I love the British attitude to weather.

One day of rain and an overcast sky sees everybody moan: "Not much of a summer." But bring on the sunshine, see the temperature climb and those same people whinge: "Oh, it's too hot." Even I will concede that the current heatwave doesn't make for easy sleeping at night, but I won't utter a word of complaint about the blue skies and hot sun as I'll be enjoying a staycation this year.

If you do want to stay cool, though, and simply opening a window isn't an option, then the two real alternatives are either an electric fan or an air conditioner. And though the outlay for both can be whatever you're prepared to pay, the running cost is what you need to consider.

Without too much shopping around, I found an air conditioner at Argos on sale for £165.29, Its spec said its annual power usage was 410 kilowatt hours (kWh). So, I went to my nPower bill and found that I pay around 13p per kWh which means for the year, I'd be looking at around £53.30 to run the thing, presuming the hammering I'd give it coincided with the average use the manufacturers based their figures on.

In total, the air conditioner will cost me £218.59 this year, that includes initial payment to Argos and the electricity that I use to keep it running. So what about a less expensive alternative – a pedestal fan?

These are a helluva lot cheaper to buy with Wickes selling a pedestal version 16-inch fan for just £7.99. Though I needed to work out the consumption myself.

I do know the fan is a 50-watt model. If I convert that to kilowatts, I know it will be 50/1000, so 0.05 kw. Next I have to work out how many kilowatt hours I'll use, so if I keep the fan on for seven hours every day that'll be 0.35kWh, over a full 92 days of summer that'll be 32.2 kWh in total. Multiply that by the 13p per kWh that nPower charge me and I'm looking at £4.19 in electricity charges.

Add that to the cost of the fan in the first place, and I've enjoyed a summer of indoor breezes for just £12.18. Mind you, if I use the fan that often, I'll probably burn it out this year. Still, it is a bit of a no-brainer.

So air conditioner versus pedestal fan. I've done the maths on it for you. Now you can decide if it's just a lot of hot air!