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Spain bans setting the AC below 27 degrees Celsius
- andreareina 4y ago*in public places; your home is still yours to cool as you wish (though few homes have AC)
- ugjka 4y agoHow much effort would it take to add "in public places" to the title? Oh wait, then it is not clickbait...
- public_defender 4y agoI guess the "don't wear ties" comment was meant to be less serious, but men's business clothing has driven a lot of office thermostats to 60⁰F over the course of my experience. Men in suits and ties are comfortable at the approximate temperature of a meat locker, while everyone else is freezing and energy is wasted. If the PM were serious about trendsetting to reduce energy use, he would ban the suit jacket and encourage men to wear shorts to work.
- bearmode 4y agoIt's not just that, it's also that men have higher skin temps than women. If a man and woman were wearing the exact same clothes, in the exact same room, the man would still almost certainly be feeling warmer.
- ZeroGravitas 4y agoWhat's the relative impact of that vs clothing though?
- nottorp 4y agoI'd say far less than the layers of wool in a suit. I work from home and don't do business suits. I've always kept the a/c on 26 because I don't like the shock that you get when moving even from 19 to 30. Looks like other people are finally noticing that...
- waqf 4y agoIs that effect mediated by body size, or is it true even when corrected for body size and shape?
- piva00 4y agoIt is directly affected by body fat at least. Fat is insulating (hence whales, seals, etc. having a thick fat layer) and definitely being on the larger size with a higher % of body fat makes someone feel warmer.
- bearmode 4y agoIt's also directly affected by muscle mass, for a similar reason. Also body mass to body surface area does play a part from what I've read.
- draw_down 4y ago
- mathgladiator 4y agoFor whatever reason, I don't comprehend Celsius intuitively. I convert that to Fahrenheit and see 80.6 degrees. Is Spain dry? Or humid? I would revolt as I much prefer cold.
- citrin_ru 4y ago27 is a comfortable indoor temperature for me (if I wear a T-shirt and don’t do heavy physical work). I wonder where a big difference in preferred temperature comes from, given that body temperature is almost the same for all healthy people?
- Leherenn 4y agoDry. Most of Europe is, except on rare occasions.
- rockinghigh 4y agoNorther Spain is quite humid.
- manuelabeledo 4y agoNorthern Spain is quite humid all year round. I don't get why you said that most Europe is dry. Germany, France, the British Isles, the Netherlands, Poland, etc. aren't dry at all.
- Leherenn 4y agoSorry, I should have clarified I meant when it's hot, which I think was what OP meant in the context of AC. When I meant dry, is that when it's hot (like the 35+°C), it's dry, not that it's never humid. Entire days with 30+ and 100% humidity pretty much never happens in Europe. For instance, Bilbao is quite humid right now (about 80%), but max temps are in the 25°C. Madrid is expected to reach 39°C today, but humidity is about 30%.
- Oletros 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- stefandesu 4y agoI've never understood why (in some countries) public places are so cooled down in the summer and so heated up in the winter. In Japan, in the summer they put the ACs to what feels like 16ºC, so whenever you go from outdoor (very hot and humid) to indoor, you feel like you'll freeze (because you're dressed for 30ºC). In the winter, they put the ACs to 25ºC, so you move from outdoor to indoor, it's extremely hot and sticky (as you're dressed for 5ºC). Why not meet in the middle and use 21ºC or something all year round? (Or save energy and just change the temperature a little to make it a bit more bearable.)
- cko 4y agoI saw a video about Hong Kong where colder shopping malls are considered more upscale. Waste is a Veblen good in that context, I guess.
- manuelabeledo 4y agoI think we might have seen the same video. It happens in other places in Asia as well, not only Hong Kong. It's quite uncomfortable to go from ~34C and 98% humidity, to an environment at ~20C and less than 50% humidity. I'm surprised people don't get more respiratory illnesses more often.
- greatgib 4y agoWhen I was in Asia, I experienced that also. First it was hard for me and making me sick, but then I got used to it also. For a westerner, it might be hard to imagine constantly living with high temperatures like that. And for example having to sleep everyday with such climate.
- cassianoleal 4y ago> For a westerner, it might be hard to imagine constantly living with high temperatures like that. Plenty of "western" countries and regions have similar climates.
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- manuelabeledo 4y agoFor context, A/C in public places is not as prevalent as in the US. In some large retailers, e.g. El Corte Ingles, it's set to ~24 degrees Celsius, quite lower than outdoors, especially in the larger cities of Central, Southern, and Mediterranean Spain. It feels really cold. Anyway, the odd voice here is the one from the president of the Madrid region, who went on Twitter to say that they won't comply, mostly not because of the A/C, but another bit that requires stores to shut off their lights when they are closed, effectively keeping their showcases in the dark at night. Personally, it sounds like the stupidest hill to die on.
- hgazx 4y agoFreedom is a good hill to die on.
- gambiting 4y agoWhat does that have to do with freedom? You mean the freedom of a business owner to set their AC to whatever they like? Why is that symbolic of "freedom" in any way? As a business owner we have agreed as a society that there is a lot of rules you have to obey already - you cannot throw your rubbish out on the street, you must post your prices clearly, you must provide disabled access, you must give refunds for faulty items, etc etc etc. How is it freedom to be able to set your AC to 25C, but not building disabled access for your customers isn't?
- reainR 4y agoThis post resonates with me, well put
- hgazx 4y agoThe fact that we don’t have as much freedom as we should means we have carte blanche to keep taking freedom away from us? What an argument. A self fulfilling prophecy! Yes we should have the freedom to keep our lights on if we want as long as we pay our bills. And if we want we shouldn’t have to build a ramp to our business. How are these things even something to argue about?
- saargrin 4y ago27C is intolerable to work in..
- piva00 4y agoI work from home most days, living in Sweden which makes me more used to colder temps. Some weeks ago we had a few days over 27C and my working space thermometer measured 26C inside. It was perfectly comfortable.
- tnova 4y agoMy working space thermometer was also measuring 26C last week and I was very uncomfortable. Tolerance for warm and cold temperatures is different for everyone.
- orwin 4y agoIt's like France, it's in public place only. Your office will be kept at 24.
- rstuart4133 4y agoIt depends on what the 27C measures. It's dry bulb temperature in desert with a breeze, it might even be a bit chilly. The 27C headline figure would make more sense if it was something not commonly quoted, the web bulb temperature: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Psychrometric-chart-Givoni-1992_fig1_327768540 https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Psychrometric-chart-Givo... Yes, outdoors, with high humidity, and 27C can become uncomfortable. But keep indoors away from direct or indirect infra red radiation (hot surfaces in sunlight like external walls and roofs can radiate a lot of IR into windows and the like, sunlight streaming into a window can add 1KW heating per square meter of window), in humidity low enough so you don't sweat, and add a fan then as you can see from that graph (area 12) it can be pleasant up to 30C. But remove the fan, raise the humidity, and even 25C can become downright unpleasant. Setting the air-conditioning to 27C should be comfortable in the right clothes. Provided it is significantly hotter outside, the air conditioning won't just drop the temperature to 27C, it will drop the humidity as well. Keep the air moving and your body will do the rest.
- ChrisRR 4y ago27? Here in the UK I would've thought most offices keep it around 22-25
- capableweb 4y agoNo surprise that different people from different climates are used to different temperatures...
- ciconia 4y agoWhat would a modern human do without technology? Judging from the comments here it seems almost nobody can tolerate anything less than perfect thermal confort. Personally I find this ridiculous. Our bodies are perfectly capable of regulating their temperature over a pretty wide range of circumstances, especially with the help of adequate clothing, yet people are complaining about 18c in the winter or 25c in the summer.
- manuelabeledo 4y ago> Judging from the comments here it seems almost nobody can tolerate anything less than perfect thermal confort. You could use the same argument against any modern technology. A car? Our bodies are designed to walk for hours. A hot shower? Our bodies can withstand cold water, and don't need to be washed every day anyway. And so on and so forth.
- Ekaros 4y agoWe live longest with slight starvation... Doesn't seem to be hugely popular though.
- ciconia 4y ago> You could use the same argument against any modern technology. Yes, technology is there to make our lives more comfortable, but at what price? Is modern society mature enough to weigh the pros and cons of each technology? I doubt it.
- aaron695 4y ago