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.”
I keep mine at 78....acclimate!!
I work in a retail environment—no uniform, and I can dress casually. Many of our customers stop in at their lunch breaks, after work, etc., so I “see” how professionals dress. And of course there is ALWAYS the images we see on TV.
When did grown women STOPPED wearing both panty and and sleeves? Even in “business” casual (men wearing golf type shirts) some of the women oddly dress for their positions and age.
Sleeves. Pantyhose (or just wear slacks). Shift dresses, 3 in heels, and 40something arms/legs exposed are not professional looking at all.
Boy do I sound cranky....must be warm. Better crank up the AC...
And while I’m at it....”stay off my lawn!”
Pantyhose!!!!!!!!!! My cohorts stopped wearing pantyhose!!!!!!!
Yikes!!!
I thought you meant that the women are now going commando. I was hoping you’d tell us where this office is.
You should swelter because ‘climate change’ and other nations don’t use AC as much as we do.
Lol.
I can’t believe the goofs I’ve made, and it’s not even 7am!
Maybe I should stay off my own lawn for safety.
Warmist!
crappola. ASHRAE indoor design temp is 75 degrees.
I used to work in an open spaced call center. When the old ladies showed up early in the morning, they would turn up the thermostat to 85 and sometimes 90. By the time I would arrive around 10 pm, it was a sauna but those old bitties never noticed. It was up to somebody else with the nerve to turn it down.
I think we all better stay off the lawn together! LOL
Someone in our offices is often complaining about the temp. Sleeveless in October at times.
There are very few people who look good sleeveless.
Our home is totally air conditioned with the thermostat set at 73 +/- one or two degrees. My wife loves warm weather and will go outside to the deck, or where ever, to “enjoy the warm and often very humid air”. This past week we have seen temps (outside) in the 90’s, she loves it, I’ll stay inside thank you.
The thermostat battle in every office is between the young ladies and the menopausal ladies, and between the thin people and the fat people. Also, we didn’t need a study to tell us the best temperature for those who find 70 too cold is, well, a higher temperature. One of the signs of a government created supply bubble of academics is “studies” concluding what your grandmother could have told you.
I have worked in a lab kept at 65 for the electronics.... and in another that they couldn’t get below 94 because of all the gear they had in there. You adjust.
LOL! I agree with you.
The headline is just trying to get our attention. The main point is the change in work attire. (Women who get cold more easily are probably equaled in number by women who are having hot flashes.)
Excellent point.
And this is from a so-called “science” website?
Not shocked as leftists now push utter bulls*it by hiding it behind supposed science and then daring you to dissent least you want to be seen as being “anti science”.
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