How: Beating the Heat

When it gets "disrespectful" out there

As someone who has lived in the south for the last 33 years of my life, I thought I knew something about dealing with oppressive heat. 95 or 100 degree days in the summer are the norm for us, especially in July and August. In August 2000, for example, there were 31 days over 100 degrees. Thirty-one days! How do I know this? I was pregnant and/or recovering from a C-section all of August 2000.

Rules for these days: If you’re need to exert yourself outside, say with exercise or gardening, do it in the early morning. Otherwise plan to be outside very sparingly because any length of time in the viscous soup that is Arkansas summer air will completely eviscerate your energy and may even be dangerous. Also: hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.

This summer taught me that I did know something about beating the heat but with that miraculous twentieth century invention, central air conditioning. Dealing with heat waves in France without it has been a whole other experience. Fortunately, we only had one really bad “canicule,” or, heat wave, while we were there and it lasted less than a week, with highs in the upper 90s. The whole of July, in fact, was surprisingly pleasant. However, monitoring the temperature there after we left we saw that August was, predictably, a whole other story. The first three weeks of August were relentlessly hot (see above) in Quillan with no relief in sight until the past few days.

When we first arrived in Quillan, we asked a British couple we’d met what they did when it got really hot, hoping, I guess, for some kind of magic tip. They looked at each other and then said, in unison, “suffer.”

The thing is, France, and much of the EU and UK, has issues with air conditioning. It’s not built-in to older homes or buildings because it’s hard to retrofit these historic places for the kind of central air we’re used to here. Older homes there, however, deal with the heat rather well (more on that below) and until a few well-documented serious heat waves, such as the infamous 2003 canicule, France overall hasn’t had to deal with the kind of sustained heat we deal with in Arkansas and further into the Deep South. We all know that’s set to change, unfortunately, as temperatures rise due to climate change.

Living through my first canicule in France, however, I learned that there are ways to survive hot weather without flipping on the central air sometime in late April, as I have become accustomed to doing.

Here’s what I discovered:

1. Stone walls really do provide excellent insulation and fans are everything. Honestly, with stone walls and fans, the ground floor of most French homes is comfortable enough even in a heat wave. Not cool, like the blast of cool you get with American air conditioning (which has always seemed excessive, imo), but comfortable enough. Above the ground floor though, it gets progressively warmer (hot air rises, all that). Fortunately, our home is only two stories and we’re able to avoid the upstairs, if we need to, until the cooler evenings.

2. Everyone opens their windows as soon as it gets cool overnight, but when the temperature starts to rise when the sun returns, those shutters are closed back tight. This can make it feel rather dark in the middle of the day, but it’s the only way the house can maintain even a modicum of comfort. In fact, based on the number of French village houses closed off to the world in the summer, you might wonder where all the villagers are. The answer is, inside, resting and keeping out the heat.

3. Again, the more fans the better and it’s worth spending the money on some good ones like this one, which is great for the living room because it’s a sleek, quiet workhorse that doesn’t scream, I’m a fan!!! We save those for the bedrooms. But, seriously, keep that air circulating.

4. Re-calibrate your expectations. I used to think I needed air conditioning the minute I started to feel flushed or the temperature topped 75. This summer, I learned that even post-menopausal me can survive at far higher temperatures than that. This summer I discovered (and maybe this is the southerner***in me) that even without air conditioning, things don’t get really miserable until around 94-96 degrees.

5. Taking it easy is even more important. Don’t overexert yourself. This is not the time to go for a hike or a run. I view it as an opportunity to slow way down and loll around as much as possible, reading, watching movies, napping or perhaps enjoying something cold, like a fruit popsicle. Find some water to cool off in. Quillan had a nice man-made swimming lake we visited regularly; a day at the ocean or having a friend with a pool is even better. Stay out of the sun and again, hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.

6. In spite of all of the above, I do think one or two of these units is in our future next summer for those occasional canicules, especially in August, and especially for the upstairs. I don’t see us using them regularly though, just when it gets dangerously hot or when we have guests (although if you want to visit the South of France I’d avoid August in general, both because of the heat and because that is when French people take their vacations and a lot is closed). We’ve experienced these kinds of portable units at condos in the US before and while they don’t make things ice cold (which, why do things need to be ice cold anyway; needing a sweater inside in July is an American thing) they do the job well enough to make life, especially sleeping, more bearable. This seems to me a sustainable option; portable units but only when absolutely necessary. Unfortunately, it’s only going to get hotter and we need to able to access relief when we need it without worsening pollution.

How about you? Do you have any tips for beating the heat, especially without air-conditioning?

***Note, especially for native southerners, that I said the “southerner in me,” not “as a southerner.” I fully recognize that while three decades in the south can endow me with a tiny bit of southern (probably in my pinkie or something), and I do say y’all regularly, the most minimum standards for being a true southerner require being born here. I am no usurper.