I own a £500 air con unit, but I'm choosing this under £10 Amazon buy to sleep cooler instead

As Ideal Home's Sleep Editor, I've been fortunate enough to test all sorts of products aimed at improving sleep, and, with temperature such a key component of a good night's rest, that means I've tested a *lot* of cooling solutions.

From the best fans to the best portable air conditioners, I'm the lucky owner of several expensive cooling products that I probably wouldn't have been able to afford were they not test samples.

However, despite having a brand new £500 portable air con unit sat in my spare bedroom, and even though my south-facing dormer bedroom reaching a sweltering 35°C last night, I'm still choosing to ditch my air con and use an under £10 solution to stay cool in bed instead. Here's why.

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First up, it's worth pointing out that my choosing to ditch my air con unit is a personal decision. When it comes to whether a portable air conditioning unit is worth it, we all have different circumstances, and for many people, an air con unit might be the best solution to prevent dangerous overheating.

The UK is currently facing extreme temperatures, and if the climate crisis is allowed to worsen, heatwaves are going to become more common, so it's little wonder air con units have virtually sold out this June. (Ideal Home's live blog has the latest updates on in-stock air con and cooling fans, by the way).

But in my case, I've tried battling heatwaves with the air con unit, and I've tried staying cool in bed without, and I've decided some good old-school low-technology solutions are the way forward. With the bonus being that they're also a *lot* more affordable and energy-efficient.

So why am I not an air con convert, even when a portable unit has become *the* must-have product of the moment? A few reasons.

First, even the best portable air conditioners are difficult to vent properly. They're not like the air conditioning unit you'll likely have experienced in a hotel room or on holiday.

In order to vent the heat from a portable air conditioner, you have to put the venting hose out of an external window, and it's then very tricky to seal the window so that hot air can't simply flow back inside at the same rate you're expelling it.

Amazon has all sorts of air con venting kits available, as do many specialist air con manufacturers, but having tested pretty much every solution out there (other than cutting a vent-hose-shaped hole in my double-glazed window), none of them has actually sealed the gaps around the window 100% succesfully.

And I have fairly standard windows; those with more unusual designs, such as a hinged loft window, will have an even trickier time venting successfully.

Second, every portable air conditioning unit I've tested has been *very* noisy. Yes, some are quieter than others, but whilst you can avoid cheaper units that sound like a truck's engine running in your bedroom, even the most expensive (and therefore quietest) options I've tested are still way too loud for me to comfortably sleep next to.

The common solution is to run the air conditioner for a few hours before bed and then turn it off when you want to sleep. However, part of the reason so many of us are struggling with overheated homes in the first place is that a lot of British homes are badly insulated, and I've always found that after an hour or so of the air con being switched off, my room will quickly reheat, and I'll wake up boiling again.

Third, for at least 50 weeks of the year, I don't actually need air conditioning. Yes, it's hot and uncomfortable for a few days in the summer (in this case, an extremely uncomfortable week), and certain people definitely need extra help to cool down and regulate their body temperature. But, an air con unit is big, *heavy* and bulky to move, and my small home really doesn't have anywhere to store it for the eleven months of the year it wouldn't be in use.

And lastly, a portable air conditioning unit uses a staggering amount of energy. Ideal Home's cooling expert, Sarah Handley, tells me that 'portable air conditioners can use anywhere between 780-2600W, which, based on the July 2026 energy price cap, means they can cost between 20p and 68p per hour to run'.

And that's only the personal cost of running an air conditioning unit. That high energy usage is also worsening the global environmental problems that are causing the extreme heat in the first place. So, where I can avoid adding to those problems, I'll do my best to find less energy-intensive solutions.

All in all, I now have three go-to solutions for surviving hot and humid heatwave nights, and the first, and arguably the most effective solution of the hundreds of cooling products I've tested, is also the most low-budget.

What is it? An under £10 ice pack. And yes, I know, it's a disappointingly dull answer. Unlike an air con unit, it doesn't come with a clever app to download whilst you sweat, or an LED display to tell you just how hot you are, but... it works.

I pop a couple of these ice packs in a freezer bag and then a pillowcase and add them to my bed in extreme hot weather. You can use a bag of frozen peas, of course, but I find they tend to defrost a *lot* quicker and leave you with puddles of water. These gel packs freeze much quicker and stay frozen for much longer. Mine stays icy cold all through the night, even in hot temperatures.

Second, I've accepted that I may have to camp out downstairs at night during a heatwave. Heat rises, and my first floor becomes stifling hot in the evening. My ground floor stays cooler, so I camp out on a good air bed in my living room for a few nights when it's most sweltering.

I might even invest in one of the best sofa beds or best chair beds to make a downstairs campout more comfortable. This won't work for everyone, I realise, but for me, a few nights on my ground floor is a lot simpler than the air con battle I'd need to embark on to cool things enough to sleep upstairs.

Third, and this is definitely the most expensive solution, I've invested in a very good fan, and it makes a *huge* difference.

In the UK, our biggest issue with cooling down is humidity. When it's hot *and* humid, sweat stays on the skin, making it difficult for the body to cool itself down. A breeze, whether through an open window during the cooler parts of the day or night, or from a fan, dries this sweat, making the body feel instantly cooler.

I recommend investing in a fan with a DC motor. These are generally super quiet (none of that horrendous whirring you have to endure with a cheaper AC fan), extremely powerful, and very energy efficient. Unlike an air conditioning unit's average 780-2600 watts per hour, many energy-efficient DC fans use well under 10 watts per hour.

I've rounded up some of my top-rated recommendations below, and, if you're considering air con but on the fence, or you know that air con is way out of your budget, I thoroughly recommend trying to invest in one of these instead.

A fan doesn't actively cool the air, but the breeze it creates cools your body, and personally, I've been amazed at the difference they've made to my comfort levels.

Plus, you can always do the double whammy and sit a bowl of ice, or an ice pack in front of your fan to cool down the air as it blows at you as well. Compared to faffing around with an air con venting hose, getting more hot and bothered by the minute, I find it's the best solution for me.