8 ms·

US takes great pains to reduce power use, like the ones mentioned in the article but as you point out HVACs at offices work 24/7 at a very cold temperature, so

by Jun8 3y ago

US takes great pains to reduce power use, like the ones mentioned in the article but as you point out HVACs at offices work 24/7 at a very cold temperature, so much so that most people bring jackets to work. Cranking the cold up by 1-2F in hotels and offices will probably be imperceptible, yet may save a tremendous amount of energy.

koolba 3y ago
> HVACs at offices work 24/7 at a very cold temperature, so much so that most people bring jackets to work. You can always add clothes. If it’s too hot, there’s only so much you can remove. Particularly in a corporate setting
- klardotsh 3y ago
  Yep. Offices should basically be as cold as realistically feasible for the group working there, but no colder. Few things make me less productive than being in a hot environment: about 69F/20C is my ideal, and if it has to be either direction from there, it should be colder. Anything over about 74F interior temperature and my ability to do much critical thought is basically gone; I have no real heat tolerance but can deal with cold for ages. This is a huge argument in favor of WFH: fewer/no arguments over office temps, a debate about as old as time itself, and particularly a place where it's going to be extremely difficult to get varied groups of folks to all be comfortable and agree (imagine someone super petite vs someone with a good bit of body mass, or someone who grew up in Norway vs someone from Singapore, or even just guys and gals who statistically tend to have different circulation, fat levels, etc. leading to different preferences in ambient temperature).
  - lowercased 3y ago
    Years ago I worked in a moderately large mostly open-office place. My room (with devs) housed 6. There were two open areas with around 80-100 people in open cubes, then... there was a small hallway closed off with 5 offices - the 'executive' hall. One exec guy would turn the AC on high because there was little circulation over there. He liked it 'cool'. I was on the other side of the open area, in a small office. I'd come in in July, and the thermometer on my digital desk clock said 63f. I could not move my fingers to type efficiently because it was so cold. My fingers ached. I brought in a space heater and was chastised that I was "making a big deal out of nothing". 100+ people were consistently uncomfortable to make sure one person was comfortable. The energy waste had to have been enormous. The days this guy was in it reminded me of working in foodservice, having to stock the walk-in cooler on delivery days. Yes, by afternoon, it was bearable, but 63f was just too cold to work effectively. Dozens of us were impacted, but the one top exec needed his comfort the 3 days a week he was in.
    - klardotsh 3y ago
      I'd call that below "realistically feasible for the group" then, for sure. If you can't even move your fingers, that's a bit far down the "keep it cool" spectrum :)
    - brightlancer 3y ago
      > and the thermometer on my digital desk clock said 63f. ... > The days this guy was in it reminded me of working in foodservice, having to stock the walk-in cooler on delivery days. 63F is not a walk-in cooler; 40F is a walk-in cooler. Hyperbole like this is just rubbish.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
  - MissingAFew 3y ago
    ... man, people need to toughen up. You can't think in 74 degrees? If it was 80, okay maybe I could sympathize. But 74 is colder than what I have mine set at home regularly.
    - klardotsh 3y ago
      74's a rough guesstimate (I don't sit here with a thermometer all day, after all). Some days my tolerance for thinkable heat is certainly higher. But in general, some folks just don't do warm rooms, and it is what it is. Outdoors we at least have airflow to wick heat away. Indoors, it's just stale, warm air (there's other trains of thought that discuss the impact of CO2 in rooms on deep thought; I don't have any such studies handy to link at the moment but it does come to mind tangentially).
      - MissingAFew 3y ago
        I know people "don't do" warm rooms. Though honestly, 74 doesn't even qualify as that. They should get used to it. Cooling large spaces is a huge waste of electricity, and it's not like 74 degrees is anywhere near hot or miserable.
      - Izkata 3y ago
        > Outdoors we at least have airflow to wick heat away. Indoors, it's just stale, warm air Our bodies generate a pocket of heat that we end up sitting in without airflow. Years ago I bough an air circulator (a fan designed to push a lot of air slowly across a room, instead of blowing on a person) specifically to deal with this, and it brought my room-temperature-upper-tolerance from ~76 to ~80 without any need for AC.
  - didntcheck 3y ago
    I'd even say 20C is warm for an office. I'd expect 19 or 18

by Jun8 3y ago

koolba 3y ago

> HVACs at offices work 24/7 at a very cold temperature, so much so that most people bring jackets to work. You can always add clothes. If it’s too hot, there’s only so much you can remove. Particularly in a corporate setting

klardotsh 3y ago
Yep. Offices should basically be as cold as realistically feasible for the group working there, but no colder. Few things make me less productive than being in a hot environment: about 69F/20C is my ideal, and if it has to be either direction from there, it should be colder. Anything over about 74F interior temperature and my ability to do much critical thought is basically gone; I have no real heat tolerance but can deal with cold for ages. This is a huge argument in favor of WFH: fewer/no arguments over office temps, a debate about as old as time itself, and particularly a place where it's going to be extremely difficult to get varied groups of folks to all be comfortable and agree (imagine someone super petite vs someone with a good bit of body mass, or someone who grew up in Norway vs someone from Singapore, or even just guys and gals who statistically tend to have different circulation, fat levels, etc. leading to different preferences in ambient temperature).
- lowercased 3y ago
  Years ago I worked in a moderately large mostly open-office place. My room (with devs) housed 6. There were two open areas with around 80-100 people in open cubes, then... there was a small hallway closed off with 5 offices - the 'executive' hall. One exec guy would turn the AC on high because there was little circulation over there. He liked it 'cool'. I was on the other side of the open area, in a small office. I'd come in in July, and the thermometer on my digital desk clock said 63f. I could not move my fingers to type efficiently because it was so cold. My fingers ached. I brought in a space heater and was chastised that I was "making a big deal out of nothing". 100+ people were consistently uncomfortable to make sure one person was comfortable. The energy waste had to have been enormous. The days this guy was in it reminded me of working in foodservice, having to stock the walk-in cooler on delivery days. Yes, by afternoon, it was bearable, but 63f was just too cold to work effectively. Dozens of us were impacted, but the one top exec needed his comfort the 3 days a week he was in.
  - klardotsh 3y ago
    I'd call that below "realistically feasible for the group" then, for sure. If you can't even move your fingers, that's a bit far down the "keep it cool" spectrum :)
  - brightlancer 3y ago
    > and the thermometer on my digital desk clock said 63f. ... > The days this guy was in it reminded me of working in foodservice, having to stock the walk-in cooler on delivery days. 63F is not a walk-in cooler; 40F is a walk-in cooler. Hyperbole like this is just rubbish.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
- MissingAFew 3y ago
  ... man, people need to toughen up. You can't think in 74 degrees? If it was 80, okay maybe I could sympathize. But 74 is colder than what I have mine set at home regularly.
  - klardotsh 3y ago
    74's a rough guesstimate (I don't sit here with a thermometer all day, after all). Some days my tolerance for thinkable heat is certainly higher. But in general, some folks just don't do warm rooms, and it is what it is. Outdoors we at least have airflow to wick heat away. Indoors, it's just stale, warm air (there's other trains of thought that discuss the impact of CO2 in rooms on deep thought; I don't have any such studies handy to link at the moment but it does come to mind tangentially).
    - MissingAFew 3y ago
      I know people "don't do" warm rooms. Though honestly, 74 doesn't even qualify as that. They should get used to it. Cooling large spaces is a huge waste of electricity, and it's not like 74 degrees is anywhere near hot or miserable.
    - Izkata 3y ago
      > Outdoors we at least have airflow to wick heat away. Indoors, it's just stale, warm air Our bodies generate a pocket of heat that we end up sitting in without airflow. Years ago I bough an air circulator (a fan designed to push a lot of air slowly across a room, instead of blowing on a person) specifically to deal with this, and it brought my room-temperature-upper-tolerance from ~76 to ~80 without any need for AC.
- didntcheck 3y ago
  I'd even say 20C is warm for an office. I'd expect 19 or 18