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I don't understand the article. I'm ok with the fact that an hotter city requires air conditioning. But it seems that, quite often, US indoor temperatures loom

I don't understand the article. I'm ok with the fact that an hotter city requires air conditioning. But it seems that, quite often, US indoor temperatures loom around 18-20C, while in EU we usually aim at around 24-25C. That's the most common objection we make to American tourists, and the article says nothing about that.

baxtr 7y ago
When I lived in the States it felt unbelievably weird that people in summer would wear sweatshirts because it was so freezing cold inside. My fellow American colleagues thought however that was the most normal thing to do. I still don’t get it.
- seanmcdirmid 7y ago
  They want to make everyone happy. If you feel it’s too cold, you can throw something on. In the other direction, you don’t have any option if you feel it’s too hot after you’ve taken off your sweater/jacket.
  - eeZah7Ux 7y ago
    Everyone except the environment (and therefore future generations)
  - Slartie 7y ago
    But where is that mythical person who is sweating in 22C/70F while wearing summer-appropriate (thin) clothes? I've never met anyone like that. Besides...forcing lots of people to carry sweatshirts around during summertime, just so they have some additional layers of clothing ready to be put on when they enter a home doesn't sound like "make everyone happy". It sounds like a huge inconvenience.
    - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
      I sweat at very low temperatures when the humidity is high, 20C is fine, 24C my arms will begin sweat up a bit, 26C then I'm thinking I should just quit for the day. Then I'm writing code, so that sweat sticks down to whatever desk I'm using, especially if I'm wearing short sleeves. So you can tell me (a) my arms shouldn't rest on the desk while I'm typing. Maybe, but it's not like I'm a "typist", I'm a programmer. And (b) maybe I should sweat at such low temperatures. Honestly, a lot has to do with the airflow and it seems difficult for buildings to circulate air without cooling things down unless they are throwing heat into it. > Besides...forcing lots of people to carry sweatshirts around during summertime, just so they have some additional layers of clothing ready to be put on when they enter a home doesn't sound like "make everyone happy" You really don't have to carry it around. Many people keep light sweaters at work. Bottom line, they are thinking about the difference between a programmer working at 100% and one working at 50%. And we are splitting hairs here: 22C is pretty ideal. 26C is not ideal at all. But people are all over the map on this. OSHA claims that anywhere from 68F (20C) to 76F (24.5C) works well. But you also need to consider humidity, and oftentimes the only thing that can take humidity out of the air is...the HVAC.
  - u801e 7y ago
    > In the other direction, you don’t have any option if you feel it’s too hot after you’ve taken off your sweater/jacket. A ceiling or pedestal fan could work and would require far less energy to operate.
    - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
      In an open office?
    - thaumasiotes 7y ago
      If by "work" you mean "spin on the ceiling without perceptibly affecting the temperature", then sure.
- weberc2 7y ago
  Americans don’t think this is normal, but rather a nuisance that we have to put up with for some unknown reason. The building engineers responsible for maintaining the temperature of large office buildings presumably haven’t recalibrated their best practices from the days when offices were largely populated by obese men in suits.
  - porknubbins 7y ago
    This is strange but where I grew up in the hot humid south there was almost a subconscious association between cold AC and modernness, cleanliness, efficiency etc (traits a business would want to project) and inversely between weak AC and cheapness, backwardness, poverty etc. It actually makes sense in a hospital or supermarket but it was quite a relief to break this association and now 75 feels relaxed.
    - weberc2 7y ago
      I could see that but it doesn’t explain why my recently refurbished downtown Yankee office building is a frosty 67F in the height of summer. :P
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
rootusrootus 7y ago
18 is pretty cool, I only push the ambient temperature down to that level at night, for sleeping. During the day 24 would be entirely normal for many Americans. If I tried to keep it at 20 during the day my wife would be pretty unhappy with me.
- cheerlessbog 7y ago
  My house is heated to 55-65 at night and 68 in the day. This is how I grew up in Europe: if it is cold out, the house is colder (within reason) and you adapt your clothing. In the US I still find it strange that people set the heat so they can wear a light t-shirt inside no matter the weather outside. It seems wasteful and also somehow disconnected from nature.
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    Something that's bothered me in Shanghai is that indoor spaces, like malls, are kept at a comfortable temperature regardless of what it's like outdoors. So to go _to_ the mall in winter, you need to dress for the 3°C outdoors you have to cross, and then you get into the mall and overheat badly. I don't see an easy solution to this -- I don't think "we need the indoors to be just as frigid as the outdoors" is going to catch on -- but it certainly is annoying.
    - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
      Go further south where there is no indoor heating at all. I was in a train station in Hunan in winter, and the girls in the train station selling candy and food and such, I felt so bad for them, they had to wear gloves otherwise their hands would freeze up. My coldest winter was 5-10C in southern China. The lack of indoor heating beats you down really quickly.
  - rootusrootus 7y ago
    That seems about right in my experience. 68F is about where I choose to keep the heat during the day, I'd go colder but my wife and daughter get uncomfortable. It may be different in other parts of the United States, it is a pretty big country with a lot of different climates. I live in the Pacific Northwest, which has a climate similar to northwestern Europe.
seanmcdirmid 7y ago
Isn’t 24-25C bad for typing? I know my arms sweat-stick to the desk at those temps.
tzs 7y ago
> But it seems that, quite often, US indoor temperatures loom around 18-20C, while in EU we usually aim at around 24-25C I wonder if it has to do with the US having a higher obesity rate than the EU? Anecdotally, I'm in the US and a few years ago I lost a fair bit of weight. Before that I would heat my house to 65 F (18.3 C) in the winter, and turn that down to 62 F (16.7 C) at night. As it got to warmer parts of the year, I was comfortable up to maybe 68 F (21 C). If it got over that, I'd consider it too hot. After losing a fair bit of weight, I find those old winter temperatures too cold. I now heat to about 68-69 F (20 - 20.6 C) in the winter. Below that, and I'm wearing a sweater. In the warmer parts of the year, I'm now happiest at 75 - 78 F (23.9 - 25.5 C), and can go without much annoyance to maybe 81 F (27.2 C) if I turn a fan on to blow air over me and maybe take off my shirt.

baxtr 7y ago

When I lived in the States it felt unbelievably weird that people in summer would wear sweatshirts because it was so freezing cold inside. My fellow American colleagues thought however that was the most normal thing to do. I still don’t get it.

seanmcdirmid 7y ago
They want to make everyone happy. If you feel it’s too cold, you can throw something on. In the other direction, you don’t have any option if you feel it’s too hot after you’ve taken off your sweater/jacket.
- eeZah7Ux 7y ago
  Everyone except the environment (and therefore future generations)
- Slartie 7y ago
  But where is that mythical person who is sweating in 22C/70F while wearing summer-appropriate (thin) clothes? I've never met anyone like that. Besides...forcing lots of people to carry sweatshirts around during summertime, just so they have some additional layers of clothing ready to be put on when they enter a home doesn't sound like "make everyone happy". It sounds like a huge inconvenience.
  - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    I sweat at very low temperatures when the humidity is high, 20C is fine, 24C my arms will begin sweat up a bit, 26C then I'm thinking I should just quit for the day. Then I'm writing code, so that sweat sticks down to whatever desk I'm using, especially if I'm wearing short sleeves. So you can tell me (a) my arms shouldn't rest on the desk while I'm typing. Maybe, but it's not like I'm a "typist", I'm a programmer. And (b) maybe I should sweat at such low temperatures. Honestly, a lot has to do with the airflow and it seems difficult for buildings to circulate air without cooling things down unless they are throwing heat into it. > Besides...forcing lots of people to carry sweatshirts around during summertime, just so they have some additional layers of clothing ready to be put on when they enter a home doesn't sound like "make everyone happy" You really don't have to carry it around. Many people keep light sweaters at work. Bottom line, they are thinking about the difference between a programmer working at 100% and one working at 50%. And we are splitting hairs here: 22C is pretty ideal. 26C is not ideal at all. But people are all over the map on this. OSHA claims that anywhere from 68F (20C) to 76F (24.5C) works well. But you also need to consider humidity, and oftentimes the only thing that can take humidity out of the air is...the HVAC.
- u801e 7y ago
  > In the other direction, you don’t have any option if you feel it’s too hot after you’ve taken off your sweater/jacket. A ceiling or pedestal fan could work and would require far less energy to operate.
  - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    In an open office?
  - thaumasiotes 7y ago
    If by "work" you mean "spin on the ceiling without perceptibly affecting the temperature", then sure.
weberc2 7y ago
Americans don’t think this is normal, but rather a nuisance that we have to put up with for some unknown reason. The building engineers responsible for maintaining the temperature of large office buildings presumably haven’t recalibrated their best practices from the days when offices were largely populated by obese men in suits.
- porknubbins 7y ago
  This is strange but where I grew up in the hot humid south there was almost a subconscious association between cold AC and modernness, cleanliness, efficiency etc (traits a business would want to project) and inversely between weak AC and cheapness, backwardness, poverty etc. It actually makes sense in a hospital or supermarket but it was quite a relief to break this association and now 75 feels relaxed.
  - weberc2 7y ago
    I could see that but it doesn’t explain why my recently refurbished downtown Yankee office building is a frosty 67F in the height of summer. :P
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

rootusrootus 7y ago

18 is pretty cool, I only push the ambient temperature down to that level at night, for sleeping. During the day 24 would be entirely normal for many Americans. If I tried to keep it at 20 during the day my wife would be pretty unhappy with me.

cheerlessbog 7y ago
My house is heated to 55-65 at night and 68 in the day. This is how I grew up in Europe: if it is cold out, the house is colder (within reason) and you adapt your clothing. In the US I still find it strange that people set the heat so they can wear a light t-shirt inside no matter the weather outside. It seems wasteful and also somehow disconnected from nature.
- thaumasiotes 7y ago
  Something that's bothered me in Shanghai is that indoor spaces, like malls, are kept at a comfortable temperature regardless of what it's like outdoors. So to go _to_ the mall in winter, you need to dress for the 3°C outdoors you have to cross, and then you get into the mall and overheat badly. I don't see an easy solution to this -- I don't think "we need the indoors to be just as frigid as the outdoors" is going to catch on -- but it certainly is annoying.
  - seanmcdirmid 7y ago
    Go further south where there is no indoor heating at all. I was in a train station in Hunan in winter, and the girls in the train station selling candy and food and such, I felt so bad for them, they had to wear gloves otherwise their hands would freeze up. My coldest winter was 5-10C in southern China. The lack of indoor heating beats you down really quickly.
- rootusrootus 7y ago
  That seems about right in my experience. 68F is about where I choose to keep the heat during the day, I'd go colder but my wife and daughter get uncomfortable. It may be different in other parts of the United States, it is a pretty big country with a lot of different climates. I live in the Pacific Northwest, which has a climate similar to northwestern Europe.

seanmcdirmid 7y ago

Isn’t 24-25C bad for typing? I know my arms sweat-stick to the desk at those temps.

tzs 7y ago

> But it seems that, quite often, US indoor temperatures loom around 18-20C, while in EU we usually aim at around 24-25C I wonder if it has to do with the US having a higher obesity rate than the EU? Anecdotally, I'm in the US and a few years ago I lost a fair bit of weight. Before that I would heat my house to 65 F (18.3 C) in the winter, and turn that down to 62 F (16.7 C) at night. As it got to warmer parts of the year, I was comfortable up to maybe 68 F (21 C). If it got over that, I'd consider it too hot. After losing a fair bit of weight, I find those old winter temperatures too cold. I now heat to about 68-69 F (20 - 20.6 C) in the winter. Below that, and I'm wearing a sweater. In the warmer parts of the year, I'm now happiest at 75 - 78 F (23.9 - 25.5 C), and can go without much annoyance to maybe 81 F (27.2 C) if I turn a fan on to blow air over me and maybe take off my shirt.