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IN THE DECADES-old battle around office air conditioning, perhaps one thing hasn’t been considered: gender.
Bear with us here.
There are always going to be people unhappy with the temperature of the air conditioning in their office (and here at TheJournal.ie towers we know that well), but new research suggests that it’s because most office air-con systems set temperatures for men.
Or rather, the metabolic rates of men.
That’s according to Boris Kingma and Wouter van Marken Lichtenbelt, who write about their study in Nature.
They state:
Indoor climate regulations are based on an empirical thermal comfort model that was developed in the 1960s. Standard values for one of its primary variables – metabolic rate – are based on an average male, and may overestimate female metabolic rate by up to 355. This may cause buildings to be intrinsically non-energy-efficient in providing comfort to females.
It’s worth noting that in the 1960s, male-only or male-dominated offices would have been the norm, given the lower numbers of women working in this sphere. So basing the temperature on an average male would, at that time, have made some sense.
But today, things are different, and this study points out that the situation is not just bad for women’s comfort, but also for the environment.
The authors argue that air conditioning “should accurately represent the thermal demand of all occupants” and this would be better for the environment (and the atmosphere in the office).
Ultimately, an accurate representation of thermal demand of all occupants leads to actual energy consumption predictions and real energy savings of buildings that are designed and operated by the buildings services community.
They point out that in general, females prefer a higher room temperature than males – around 25 degrees celsius to 22 degrees respectively.
So next time you’re unhappy with the temperature of your office, you know what’s to blame.
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We have duel climate control in the car and my wife still isn’t happy because apparently the cold air from my side keeps seeping over to her side. Bloody air doing what it wants.
Tell her that violates thermodynamics.
“Lisa, get in here! In this house we obey the laws of thermodynamics!”
So in terms of air-conditioning it’s better for the environment to set it by female standards. Wouldn’t that mean in Winter it’s worse for the environment when more heating would be required? 6 of 1 etc.
Shush with your logic. Logic has no place in these arguments.
Air-conditioning is a social construct anyway. Men and women are equal.
Air conditioner? Pff, ’twas far from air conditioners I was raised! Never had air conditioners in any office I ever worked in :(
My office is currently a converted shipping container with a desk and a wobbly chair. Does a draft count as air conditioning?
Ha, gkrell, poor auld Caitlin Jenner is in for a quare hop so. Or does the perceived colder temperature only kick in after the removal of the pump and toolbag?
Journal are you deliberately trying to sabotage yourself ? All these ridiculous nonsense stories and no real news and the number of views are hugely down ? It seems people actually do want to kniow whats going on in the world and don’t want to be drip fed utter nonsense like morons. You’re definitely not a newspaper just another peddler of useless bullshit for the dumb plebs like an online Sun, but you seem to be making a concerted effort to push more in that direction. Guess I should delete the app.
Look at the regular commentors to see who you’re dealing with. The Sun is superior which is some feat.
Sexist air conditioning? Jesus christ will you f*ck off
Fascinating. However running your air con at a higher temperature is not very energy efficient. The solution to feeling cold is to wear more clothes. An office temperature of 25C seems very high and would make most males very uncomfortable. Drop the temperature and dress more warmly. 19C seems about right!
Really…. Fu€k off with this nonsense sexist bull sh!t. So we’ve to redesign air conditioning now because it’s sexist and not equal.
the only problem with ac is most women don’t know how to use the controls
Like I wrote on the story about middle-eastern female body builders; there is literally nothing feminists won’t whinge about.
Put a top on if you’re cold. People who are too hot can’t strip off in the office.
Women are always cold, nothing to do with the air conditioning.
First world problem non story
Jesus Aoife, you’re really scraping the bottom of the “feminist outrage” barrel with this one.
I’d be more concerned that there are loser out there researching this. Maybe they could do something more productive – like scooping up leaves from people’s driveways for free.
Come on now. How else are feminists going to be outraged? They need to be coddled.
Fake tan is racist!
Jesus Aoife do you ever do any real journalism.. your two efforts at it this morning are miserable gutter trash attempts at feminism… surely when your promoting the feminist agenda you should attempt to find actual cases where there is a problem, not where some clown doesn’t like a photo, and telling us air con( which helps you breath in an office ), is sexist
I prefer room temperature to be 18°c to 20°c- anything above this I find uncomfortable and get headaches!
Men need to keep their balls cool for health reasons.
So stick a jumper on or deal with a new trend of men going commando in a kilt and knee high desk fans humming under desks everywhere.
Nobody likes sitting in ball soup.
Huh. There’s a lady I work with who gets sick every time the aircon comes on. I wonder if that’s related. I think everyone fights over the room temperature though. Too hot for some, too cold for others. Can’t keep anyone happy.
It recirculates viruses and bacteria. it’s like being in a plane.
That generally has to do with dirty filters in the air con. They need to be serviced once per year usually but no one really does anything about them until they break.
And it’s a power hungry monster. Go to the back of any modern office block. They are huge and getting bigger.
It’s with noting that a female colleague can put on a jumper while us males cannot strip off our shirts. The that SHOULD be on the cooler side. This is not even taking in to account that in general the business dress code allows females to wear clothes that keep them much cooler.
So in the office environment there will be either hot males and cool women or cool males and hot women.
Air conditioning is the most sexist thing I’ve ever heard of!
C.N.S …… Possibly…
( Cold nipple syndrome )
Nothing wrong with being sexy
for f*** sake the politicly correct thought police must be running out of things to complain about if this is what they are dragging up.
do writers on this site work on a view quota / comments quota? seems like pushing some sort of anti-male angle will smash that.
Here they turn it down by an extra 5-7 degrees so women can make a statement about how much money their husbands make with expensive fur coats and Moncler ski jackets that it’s too warm to even consider wearing outside…
It’s pretty sexist… Not to mention environmentally devastating
I can’t agree with the assertion that offices in the 1960s would have been male dominated, the opposite would have been the case.
Get an outdoor job!
if it’s too cold put more clothes on. simples.
Expect a campaign to bring an end to this outrage to start shortly
It will be called “turn the headlights off”
amirite?
Put on some clothes girls.
Simple.
jesus christ what next?
Actually picking a temperature and sticking with it as a norm makes sense. Women’s bodies change temperature wise during their monthly cycle and also during menopause. Both of these times women can usually prefer cooler temperatures. This is a biological fact. Most air conditioning is adjustable anyway. I worked in a predominately all female section a
Sorry phone went ape for a second and posted comment before I finished. Anyway in a mostly female section there was always open warfare about the temperature of the office. Older women wanted cool younger women wanted heat. I wanted peace but it never happened.
so they could come with a “hot-flush” setting?
Not true according to Frozen.
But on a more serious note, what a stupid article, designed solely for the purpose of clickbait, so we can all have a good laugh at feminists(not that the article even has anything to do with feminism, but that’s where certain people are always going to go for a b*tch). It’s articles like this, and then the comments from the eejits who get predictably outraged about how awful feminism is that make any kind of progress in terms of gender equality(whether for women or men) next to impossible to achieve. And all for the sake of a few extra clicks into an article. I’ve stopped reading other websites for this type of crap, I actually expected a bit more from the Journal. Maybe that makes me the dope. =\
” I actually expected a bit more from the Journal. Maybe that makes me the dope. =\ ”
Yup. Especially when they run this article and then a few scrolls up the front page, there is one about ISIS setting market prices for sex slaves.
God Almighty this article is only telling us the results of this guys research and is clearly done in a tongue in cheek manner.
Not every article about women has a feminist agenda yet inevitably these women centred articles attract guys who rant and rave to their hearts content about said women and feminism. Grow up fellas.
Boil your head
Some offices have placebo thermostats that lets people adjust temp to keep them satisfied but actually changes nothing. Fools
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