Living in a caravan during a heatwave.

How do you cope with the heat?

Contents hide

1 How do you cope with the heat?

2 What about heatwave conditions?

3 And what about living in a caravan during heatwave conditions?

4 How do you think you would go?

5 Check out how we managed a heatwave while living in our caravan.

6 Tips for staying as cool as possible in a caravan during a heatwave.

6.1 Related link:

What about heatwave conditions?

And what about living in a caravan during heatwave conditions?

How do you think you would go?

Check out how we managed a heatwave while living in our caravan.

As retirees enjoying travel, we began our big road trip by travelling to Queensland. The decision to begin travelling around Australia, heading north to Queensland – from New South Wales, was influenced by our offer to help one of our children. One of our children, and her partner, bought their first home. Given we are now retired we offered to help paint the home, and then help them settle in. As you can imagine, there was so much to do. yet, we were so pleased we could help them out.

The only problem being, it was the end of January when we arrived in Brisbane. Prior to travelling to Brisbane, we wondered how we would cope with the heat and humidity. Several over 50 plus friends had warned us that they struggled with the summer heat when they have visited Brisbane.

We arrived in Brisbane in late January 2017, and didn’t leave until late February. And have a guess what? Brisbane had the hottest summer on record. There were 26 consecutive days in February with the temperatures above 30 degrees Celsius. The day temperature was usually 32 or 33 degrees Celsius. One day the temperature rose to 38. The night temperatures didn’t drop a lot. Most nights were usually 23 and ocassionally up to 26 degrees Celsius. One night I remember it being 29 degrees at 11pm.

Throughout the heatwave we stayed in our caravan. We stayed our the front of the home pictured in the feature image, for nearly 6 weeks.

You may be wondering how we, as retirees from a much cooler climate, coped living in a caravan during this heatwave?

We must say thank goodness for air conditioning. The home we were helping paint had air conditioning in the living area. Plus, we have air conditioning in our caravan. We have said repeatedly we don’t think we could have painted without the air conditioning. Whenever we were in the caravan during the day we usually had the air conditioning on. At night we chose to not use the air conditioning. This was because it is noisy, and we could become too cool when asleep.

An electric fan was our saviour. We nearly didn’t pack it in the caravan. Thank goodness we did. We had the fan running whenever we were in the caravan, regardless of whether the air conditioning was on or not.

We slept without clothing, and often without a sheet, with the fan directed towards us. Surprisingly, we slept fairly well. This was probably because we were tired from the physical work.

At night we opened all the windows, hoping for a cross breeze. Thankfully most afternoons we could count on a lovely breeze.

We drank heaps of chilled water, ate chilled fruit, and lots of salads.

We ran our fridge on maximum, to keep everything cool. Fortunately, the fridge coped, just.

We wore lightweight clothing. Greg wore shorts continually, with either a singlet top or tee shirt. When not painting I wore lightweight dresses continually. All my dresses have no sleeves. Before leaving I thought I packed too many dresses, but no way. I found dresses cooler than shorts and a tee shirt. Generally we both wore thongs or sandals.

In the late afternoon it is often cooler sitting outside a caravan than inside. However, given our caravan was basically nearly on the street, and had no shade, we didn’t like to sit there. The house is about 6km from Moreton Bay and often gets a great breeze off the water in the afternoon. Sitting on the verandah was often the place to cool down.

We avoided the sun as much as possible. We wore hats, sunglasses and sunblock regularly. It is amazing how much sun you are exposed to just going in and out of the caravan.

There was one weekend where extreme heat was felt across Australia. As they say, it was a scorcher. We decided to not paint at all that weekend. Instead, we planned to enjoy ourselves with lunch out and a movie; in air conditioned comfort.

We worked consistently to help get the house painted. Whenever we were tired, and feeling the heat, we took a day off. Mind you, we didn’t take many days off. For retirees, over 50 plus, we think we managed the heat wave really well.

We really enjoyed going for a drive to various spots on Moreton Bay, to refresh with a drink and / or lunch. Mind you, we did not sit in the sun or go for long walks in the heat.

So, we didn’t do anything extra ordinary to cope with the heatwave conditions we experienced while staying in our caravan. While painting a house is hard, hot work I think it gave us a focus; something else to think about other than the heat. And, for retirees, we were really pleased with how we coped with the heat.

Following this heatwave experience we have decided to buy an awning to protect the fridge area of the caravan as we travel around Australia. The awning can be attached to the outside of the caravan whenever we are experiencing hot weather. The purpose of the awning is to shade and stop the direct sun on the fridge area, plus provide airflow under the shaded area of the caravan.

Greg has a long sleeved shirt with sun protection and I am planning to buy one. Light weight sun protection clothing will be necessary when we are travelling and visiting tourist sites in the heat. We didn’t need this type of clothing in Brisbane as generally we were ducking in and out of the sun.

Tips for staying as cool as possible in a caravan during a heatwave.

We are not experts on coping with heat wave conditions when living in a caravan. But, from our limited experience here are some points to consider if you are venturing in a caravan to an area with extreme heat.

Know your physical limitations. If you know you do not cope well with heat, do not travel in a caravan in summer.
If possible, have air conditioning in your caravan
If possible, during the heatwave period, stay where you have access to electricity, so you can run the air conditioning
Make sure you have access to plenty of drinking water. Cool the water and drink plenty, regularly.
Take a number of fans. We now have a large fan that runs on electricity. We also have a smaller fan that runs on a 12 volt charge. Plus we have two battery operated fans.
Open the caravan windows at night, in the hope of a cool breeze.
Take lightweight, loose clothing. For women, I really recommend loose dresses, without sleeves.
Stay out of the sun as much as possible.
Check and adjust the setting on your fridge. Check regularly that the food items are properly chilled and frozen.
Consider buying an awning to shade the fridge area of the caravan. Hopefully the fridge will not have to work as hard with the shade protection.
Wear hats with wide brims, sunglasses and sunscreen. They are a must.
Get at least one long sleeve shirt with sun protection
If there is a shady spot, with a breeze, try sitting there. It may be cooler than in the caravan.
Take time out from the heat in the caravan. Go to air conditioned places e.g. go shopping, out for a meal, to the movies etc.
Distraction can be a great help. Go for a drive. Check the area out. Visit indoor tourist attractions.
If your finding the heatwave is unbearable, book into accommodation for the really extreme heat period.