summer week in the UK...

Monday - 30 degrees
Tues - 21 degrees
Wed - 32 degrees
Thurs - 18 degrees
Fri - 16 degrees
Sat - 36 degrees and pissing down!
Sun - 22 degrees

...we'll never acclimatise to the 30+ degrees we get a few days a year! Best we can do is sit, moan about it and sweat! 🙂

i bought the princess coolers that B&Q are selling, bit more expensive but im a big sucker for automation.. making sure stuff turns off when i go out etc etc

3.5l tank i think, and on night one, 10pm-6am it looks like it used half of it

this morning when i got up however, i noticed my room was still significantly warmer than the landing, so today, curtains and windows closed, as soon as the sun is going down ill chuck the window open and see if the combination of the cooler plus fresh cooler air (its definitely cooler than inside) works well

We bought a stand alone A/C unit last year - was just amazing, sleeping in a room at 20C was so much easier than one at nearly 40C!

Given it's only ever really hot here for a week or two, you're never going to properly acclimatise to it eg it's supposed to be cooling off at the WE...

Used to live in a Dormer flat in Southern Germany. Summer heatwaves could see 38 degrees with bedroom temp not dipping below 32 for a week. My solution was to take the week off as unpaid holiday and head to the hills (Alps)!

I’ve a fair amount of experience in hot countries. I’ve lived and worked in Thailand, Malaysia and Australia (a hot part).
AC can be ok, but has real weaknesses. Fans are versatile, cheap, effective, and the don’t use huge amounts of power.

if you use AC you don’t acclimatise to the heat, and when you have to do without it (go outside, or go somewhere that doesn’t have it) your body cannot cope. Fans let your body remember that it’s hot.

position them well and they work as well as AC

i was going to be polite, but what the hell: Your comment is brainless and ignorant.

Fans just circulate warm air and don't cool. So how you claim they are better than AC is just pure arrogant drivel. Your examples of other hot countries on the other side of the world with totally different climates are irrelevant and beyond stupid. Why do all those countries use AC then? All those offices, houses and shops have got it all wrong, they should tap into your expertise!

Most people aren't interested or dumb enough to try and acclimatise to a uk heatwave which only last days or a couple of weeks at the most. Once or twice a year at the most. They just want their house or bedroom cool enough to sleep comfortably on those few and far between occasions. Its not hard to grasp.

-

Oh do calm down.
I don’t know why I’m still surprised by this - someone who is unnecessarily rude in an initial post gets a rude reply, then gets even ruder in their next comment.  However it’s a nice day, and I’ve got covid at the moment so don’t have the energy to argue.

Lots of places use aircon, yes, for various reasons. That doesn’t mean it isn’t noisy, wasteful, expensive and environmentally awful.

In my experience fans can be as effective if used properly, and they have many benefits ie they are cheap, quiet, portable, and don’t use too many resources. I’m still not sure why this opinion is making you so angry, so please, feel free to ignore it along with any others you dislike.

Apologies to anyone else who for any reason thought I was being arrogant. My advice - which like all advice can be disregarded, would be to try fans first as they are a much cheaper and quicker possible solution. In Thailand they were often kept under a desk and aimed at feet (this was partly to keep mosquitoes away, which I don’t imagine is a problem for most of you), which kept the whole body cool. When it’s hot I do the same - aim the fan at my feet, which keeps me cool throughout the night.

Air-con to keep cool seems to me to be as daft as building more roads to relieve traffic. It’s an environmental nightmare. If that isn’t something that bothers you, and you don’t mind the expense, then go for it. I’m sure I remember loads of threads a few months back asking how we could keep our power bills down, and an ongoing thread about saving money by not putting the heating on - these things never last long, eh?

We use them at work to cool rack equipment, they're noisy and draw a lot of power (~1.7kW).

You've got to do some degree of plumbing even with a 'portable' one as the hot wet air needs to go somewhere so you need to add something like a tubledryer vent into the room you want to use it in.

You've got to keep the doors/windows closed, otherwise it's like trying to heat a room with the doors open in winter.

Why do all those countries use AC then?

A big stretch when 46% of the world lives in measurable poverty and a big chunk of that is warmer than the UK.

Fans just circulate warm air and don’t cool.

They do if you're alive with a body temperature above ambient, and even better if you're perspiring. Most of the world get's by with a fan.

For those looking at portable aircon - most also double up as dehumidifiers and can be used to speed up drying of washing indoors in winter without having to resort to tumble driers and also avoiding issues with excess indoor humidity from wet clothes.

most also double up as dehumidifiers

If that's part of your use case it's worth checking the manual for each PAC unit you consider. Some will still need a window vent in dehumidifier mode so that's not great in winter, and most others will need a drain tube connecting so the water can be collected but the majority have the drain at the bottom of the unit and rely on gravity so you'd need to lift the (normally heavy) PAC box above whatever you're draining it into.

Step 1 – Windows open overnight to let hot air out and cool air in.

Step 2 – As the sun comes up, shut the windows and curtains – I have to peg a blanket over the landing window.

Normally I do this but my hay fever is quite bad at the min.

What have done though is put some uv mirror film off ebay on the back windows (they face south west and in the sun all day) it made a big difference. There still is a lot of heat stored in the bricks though.

You’ve got to do some degree of plumbing even with a ‘portable’ one as the hot wet air needs to go somewhere so you need to add something like a tubledryer vent into the room you want to use it in.

Ours came with a variable width thing for windows, so easy to vent through a partially open window with no large gaps (as it expands to fill the width of the window). Works very well.

I've been keeping my loft door open for a couple of years now, made much easier now the wasps nest has gone.

I either open a window, open windows front and back for a convection current, or find a shady breezy spot outdoors.

Air-con to keep cool seems to me to be as daft as building more roads to relieve traffic. It’s an environmental nightmare.

This. 100% It's utter madness!! It really is.

"National Grid has broken a 46-day run in which coal has not been used to generate electricity in Britain in order to meet extra demand for air conditioning as the country swelters in hot weather."

"Air conditioning accounts for about a fifth of the total electricity used in buildings around the world."

World gets hotter, we burn more, world gets hotter, we burn more....

When i lived in switzerland air conditioning was pretty sparse - none of our offices had them. We just shut all the windows to keep the heat out. My flat had such thick walls and shutters that it always remained cool - and the summers there were a good deal hotter than here in the UK.

This. 100% It’s utter madness!! It really is.

“National Grid has broken a 46-day run in which coal has not been used to generate electricity in Britain in order to meet extra demand for air conditioning as the country swelters in hot weather.”

I suppose it'll be partially offset by the increase in solar farms.

But otherwise yes.

Interestingly a few of the people pro-AC and/or admitting to having it were aggressively anti-energy companies ruining the planet in another thread. You can't complain that Shell/BP/Drax/Fracking are bad, then go home and add a couple of kW to the base load of your house. Even if you've signed up to an eco tariff, that's not a solution, if you add a kW of demand to the grid, that still gets balanced out by switching on something nasty somewhere.

This. 100% It’s utter madness!! It really is.

Not if you power it off your own solar panels....

We still export loads whilst running A/C..

[edit, I went back to edit and clarify something whilst footflaps posted so i'll put it in a new post instead]

There'll be those rare occasions when we have more solar than we can deal with. But no, that doesn't excuse you even if you have your own solar panels, there's still a large embedded energy cost in them and the energy produced could still do something more useful.

If the environmental math's of solar panels is so many tons of carbon dioxide produced in their manufacture, but offset by what they'll "save" over 25 years. That assumes it's doing some saving. Otherwise it's just however many tons of carbon dioxide released in the manufacture of solar panels to run AC, rather than just running the AC off fossil fuels.

I have one of those portable AC units that I bought for my home office about 15 years ago (had 3 others working with me then) - I've not used it in at least 10 years and I have solar PV!

Does the anti A/C stance extend to A/C in vehicles too? After all they still take energy to power the A/C that wouldn't be used if it wasn't cooling the vehicle to enable the driver to remain more comfortable and alert. If only I could find a cooler hair shirt I'd turn mine off too.

Oh do calm down.
I don’t know why I’m still surprised by this – someone who is unnecessarily rude in an initial post gets a rude reply, then gets even ruder in their next comment.  However it’s a nice day, and I’ve got covid at the moment so don’t have the energy to argue.

Lots of places use aircon, yes, for various reasons. That doesn’t mean it isn’t noisy, wasteful, expensive and environmentally awful.

In my experience fans can be as effective if used properly, and they have many benefits ie they are cheap, quiet, portable, and don’t use too many resources. I’m still not sure why this opinion is making you so angry, so please, feel free to ignore it along with any others you dislike.

Apologies to anyone else who for any reason thought I was being arrogant. My advice – which like all advice can be disregarded, would be to try fans first as they are a much cheaper and quicker possible solution. In Thailand they were often kept under a desk and aimed at feet (this was partly to keep mosquitoes away, which I don’t imagine is a problem for most of you), which kept the whole body cool. When it’s hot I do the same – aim the fan at my feet, which keeps me cool throughout the night.

Air-con to keep cool seems to me to be as daft as building more roads to relieve traffic. It’s an environmental nightmare. If that isn’t something that bothers you, and you don’t mind the expense, then go for it. I’m sure I remember loads of threads a few months back asking how we could keep our power bills down, and an ongoing thread about saving money by not putting the heating on – these things never last long, eh?

tl;dr

Does the anti A/C stance extend to A/C in vehicles too? After all they still take energy to power the A/C that wouldn’t be used if it wasn’t cooling the vehicle to enable the driver to remain more comfortable and alert. If only I could find a cooler hair shirt I’d turn mine off too.

I feel like complaining about AC in cars would be missing the point.

Does the anti A/C stance extend to A/C in vehicles too?

You have to factor in the aerodynamic losses from driving with the windows open.

It's ridiculous, petty.

Let's do more damage, because well fk, we're already doing it. Burn it all.

They do if you’re alive with a body temperature above ambient, and even better if you’re perspiring. Most of the world get’s by with a fan.

Cool.

I suspect people 'getting by' with a fan mainly do so because of the cost of AC. Not out of choice. That's why Hotels have AC and not fans. Because AC is better and 99% would moan the place down if there was no AC.

You can 'get by' living in a cave but many don't. Please don't start gluing yourselves to AC units like those Just Stop Oil creatures. Much better to glue a fan onto a selfie stick then attach the selfie stick in front of you to your body. Or you could insert it 'to the rear' maybe. Anyway..

Last summer I paid £70 for a tower fan. I know you can pay a lot more but its not that cheap. Did not cut it at all. And it was loud. It had very good reviews. If it cooled and was loud that would be fine but it did not.

To function and not be a total grump I need sleep. I cannot sleep when its hot. I've tried fans and they don't cool enough.

I'm sorry if this has triggered some eco warriors and fan fans.

Its a little naive to suggest that people wanting to buy an AC unit have never tried or experienced the benefits and limitations of a fan. I think most people in this country have experienced what a fan can do, even if its just in a car. I'm stunned that people haven't worked that out for themselves but we live and learn don't we.

So any direct recommendations would be greatly appreciated.

Yeah, don't bugger up the world more by getting AC for your house

There’ll be those rare occasions when we have more solar than we can deal with. But no, that doesn’t excuse you even if you have your own solar panels, there’s still a large embedded energy cost in them and the energy produced could still do something more useful.

If the environmental math’s of solar panels is so many tons of carbon dioxide produced in their manufacture, but offset by what they’ll “save” over 25 years. That assumes it’s doing some saving. Otherwise it’s just however many tons of carbon dioxide released in the manufacture of solar panels to run AC, rather than just running the AC off fossil fuels.

So in our case, we export shed loads of solar for 8 months of the year and probably use AC for about 1 or 2 weeks and even during those we are still are net exporters.

It's negligible in terms of the CO2 lifetime cost of solar.

I sometimes see posters on forums who are so needlessly rude and brash that I conclude they are making up for deficiencies elsewhere in their lives.

I assume that they have partners who have no respect for them, maybe children that give them no respect, a job they hate and a boss they dislike but dare not stand up to.

As they have to spend their real existence cowed and snivelling they use the Internet as an opportunity to ‘get their own back’, speaking to others in a way they would never dare in real life. This is a place where they feel they can hide their inadequacies and heal their poor bruised egos by attempting to bully others

I feel a little sorry for them, but my pity is reserved more for their ‘friends’, colleagues and family.

It’s negligible in terms of the CO2 lifetime cost of solar.

Especially because if you run it in the dehumidifier mode without the hose connected you’ll get a COP approaching 3 in the winter.

Some people just like being uncomfortable.

When the gov steps in and makes it worth while to export to grid then that may change attitudes but currently it's very much an I've paid for the panels so I will use the electricity as I see fit rather than how someone on the internet decides is ethically fit.

Fwiw I don't have an ac unit....

We've got house cats so can't open the windows much - we have downstairs open as it leads to a catio. The design of our house is very thermally efficient, but it doesn't half retain heat upstairs. Whilst heating the house is very low cost/energy use, I don't mind using the A/C which is consuming 800 watts per hour (checked and monitored with a smart plug), for use overnight to keep cool, for those few weeks it's too hot, vs the other 48 weeks where our house is much more thermally efficient than  average and doesn't need heating much for 8 months of the year. Our unit must be 20 years old.

So overall energy use is low.  The 'adult kids' gaming machines gobble more juice.

PS I don't drive round much in a van/ big car/£60k EV - I ride to work and my 22 year old car does maybe £3k miles a year.

Nor do I drive many many miles somewhere with a bike to ride 10-20 miles - I ride from home !

So those slamming a bit of A.C in a house for a few nights a year, better look at their own carbon footprint before slagging some others off.  Think about that when you do a 200 mile return trip to ride your bike 20 miles !

The OP asked about what A/C do people use, not expecting a slating from others with their own questionable carbon footprint

Calm down folks.

Fossy -  I get your point, however we need to start some where moving back the other way. I would love an AC unit, but I can cope without it and I am trying to take steps to minimise wanting one.

I try and use cars etc as little as possible ie if I cant ride my bike from the door and generally wont ride it. It perplexes me how people get in  acar/van and drive somewhere to ride a bike, but thats a different matter.

I suggest we also turn the heating off in winter then as part of the master plan.

Discriminate use of the ac especially with young kids can be as essential as the heating in winter.

Although the summer I spent in a perth flat with no ac was bareable by use of a cold shower with my bed sheets before bed and a fan.....

Our house is too hot without one - we've done the windows open all over (especially with the kids) we got the unit when they were small.   Our upstairs walls are literally heat soaks - bloody great in winter, but on the few hot weeks we have, I'll shove ours on for a few hours). I'd be happy with a fan - tried it, had ceiling fans, desk fans, MrsF won't entertain it as she says it dries her eyes/throat out - how ?  I can't win.  We fitted ceiling fans in the landing and our bedroom when we moved in 27 years ago, but she didn't like the bedroom fan, nor when we used portable ones. Got impossible when we had small kids.

We all have some things/practices that are poor carbon foot print, but others that are good.

You don't get people wading in when folk ask about wood fired pizza ovens for a couple of pizzas ! (I don't have  a pizza oven, nor a van, nor drive many miles).

For those (understandably) saying that their home retains heat, then looking to stop the heat getting indoors is key.

I do think we will be looking more and more at places in warmer climes - homes where they can keep much cooler through the day and therefore night as well. We do need shading, blinds / shutters / etc on the OUTSIDE of buildings, green solutions like trees, climbing plants up house walls, removing hard patios and tarmac from against house walls, increasing airflow, reflective roof membranes, more roof vents, MVHR etc etc.

I am sat in our house at the moment - all the rear (south facing) windows have white roller blinds down, including the patio doors. When we had our new roof 5 years ago I got them to fit a reflective membrane not the black one they typically use. North side shaded windows are all open. The blinds to the south will be opened nearer tea time as the heat goes, and our upstairs south windows all opened and our downstairs north windows left open - we then get a huge chimney effect of cold, north air being drawn upstairs and taking a lot of heat out.

Our upstairs walls are literally heat soaks

Could you grow ivy / other climbers to place the wall in shade in summer and reduce heat loss in winter?

As they have to spend their real existence cowed and snivelling they use the Internet as an opportunity to ‘get their own back’, speaking to others in a way they would never dare in real life. This is a place where they feel they can hide their inadequacies and heal their poor bruised egos by attempting to bully others

Au contraire mon ami, I'll call you a **** to your face too.

As for making insinuations about peoples home life...... well if you've settled for a meek existence where your ideas never get challenged and you measure a partner's "respect" by how much they agree with you, that ones on you, I'd far rather have a robust debate and ideas challenged.

Hi @thisisnotaspoon

Challenging debate is good, unnecessary rudeness (then getting all crybabyish if someone is rude back) is not so good.

Just for the record I've seen anything like that from you.

I get your point, however we need to start some where moving back the other way.

I do think we will be looking more and more at places in warmer climes – homes where they can keep much cooler through the day and therefore night as well. We do need shading, blinds / shutters / etc on the OUTSIDE of buildings, green solutions like trees, climbing plants up house walls, removing hard patios and tarmac from against house walls, increasing airflow, reflective roof membranes, more roof vents, MVHR etc etc.

Problem we have is that we don't have a consistently warm climate, eg I'd like to add reflective film to the Velux in the workshop for summer, but in winter I'd want to remove it as any extra solar loading saves on heating...

Plus good luck getting planning permission for external white shutters on a Victorian house in a conservation area...

Plus good luck getting planning permission for external white shutters on a Victorian house in a conservation area…

I feel this should be in @TJagain's middle class problems thread

Let all go back to living in wooden huts and caves.

I take it all the hypocrites who oppose Air con don't use any electricity, use cars or any sort of transport that is powered by electric of any type of fossil fuel and are currently residing in wooden primitive huts that has an internet connection to their stone tablets. Bravo.

Came on here to see which units are recommended.
That was silly.

I'd agree re: growing stuff on the walls of the house. This was the difference in surface temperature on the south side of our house during the last heat wave.

.

Back on topic, look for higher BTU, decibels, and of course wattage.

The OP asked about what A/C do people use, not expecting a slating from others with their own questionable carbon footprint

Oh no, I knew exactly what to expect, I've been around a while!

I've just taken the advice and ignored the rest.

P.S.
Haven't bought one yet. But we did measure the bedroom at 38 degrees when it was 27 outside. It was 28 degrees at 2am so we're still sleeping like crap and feeling rough all day.

@waswas - tell me more. I'm writing a climate friendly schools guide at present...