If you’ve been bemoaning the lack of UK summer this year then I am with you. The sun appears to have forgotten to visit these shores in 2024, seemingly content to leave our skies full of grey clouds and drizzle and back up the widely held belief that it’s constantly grey and raining in Britain.

But not so this week. Suddenly the sun has returned with a vengeance, and once more homes, offices, shops and streets are full of classic weather chat. It’s hot, and we’ll observe it at first, then be thankful but cautious that it’s a bit balmy, before going full UK citizen and wishing that it were a bit cooler.

In lieu of the heatwave subsiding and this nation’s baffling aversion to air conditioning, we Brits must turn once more to the humble fan. What’s more British than blasting hot air directly into your face with the cheapest fan you could find at Argos?

There’s nothing wrong with this. I find that using a fan is at least fifty percent psychological – if I can feel air moving and blowing at me, it must be cooling, and I won’t be as hot. This works during the day, but at night in stifling heat in my flat, I can’t sleep well, and unfortunately my budget-bought fan huffs and puffs away in the corner, its air not very cold and its noise keeping me awake.

That’s why I jumped at the chance to test a fancy Dyson fan, one of the ones that looks like a huge hand dryer or a control module from the Starship Enterprise.

It’s called (deep breath) the Dyson Purifier HEPA Cool Formaldehyde TP09 purifying fan, and though I think Dyson’s marketing department could do with a little bit of brevity next time they name a fan, I’m giving close to full marks for product quality. If only it weren’t so expensive.

This fan promises to blow air around the room while monitoring air quality and purifying it with filtering technology that claims to trap common pollutants.

“Formaldehyde can emit from many types of commercial furniture and flooring over time,” Dyson says. “Dyson’s catalytic filter continuously converts it into water and CO₂ – and never needs replacing.” That’s great, but Dyson recommends replacing the air purifier filters every 12 months, which cost £85.

Against all logic, experts says it’s actually best to keep the windows closed in your home if you want to stay cool in a heatwave, and the same is recommended when using the Dyson fan.

I’ve clamped my windows shut and even pulled the bedroom door to, and with the fan on at night blowing a cool stream of air over my bed I’ve slept like a baby the past few days. In heatwaves over the past couple of years I’ve had very disrupted sleep, waking drenched in sweat and feeling thirsty enough to have just run a marathon.

Not so now, but initially I was sceptical – how different can a fan really be when its RRP is £599.99? Surely it’s just wafting air and looking fancy?

The fan isn’t an air conditioner, and it can’t cool the air. But it creates such good airflow thanks to the hollow design that the air around you feels cooler and less stuffy. That’s half the battle, and with the purifying filters at work the Dyson smartphone app tells me the air is a safe quality.

I live near a busy main road so that’s comforting, but there’s no scientific way of proving this is the case. But my alternative is no fan or air-con, and sleeping in both of those conditions wakes me up absolutely parched.

With two remote controls included for you and your partner on the other side of the bed, you can fight over the fan speed, which at about a level three is quiet and strong enough for a cool night’s sleep, but it goes up to ten. Like all fans it swivels, but I preferred to keep it still and pointed at me. There’s even a ‘diffused’ mode that diverts the airflow out the back of the unit that still cools the air and moves it, but doesn’t blast you.

I like that I can turn the fan on using the app from anywhere, so I can set it off on my commute home and arrive to a cooled room. And though it’s not ideal, you can easily unplug and move the unit anywhere in the house if you don’t want to fork out for two.

You may be shaking your head at the idea of paying £599.99 for a fan. I don’t blame you. I’m not sure I’d spend that. I might not even spend the £399.99 that the fan is on sale for at the time of writing. But if you’re really suffering in this heatwave and your cheap fan simply isn’t cutting it, at that lower price this fan could be a good way to cool a room down, short of a louder, pricier air conditioning unit.

It has also stopped me moaning about the heatwave, which feels very un-British. But given the weather this week, I’ll take it.