After a gloomy summer, last-minute sunshine is gracing Britain, with temperatures soaring above 30 degrees Celsius in some places, making it hotter than California.
Many Brits will be putting away their winter clothes and dusting off their fans for another week to combat the sweltering heat.
And because many homes don’t have air conditioning, millions of Brits will have to rely on fans to cool them down.
But some TikTokers say you’ve been using fans all wrong, and thousands were shocked when user Leah White demonstrated an alternative way to use them.
A TikToker has told her followers they’ve been using fans incorrectly all their lives, and Leah White says they need to be shown to the window
According to online bedroom experts, pointing the fan out of the window can help, but it all depends on the time of day and the type of fan you have
To her 8,000 TikTok followers, @leahwhite4828 said: ‘How did it take me 28 years to know this?’
She explained: ‘We’re in a new build house and it’s quite a small house so it retains the heat so well and it absolutely cooks every night.
“We’ve had a fan on and we’ve woken up sniffling and we’ve got a cold – and I suspect that’s because we’ve had a fan on all night.”
She continued: “I’m 28 years old – and please tell me I’m not the only one who didn’t know this. Apparently the fan is supposed to face a window with the windows open – and then you turn the fan on and it basically sucks all the warm air from the room outside.
“I’ve just had it on for 15 minutes and my room is probably the coolest it’s ever been. Did anyone else know this or was I just stupid?’
Experts say the trick could really work, says Nic Shacklock Online-bedrooms.nl said: ‘One of the disadvantages of having a fan in the room at night is that it just circulates warm air in the room without making it cooler.
‘By pointing the fan out of the window at night, the warm air is blown out of the room, resulting in a lower room temperature.’
To make the hack work, Nic said you need to consider three factors: time, position, and the size of the fan.
Speaking to MailOnline, he said: ‘Make sure the fan is facing outwards so that all the warm air is blown out.
According to Nic, the trick works best with a small, round electric fan, as seen in Leah’s TikTok video. Although they are large, tower fans can be too tricky to navigate.
Nic explained that the best time to perform this trick is in the early evening to get the room as cool as possible before going to sleep.
He added: ‘Remember to compare the internal temperature of the room with that of the outside. If it is warmer outside than inside, this has little effect on cooling the room, especially if there is little wind.’
The TikTok video has received more than 90,000 likes and thousands of grateful users have taken to the comments section.
One person wrote: ‘What?!’ I just had it in my face.” Another added: ‘I’m much older than you and only learned this today.’
While a third person wrote: ‘I never knew that, but I remember walking past a house with like two fans in a window and I thought that was strange. But I’m going to try now.’