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Your Office Thermostat is Set for Men's Comfort. Here's the Scientific Proof.

posted by cmn32480 on Wednesday August 05 2015, @12:18PM   Printer-friendly

Phoenix666 writes:

Temperatures are set based on formulas that aimed to optimize employees' thermal comfort, a neutral condition of the body when it doesn't have to shiver to produce heat because it's too cold or sweat because it's too hot. It's based on four environmental factors: air temperature, radiant temperature, air velocity and humidity. And two personal factors: clothing and metabolic rate, the amount of energy required by the body to function.

The problem, according to a study in Nature Climate Change on Monday, is that metabolic rates can vary widely across humans based on a number of factors -- size, weight, age, fitness level and the type of work being done -- and today's standards are based on the assumption that every worker is, you guessed it, a man.

Or if you want to be really specific, a 40-year-old, 154-pound man.
...
Kingma and van Marken Lictenbelt's work builds on research out of Japan which found that the neutral temperature for Japanese women was 77.36 degrees (Fahrenheit) while it was 71.78 for European and North American males.

5.58 degrees is a significant difference. Is it better for half the people in the office to be sweaty than half the people in the office to be chilly?

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  • (Score: 2) by Geezer on Wednesday August 05 2015, @12:31PM

    by Geezer (511) on Wednesday August 05 2015, @12:31PM (#218460)

    My experience is that women can be cold even if dressed in Carhartts standing in a sauna on a beach in Egypt.

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  • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by c0lo on Wednesday August 05 2015, @01:01PM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 05 2015, @01:01PM (#218473) Journal

    women will always be frigid if dressed in Carhartts standing in a sauna on a beach in Egypt.

    FTFY.
    (If my memory serves...) ...to warm them up, you need to let aside your geezer attitude, made them comfortable and... you know?... get to a point when you undress them. A lost art that, um?
    (grin)

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford

    • (Score: 2) by Geezer on Wednesday August 05 2015, @02:02PM

      by Geezer (511) on Wednesday August 05 2015, @02:02PM (#218515)

      It point of fact, it is a delicate art I've refined to near-perfection and practice every evening on Wife v2.0 :p

      • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Wednesday August 05 2015, @02:28PM

        by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday August 05 2015, @02:28PM (#218537) Journal

        It point of fact, it is a delicate art

        Mmmm... happy to hear it. It means my memory is not totally wrecked. :)

        --
        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2015, @11:01PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 05 2015, @11:01PM (#218829)

    I've seen my partner wander around shivering, stammering in the "cold" of 24 degrees celsius. I've seen her wander around in 18 degrees, sweating and complaining it's too hot.

    I've seen her moaning that 28 was just too cold. She would have me light the fire, then she'd stand right in front of it making sure she reflected the heat straight back into the fireplace, and then bitch that the house wasn't warming up.

    For me, when the temperature passes 25 degrees I start feeling weak, restless, and have the urge to vomit.