If there is no cooling breeze keep the blinds and windows shut. Otherwise your just heating up the house. And of course open it up as soon as it starts to cool in the evening or if we're lucky a cool wind comes up. If your feeling really desperate you can wet a cloth and hang it over a open window. But that really only works if it's a dry heat or you risk making your house more humid.

I currently have a small loft hatch in my airing cupboard (it’s a big cupboard!) and want to improve my loft access on a small tight budget. The airing cupboard is a huge 6ft x 5ft and houses my distribution board and unvented hot water cylinder as well as the usual airing cupboard shelving and storage. The hatch itself is of simple hinged plywood and has no insulation properties at all and the ladder is utter rubbish and desperately needs replacing. When the ladder is down it stretches across the airing cupboard doorway. The building is a bungalow with a trussed roof and a very large integral garage. My question is, am I allowed to install a new loft hatch in the garage where insulation is less important and where there is more room for the ladder when it’s in use, or are there building regs requirements that would make the whole process more costly? A well insulated loft hatch is pretty pricey from what I’ve seen online. Image shows plan of the airing cupboard with the approximate size and location of the hatch

Do you plan to use the attic room then or is your main concern preventing heat from escaping? You didn’t show full picture but would it be simpler to block it off at the bottom of the stairs?

Thanks to everyone who replied Just an update So over the weekend, went up to the attic, armed with several tools. One was a pocket temp and humidity gauge, which showed an initial reading of 2 C and a humidity of 90% I also bought an industrial strength dehumidifier, Powerdri 18 L, and popped it up on Saturday morning. It claimed to suck up to 18 L of water per day. Came back in the afternoon, just had around 100 mls in the water tank, a damp squib. Humidity still remained at around 75 and temp the same. So got my portable heater, the standard one you use in the room and left it on for a couple of hours. Returned and hey presto, the humidity was now down to 60, temp went up to 14C and the droplets/condensation on the felt seemed to have evaporated ..great success (Borat) In the meanwhile, I pulled all the insulation back, the ones which I feel had blocked the eaves Not 100% sure they were blocked but yes possibly. There were other areas in the loft, where the insulation had definitely not caused any blockages. Sunday was much better. Switched off the humidifier and the heating and re-checked the temp. It was around 5 C and the humidity around 85%, which was the same as outside. So I presume airflow is present, from interior to exterior, if both have the same humidity? This is all from my end. Will repeat the same over the next weekend. In the meanwhile, I hope my felt lap vents will finally arrive and may make a difference. Or as Jonathan said, could be just related to the cold snap and me vigorously pushing the insulation into the eaves. Fingers crossed but the dampness is not to be taken lightly, seen mould grow like wildfire , if this is ignored KR Mel pics? pre and post-insulation being moved