Posted on 08/04/2015 3:09:19 AM PDT by markomalley
If you’re constantly bundling up against your office building’s air conditioning, blame Povl Ole Fanger. In the 1960s, this Danish scientist developed a model, still used in many office buildings around the world, which predicts comfortable indoor temperatures for the average worker. The problem? The average office worker in the 1960s was a 40-year-old man sporting a three-piece suit. But fear not, those for whom the “work sweater” has become a mandatory addition to office attire: Researchers say they have built a better model.
The biggest problem with Fanger’s approach—which assumes a 21°C (70° Fahrenheit) office would be the most comfortable—is that it doesn’t take women into account. Men typically have faster metabolisms than women, and thus generate more heat. In addition, women tend to have much stronger vasoconstrictive reactions than men—when they get cold, their blood vessels close faster, and their sensitivity to temperature increases. Cue the work sweater.
It’s not just women who suffer. “When I have to go to conference halls they’re often way too cold,” says Wouter van Marken Lichtenbelt, an ecological energeticist at Maastricht University in the Netherlands. “It feels like there’s a winter draft blowing. Even in warm temperatures I’ll take a sweater with me if I know I have to attend a meeting.”
So in the new study, Lichtenbelt and Boris Kingma, a human biologist also at Maastricht, decided to update Fanger’s approach. They wanted a model that fosters a thermoneutral zone (not too hot, not too cold) for as many people as possible. That meant incorporating biophysical data on heat production in the body for both genders. They measured average skin temperatures and body temperatures of females in the office and adjusted the metabolic average in the biophysical model to represent a true average for a thermoneutral zone.
The result: a model that suggests office temperatures should be set at a happy medium, about 24°C (75° Fahrenheit), the team reports online today in Nature Climate Change.
Lichtenbelt and Kingma say they hope their work will not only keep everyone comfortable, but also conserve energy in the process. According to the study, residential buildings and offices currently account for 30% of global carbon dioxide emissions.
Still, not everyone is going to agree that 24°C is an optimal temperature, notes George Havenith, an environmental physiologist at Loughborough University in the United Kingdom who was not involved with the study. So he proposes a more low-tech solution, which he and his colleagues implement in their own office. “We usually cope by opening windows, or having a fan,” he says. “But mainly, we put on shorts.”
That is a trend I will never understand. Most legs need hosiery.
from my observations....ladies it would help, if you put on some clothes...
“Better crank up the AC”
Is it turn up or turn down the AC to make it cooler.
Crank up would seem to be warmer to me as up is a higher number?
????
I was a facilities person for a credit union of 39 women and 2 men.I had to lock out all the thermostats..no one was ever happy.
One ding bat that sat next to the thermostats kept a space heater under her desk all year round,talk about messing with the temp.gesh.
Had to ask her numerous times to shut it off and she refused.Had to unplug it and remove it.Finally the CEO had to talk to her.
Clearly the thermostats are set to placate the pre-menopausal women in the office! (I say this as one grateful for cold rooms!)
There it is. Men and women are different. Apparently it’s ok to say that in an article that dumps on men.
I ran a small office, had 7 ladies working there. Always complaining about temperature...some were hot, some were cold. I went to Home Depot one weekend and bought 7 thermostat units. I mounted each on the wall right beside the ladies’ desks. All if the complaints stopped, everyone was thankful and all agreed I was the best boss they ever had. Now they could reach from their typing and adjust their own personal thermostat...which they did often. I never told them the thermostats were not hooked up to the system. (Problem solved...and 10 years and two bosses later, the thermostats are still “working”).
78?! Aack — not visiting you.
Obviously the author is unaware of menopausal women, who require a thermostat that jumps between 74 F and 20 F.
OMW! I know exactly what you mean. This woman is astounded by the lack of standards that many women have for professional settings.
In the spring, while two of my sisters and I were sight-seeing in Washington, DC, we got to see a horrendous example of this. As we were seated on a bench waiting for a Metro train, 4 people walked over and stood in front of us. We had a fair amount of time to observe their attire and their demeanor and to hear their conversation, whether we wanted to or not.
It became apparent through their conversation that the two women had been assigned to or had taken on the task of showing the two men the ropes at work. The females seemed to be in their early 30s while the men seemed to be slightly younger.
The men were impeccably dressed in suits and ties. The one woman looked like she was getting ready to wash her car while the other had a bizarre get-up that consisted of a wrinkled blazer with a low cut tank top, capri pants, and 4-inch high heels with no stockings.
These 4 were employed by the FBI.
...it seems logical to set the building temperature on the cool side and let the latter wear a bit more clothing.
&&&
No! No! No! Logic is not permitted in these situations. Besides, logic, in and of itself, is probably sexist.
I had always assumed that the cooler temperatures in offices was for the benefit of the computers. The server room in the store where I work is always at a comfortable 65 degrees.
Most legs need hosiery.
***
And most of the bare arms should be covered.
I think these women see bimbos on TV with their arms and legs exposed and think that they themselves look good, too.
Ditto for the stretchy tops that are pulled to their limit against the fat rolls.
Excellent observations.
78 degrees at work and 80 at home.
Perhaps summer dress codes which require men to dress up and allow women to be comfortable are the real ‘sexist’ items to consider here.
I used to work in the financial industry and it annoyed me to no end to be required by company policy to wear a coat, tie and long-sleeve shirt to work every day in July and August while my female co-workers were allowed to dress for the weather.
It’s the humidity that gets you...
I do sort of envy the way women are allowed to dress in the workplace, especially in summer. As a man, I have to wear a suit and tie no matter what the weather. The past few weeks in NYC have been brutal with the 90 degree temps. Fortunately I'm off this week and hopefully it will cool down when I return.
But the women in summer, they get to come to a professional office with short skirts or summer dresses, short sleeve blouses and a pair of light sandals. Must be nice. I would love to come to the office in equivalent men's wear, say a pair of khaki shorts, a t-shirt and boat shoes. But that option simply does not exist for men. At least not in my office. Maybe if I worked for The Gap, I could get away with it.
No pantyhose is one thing....wearing pants that ride in the middle of their hips (tightly) and a short top is another
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