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I'm not convinced it is a net positive in the end. Especially for big companies, heating an office space with 500+ people is probably much more efficient than h

I'm not convinced it is a net positive in the end. Especially for big companies, heating an office space with 500+ people is probably much more efficient than heating 500 individual houses for example Not everyone commute with an ICE vehicle too

luminouslow 4y ago
>heating an office space with 500+ people is much more efficient than heating 500 individual houses Citation needed. I would argue its very hard to make any general statement about this. In my case the office is much more wasteful than the space I use for remote work for a multitude of reasons.
- lm28469 4y ago
  I said I'm not convinced, it obviously isn't a general thing. A friend of mine spends 500+ euros per month on gas for heating since he works from home, no way on earth his office uses 500 per person and per month on heat
  - mcv 4y ago
    Is that € 500 for just the working hours? Because homes are also generally heated for other uses than work. Those reasons don't go away if you work at the office. If you've got a spouse working from home, or kids coming from school, that house is going to be heated anyway.
    - lm28469 4y ago
      > Because homes are also generally heated for other uses than work I've never heard of anyone heating their home when not in it, given the other comments it seems like it's the norm, weird
      - watwut 4y ago
        > The most common way of heating here is that you have radiators set up Most people here would need to actively tweak it every time the leave the house and every time they come in. And do it separately for each room. Just from the way how heating works - you have valve in each room that you turn in order to adjust heating. Of course no one does it every day twice.
        lm28469 4y ago
        That's the system I have and that's how I do it, same for my family, we never leave it blasting if no one is home > Of course no one does it every day twice. Why not ? it takes like 5 seconds
        watwut 4y ago
        Sounds like fair inconvenience to go through every room and then have cold until it finally heats up.
        mcv 4y ago
        I do. I turn up the heat in the morning and turn it down again in the evening. Smart thermostats can do that automatically, but my home office doesn't have a smart thermostat.
      - mcv 4y ago
        I certainly wouldn't heat your home when nobody is home, but most people do return home after a day at the office, and many people don't live alone. That's what I'm referring to. Or do you demand that they live in the cold while you're at the office?
      - alistairSH 4y ago
        We lower the heat if nobody is home. But, that's the difference between 70* and 65*. With no heat, the house would eventually be 32* in the dead or winter. And we only do that because smart thermostats exist and use our phones as presence sensors. Without that, we'd have to manually lower the heat and I doubt we'd bother/remember.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - teh_klev 4y ago
    I work from home full time, my gas bill is a fraction of that (~GBP100/month), and that's even accounting for the crazy energy cost increases we've seen in the UK.
  - VBprogrammer 4y ago
    A 2kW electric heater can heat up any reasonable size office room up to a temperature where you are going to have to strip to your underwear (or turn it off) in under an hour in my experience. Even if it's on 8 hours a day constantly, 5 days a week, 4 weeks a month that's 320kWh or just over £100 a month at UK energy prices.
    - dijit 4y ago
      additional note: UK energy prices are currently the highest in Europe. not sure if that makes your anecdote out of date or if it puts further shade on the parents comment.
  - cableshaft 4y ago
    In comparison, we have a 1600 sq ft home and only have $50 USD gas bills lately. It's definitely been higher (at least double), but we've been learning to live with a colder thermostat. Granted this is the US, and natural gas is considerably cheaper here than in a lot of countries in Europe right now, so you probably need to at least double what I said anyway for Europe.
nytesky 4y ago
Anecdotally I see many people traveling more enabled by remote work (and a single flight can equal a full year of car commuting). And I feel many people use telework days to run errands or go to lunch more frequently often nearly matching commute miles in a day.
- H1Supreme 4y ago
  When else are you supposed to run errands? Here's my anecdotal driving activity after taking a remote position: I used to drive every day of the week. Now, it's 3 days, on average. If I could walk or cycle to the gym (roads are 0% accessible for pedestrians), I could easily drop that to one or two days. In terms of running errands, I've moved that to a "before work" activity. It's honestly amazing how smooth it all goes at 8:00am vs 5:30pm. Plus, I consider this a net positive for the community since I'm one less person clogging up the grocery store at their busiest time.
nicbou 4y ago
A house used 100% of the time is more efficient than a house used 50% of the time + an office used 50% of the time.
- postalrat 4y ago
  A house used for what? Standing around?
- xboxnolifes 4y ago
  But it's not a house used 100% of the time vs an office used 50% of the time. It's 100 houses used 50% of the time and 1 office used 50% of the time vs 100 houses used 100% of the time.
  - nicbou 4y ago
    The office needs to be heated 100% of the time, and it's larger than a house. The house is probably heated to an extent when it's empty.
rg111 4y ago
500 individual houses would be heated anyway.
- lm28469 4y ago
  Why would you heat a house if you're not in it. Do people really do that ?
  - neutronicus 4y ago
    Well, you may live with other people who are in it when you're not, causing it to be heated anyway. But I guess the answer would be that people can't abide the thought of one uncomfortable minute in their own home, and don't bother figuring out how to program the thermostat.
  - Someone1234 4y ago
    Pets. Other family members. Plus the fact that you're "daytime" heating/cooling a home from 6:30-8:30 am and 3:30-10 pm anyway, and that modern or updated homes keep their temperature for several hours. So the debate is really over a few degrees for a couple of extra hours (Vs. heating an entire other building that may not otherwise exist). I know at our workplace heating on Monday mornings has to start several hours earlier than on Tuesday because the office lost almost all of its built-up heat from the previous Friday. I also know that they continue to run the heating on holiday-Fridays/Mondays because if they don't by the following Monday/Tuesday, the temperature will drop too low and could damage equipment.
  - alistairSH 4y ago
    Typical American house uses a heat pump (basically an AC run "backwards") with a single thermostat (bigger houses might have multiple complete systems). If you turned the heat off at 7am as you left for work, the house would probably be below 60 when you got home, and take most of the evening to reheat, only to be turned back down again at bed time. I don't know anybody who manually does any of this - at best, they have a smart thermostat that lets them schedule home/away time or uses cell phones as presence sensors. And even then, they'll lower the heat 5-8 degrees, not turn it off completely.
gregoriol 4y ago
Most houses stay heated during the day anyway, remote work or not, it doesn't change the situation that much. And offices will remain heated whether there are full or only half of the employees actually in the building.
- edanm 4y ago
  What? Why would most houses stay heated?
  - gregoriol 4y ago
    Do you turn off the heating in every room in your house when you go out to work? Even if you did have some "smart" appliance that would make it easier, you'd have to "over-heat" when you come back to get again the desired temperature (or pre-heat a few hours before coming back), which would mostly make the effort's result insignificant... It would make sense to drop heating when leaving for a few days though, week-ends/holidays. Offices are not heated on week-ends for example.
    - edanm 4y ago
      Yes, of course! I'm surprised anyone wouldn't. I will note that I am in a warm country, so we much more rarely have the heat on. But if I'm out of the house for 8 hours, I'll definitely turn off the AC. It might take time to get the house cold again, but c'mon, no way we'd pay for a day's worth of electricity for no reason. I wonder how much this changes if it's heating vs cooling, and based on how much you have to heat/cool a place.
adam_arthur 4y ago
Yeah, but many offices are likely to be converted to other uses, rather than persist with partial occupation. Hotel, residential etc People often say it’s cost prohibitive, but it’s been done many times before, and valuations of Offices will get so depressed that conversions begin to look very lucrative
- kayodelycaon 4y ago
  Large office buildings do not convert into hotels or residential all that well. Most of them have all of their plumbing and utilities in the central core. That's not easy to retrofit. They may also not be up to code for residential use.
  - adam_arthur 4y ago
    Many have been converted before, even in the recent past, Google it. https://www.washingtonian.com/2022/11/14/dc-area-leads-the-way-in-office-to-apartment-conversions/ https://www.washingtonian.com/2022/11/14/dc-area-leads-the-w... And plumbing and wiring a building is vastly cheaper than building a new one from scratch. Most modern office buildings are already designed so their tenants can orient the space however they like, Including adding/removing walls and plumbing/electric If you can buy office buildings at half the valuation of a similar square footage residential building, converting it will obviously be profitable. It was already profitable in many cases pre Covid before office became severely depressed. The valuation gap between residential and office has probably never been wider
adql 4y ago
Yes but those people don't live in the office... the office wouldn't need to exist in the first place. Could be apartment block instead. Most people also like to come back to warm house so heating is running during the day
- Root_Denied 4y ago
  Also if you have pets you can't really turn off the heat (or AC in the summer for desert areas), and children usually get home in the afternoon while people are still working.
- cableshaft 4y ago
  > Most people also like to come back to warm house so heating is running during the day Also if you have pets you don't want it to be miserable for them. You might make it a couple degrees warmer/colder but not too much.

luminouslow 4y ago

>heating an office space with 500+ people is much more efficient than heating 500 individual houses Citation needed. I would argue its very hard to make any general statement about this. In my case the office is much more wasteful than the space I use for remote work for a multitude of reasons.

lm28469 4y ago
I said I'm not convinced, it obviously isn't a general thing. A friend of mine spends 500+ euros per month on gas for heating since he works from home, no way on earth his office uses 500 per person and per month on heat
- mcv 4y ago
  Is that € 500 for just the working hours? Because homes are also generally heated for other uses than work. Those reasons don't go away if you work at the office. If you've got a spouse working from home, or kids coming from school, that house is going to be heated anyway.
  - lm28469 4y ago
    > Because homes are also generally heated for other uses than work I've never heard of anyone heating their home when not in it, given the other comments it seems like it's the norm, weird
    - watwut 4y ago
      > The most common way of heating here is that you have radiators set up Most people here would need to actively tweak it every time the leave the house and every time they come in. And do it separately for each room. Just from the way how heating works - you have valve in each room that you turn in order to adjust heating. Of course no one does it every day twice.
      - lm28469 4y ago
        That's the system I have and that's how I do it, same for my family, we never leave it blasting if no one is home > Of course no one does it every day twice. Why not ? it takes like 5 seconds
        watwut 4y ago
        Sounds like fair inconvenience to go through every room and then have cold until it finally heats up.
      - mcv 4y ago
        I do. I turn up the heat in the morning and turn it down again in the evening. Smart thermostats can do that automatically, but my home office doesn't have a smart thermostat.
    - mcv 4y ago
      I certainly wouldn't heat your home when nobody is home, but most people do return home after a day at the office, and many people don't live alone. That's what I'm referring to. Or do you demand that they live in the cold while you're at the office?
    - alistairSH 4y ago
      We lower the heat if nobody is home. But, that's the difference between 70* and 65*. With no heat, the house would eventually be 32* in the dead or winter. And we only do that because smart thermostats exist and use our phones as presence sensors. Without that, we'd have to manually lower the heat and I doubt we'd bother/remember.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- teh_klev 4y ago
  I work from home full time, my gas bill is a fraction of that (~GBP100/month), and that's even accounting for the crazy energy cost increases we've seen in the UK.
- VBprogrammer 4y ago
  A 2kW electric heater can heat up any reasonable size office room up to a temperature where you are going to have to strip to your underwear (or turn it off) in under an hour in my experience. Even if it's on 8 hours a day constantly, 5 days a week, 4 weeks a month that's 320kWh or just over £100 a month at UK energy prices.
  - dijit 4y ago
    additional note: UK energy prices are currently the highest in Europe. not sure if that makes your anecdote out of date or if it puts further shade on the parents comment.
- cableshaft 4y ago
  In comparison, we have a 1600 sq ft home and only have $50 USD gas bills lately. It's definitely been higher (at least double), but we've been learning to live with a colder thermostat. Granted this is the US, and natural gas is considerably cheaper here than in a lot of countries in Europe right now, so you probably need to at least double what I said anyway for Europe.

nytesky 4y ago

Anecdotally I see many people traveling more enabled by remote work (and a single flight can equal a full year of car commuting). And I feel many people use telework days to run errands or go to lunch more frequently often nearly matching commute miles in a day.

H1Supreme 4y ago
When else are you supposed to run errands? Here's my anecdotal driving activity after taking a remote position: I used to drive every day of the week. Now, it's 3 days, on average. If I could walk or cycle to the gym (roads are 0% accessible for pedestrians), I could easily drop that to one or two days. In terms of running errands, I've moved that to a "before work" activity. It's honestly amazing how smooth it all goes at 8:00am vs 5:30pm. Plus, I consider this a net positive for the community since I'm one less person clogging up the grocery store at their busiest time.

nicbou 4y ago

A house used 100% of the time is more efficient than a house used 50% of the time + an office used 50% of the time.

postalrat 4y ago
A house used for what? Standing around?
xboxnolifes 4y ago
But it's not a house used 100% of the time vs an office used 50% of the time. It's 100 houses used 50% of the time and 1 office used 50% of the time vs 100 houses used 100% of the time.
- nicbou 4y ago
  The office needs to be heated 100% of the time, and it's larger than a house. The house is probably heated to an extent when it's empty.

rg111 4y ago

500 individual houses would be heated anyway.

lm28469 4y ago
Why would you heat a house if you're not in it. Do people really do that ?
- neutronicus 4y ago
  Well, you may live with other people who are in it when you're not, causing it to be heated anyway. But I guess the answer would be that people can't abide the thought of one uncomfortable minute in their own home, and don't bother figuring out how to program the thermostat.
- Someone1234 4y ago
  Pets. Other family members. Plus the fact that you're "daytime" heating/cooling a home from 6:30-8:30 am and 3:30-10 pm anyway, and that modern or updated homes keep their temperature for several hours. So the debate is really over a few degrees for a couple of extra hours (Vs. heating an entire other building that may not otherwise exist). I know at our workplace heating on Monday mornings has to start several hours earlier than on Tuesday because the office lost almost all of its built-up heat from the previous Friday. I also know that they continue to run the heating on holiday-Fridays/Mondays because if they don't by the following Monday/Tuesday, the temperature will drop too low and could damage equipment.
- alistairSH 4y ago
  Typical American house uses a heat pump (basically an AC run "backwards") with a single thermostat (bigger houses might have multiple complete systems). If you turned the heat off at 7am as you left for work, the house would probably be below 60 when you got home, and take most of the evening to reheat, only to be turned back down again at bed time. I don't know anybody who manually does any of this - at best, they have a smart thermostat that lets them schedule home/away time or uses cell phones as presence sensors. And even then, they'll lower the heat 5-8 degrees, not turn it off completely.

gregoriol 4y ago

Most houses stay heated during the day anyway, remote work or not, it doesn't change the situation that much. And offices will remain heated whether there are full or only half of the employees actually in the building.

edanm 4y ago
What? Why would most houses stay heated?
- gregoriol 4y ago
  Do you turn off the heating in every room in your house when you go out to work? Even if you did have some "smart" appliance that would make it easier, you'd have to "over-heat" when you come back to get again the desired temperature (or pre-heat a few hours before coming back), which would mostly make the effort's result insignificant... It would make sense to drop heating when leaving for a few days though, week-ends/holidays. Offices are not heated on week-ends for example.
  - edanm 4y ago
    Yes, of course! I'm surprised anyone wouldn't. I will note that I am in a warm country, so we much more rarely have the heat on. But if I'm out of the house for 8 hours, I'll definitely turn off the AC. It might take time to get the house cold again, but c'mon, no way we'd pay for a day's worth of electricity for no reason. I wonder how much this changes if it's heating vs cooling, and based on how much you have to heat/cool a place.

adam_arthur 4y ago

Yeah, but many offices are likely to be converted to other uses, rather than persist with partial occupation. Hotel, residential etc People often say it’s cost prohibitive, but it’s been done many times before, and valuations of Offices will get so depressed that conversions begin to look very lucrative

kayodelycaon 4y ago
Large office buildings do not convert into hotels or residential all that well. Most of them have all of their plumbing and utilities in the central core. That's not easy to retrofit. They may also not be up to code for residential use.
- adam_arthur 4y ago
  Many have been converted before, even in the recent past, Google it. https://www.washingtonian.com/2022/11/14/dc-area-leads-the-way-in-office-to-apartment-conversions/ https://www.washingtonian.com/2022/11/14/dc-area-leads-the-w... And plumbing and wiring a building is vastly cheaper than building a new one from scratch. Most modern office buildings are already designed so their tenants can orient the space however they like, Including adding/removing walls and plumbing/electric If you can buy office buildings at half the valuation of a similar square footage residential building, converting it will obviously be profitable. It was already profitable in many cases pre Covid before office became severely depressed. The valuation gap between residential and office has probably never been wider

adql 4y ago

Yes but those people don't live in the office... the office wouldn't need to exist in the first place. Could be apartment block instead. Most people also like to come back to warm house so heating is running during the day

Root_Denied 4y ago
Also if you have pets you can't really turn off the heat (or AC in the summer for desert areas), and children usually get home in the afternoon while people are still working.
cableshaft 4y ago
> Most people also like to come back to warm house so heating is running during the day Also if you have pets you don't want it to be miserable for them. You might make it a couple degrees warmer/colder but not too much.