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Where I live, it's projected to be 100 degrees Fahrenheit tomorrow (around 38C). My AC is broken, and I'll be gone a little after sunrise to nearly sunset. How can I make sure my 5-year-old indoor black girl cat (in typical health) will be safe on its own?

I'm at least leaving out plenty of food and water. Not iced water, it would be warm in 30min anyway.

I can do faucet water on a drip, open the windows (though there won't likely be a breeze), and fans. I don't know if cat will care about any of that?

Is there something more/better I can do?

Or, am I making much ado about nothing and the cat will be fine even if I do nothing?

Weylin Piegorsch
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    Have you considered asking a neighbor with AC if they can take the cat for a few days? – Scott Seidman Jun 24 '25 at 14:54
  • Can you tell us more about the house? When was it built, how was it insulated, etc? – Kevin McKenzie Jun 24 '25 at 16:23
  • For a source of coldness when you are gone, fill a large plastic soft drink bottle with water and put it in the freezer compartment of your fridge before you go to sleep or even earlier. In the morning it should be very cool or frozen. What you do with this bottle is up to you. I am not a cat owner or expert. – Will.Octagon.Gibson Jun 26 '25 at 03:07
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    To expand on @ScottSeidman a professional cat boarder/daycare is an option too. – user71659 Jun 26 '25 at 17:56

4 Answers4

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Don't stress too much, but do prepare.

  • Open windows overnight. Wait until the sun sets and the temperatures are a reasonable level (I open them around 75 or lower here, usually before I go to sleep). Put fans in the windows to bring cool air in, and encourage cross breeze by opening windows (or doors) on opposite sides of the house.
  • Close windows when you wake up. Do NOT leave your windows open during the day. Ideally you should close them before sunrise, or before it hits above 70. This traps the cooler air in your home. You can keep the fans running, overhead fans especially, just to help move air.
  • Close curtains and blinds. Keep the sun from coming in and heating up your home. In the northern hemisphere, my north-facing rooms stay a lot cooler than my south facing rooms. I have a north-facing bathroom with cool tile floors my cat loves to lounge on when he's toasty.
  • Keep access to cooler basements available. If you have a basement or safe cellar for you pet to access, leave that open. Anything below floor level will stay cooler than the rest of the house.
  • Leave water everywhere! Make sure your cat (or any pet) has water to stay hydrated. Evaporating water can also help keep your home cooler. Cats do love the heat, and fare a little better than dogs, but heat can still dehydrate them and leave them lethargic.

If this is a long-term issue, you'll want to invest in some other solutions not only for your cat's sake, but also for yours. You can look into weather-proofing your home (making sure all doors and windows are sealed to not let any air in or out), portable AC units, overhead fans, external shading plants and trees, etc. Water and moving air do an incredible amount of cooling, and there are fan and water misting setups you could use in a pinch.

If you're really concerned, consider boarding your cat or dropping them off at a friend's home that has working AC, or who will be home to keep an eye on your cat.

Stay safe!

Community
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Gwendolyn
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This is going to be a generic answer, but it's really going to depend on the space the cat is living in.

First, cats are desert animals; they've evolved to not need much water, and their fur provides insulation against both hot and cold weather. So assuming they're in good health, they can deal with heat.

Second, though, depending on the living space, a house/apartment can be built to either deal well with hot/cold weather or not, and may or may not have been built with air conditioning or heating in mind. I say this as someone who came home one day in the middle of summer to discover that the air conditioning in my apartment had failed, and I could literally feel the heat radiating off of my walls. It was far hotter inside than out. Luckily, my cats were both fine. But my condo was built with the assumption of air conditioning; there were skylights in the living room and no natural ventilation. It was also a second story condo, so no way to transmit the heat into the ground.

I'd personally open as many windows as possible and provide some ventilation, with one fan in blowing air in, and another fan elsewhere blowing air out. That way, you should be fairly certain that the living area won't get any hotter than the outside. However, be careful that the cats can't somehow knock the fans onto themselves.

However, if you have, say a basement, or a bathroom attached to a concrete slab, those are probably going to stay cooler than the rest of the living area, as they have the ground as a heat sink. So your cat(s) are probably going to be spending time in there. And you might consider putting a lot of ice into some water they can drink; it would take longer for a larger mass of ice to melt, and it will stay cool until it's melted. You might also consider wrapping ice packs in towels or something and putting them somewhere that the cats could lay if they wanted to.

Kevin McKenzie
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A cat will often seek out concrete stone or tile floors to cool down,If you get an aluminium plate that your cat can rest on it will conduct the heat away from your cat,the plate needs to be 2-3mm thick and about 50 by 50 cm in size but larger is better.

If you want you can use water to cool down the plate before giving it to your cat,be aware of sharp edges and corners on the plate that you might want to sand down before use.

trond hansen
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Additionnal tips i haven't seen mentionned:

  • Wet a towel with cool water and place it on the ground. If your cats want to, they can cool themselves by lying on it (mine sometimes do, so I do it every morning just in case they want to)
  • Brush their hair regularly, especially if their hair is long. Mine shed a lot during the summer months, presumably because they're hot, and it's better to brush it out than to let them eat the hair, regardless of if it actually helps with the heat.
  • Freeze a small bottle of water, wrap it in a towel, and leave it in a safe place for them. Try to show them that The Cool Thing is here, and if they need to they can cool off there.
  • Wet a small towel and freeze it (flat). Either give it to your cat or if it allows you to, try petting it with the frozen towel.
Themoonisacheese
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