- [Narrator] If you're returning to the office this summer,
you might be coming back to a chilly welcome.
Office temperatures have long been a common gripe
among workers and might have an impact
on how productive they are.
- I think you'd be shocked to see how many people
take time out of their day
to try to adjust their environment
so that they can actually focus on their work.
- [Narrator] This is Robert Bean,
he's a fellow and lecturer at ASHRAE.
An organization that creates standards
for things like temperature and ventilation in buildings.
He's also an expert on their standard
for creating a workplace climate
which is typically used by offices.
Bean will walk us through how the factors they consider
need to balance out to get the climate just right.
And by throwing off just one factor
can leave your office feeling
like it's still stuck in winter.
- When we use air temperature as the sole metric, you know,
what's on the thermostat on the wall
as our sole proxy for thermal comfort.
It's like saying baking soda is a cake.
We're missing all of the other ingredients.
- [Narrator] To figure out
how to make a space more comfortable,
ASHRAE looks at a number of factors
that can influence the thermal climate.
First, environmental factors.
Air speed measures how fast the air moves in a space
while mean radiant temperature
looks at the average of the temperatures
of different surfaces and things like air temperature
and humidity are also measured.
- If you think about your own day-to-day lives
and your thermal experience, and you feel drafts,
and you feel cold floors, and you feel the heat coming
through the window, which is radiant temperature
not air temperature, there's many, many ingredients.
- [Narrator] Environmental factors are combined
with two personal factors, which are a little more obvious.
One is metabolic rate.
That's how fast your body processes energy
and you can be hotter or colder
depending on how much you move.
The other is clothing insulation.
If you're wearing light clothes,
you'll be colder than someone wearing heavier clothes.
- And that's the challenge that we have for
indoor environmental consultants is to really
understand these people, what are they wearing?
What are they doing?
How long are they gonna be there?
And how does the environment around them
going to affect their sensation
and then ultimately their perception
- [Narrator] But to get the personal
and environmental factors into balance,
ASHRAE also considers local discomfort factors
which help determine the specifics
of what make people uncomfortable.
- We don't wanna have drafts.
We don't wanna have cold floors, right?
We don't want it to be so dry or so humid.
They'll tell you what you want.
But more importantly, they'll tell you what they don't want.
- [Narrator] Bean says, one source of discomfort
is when surfaces are different temperatures
which is called radiant asymmetry.
That's what happens if you're sitting next to a window
and one arm gets warmer than the other.
Another is draft, which mostly affects the parts
of your body that aren't covered by clothes.
Like that skin on your ankle,
where your pants don't quite meet your shoe.
When that ankle is colder than say your head,
that's called vertical air temperature.
Another factor ASHRAE tries to measure.
- We wanna be able to create a space using architecture,
enclosure design, interior design,
and mechanical systems to create these boundary conditions
that are diverse, but they allow people
to experience the space without stress.
That's the end-goal.
- [Narrator] So, that's what ASHRAE takes into account.
But if there's so much thought
put into your workplace climate,
then why can your office still feel so cold?
- It's really like a domino effect.
So we know that in buildings, for example, that have a lot
of glass, the mean rain temperature is gonna go up
because the sunlight is heating up all that glass.
So, what people do is they crank the air temperature down.
So, they're trying to balance that out.
- [Narrator] For many buildings,
overcompensating with the AC
might be the reason you feel too cold.
A 2009 study of 95 Office Buildings
found that most set the thermostat colder
than guidelines suggest.
There isn't an across the board reason,
the AC gets turned too low,
but researchers from Center for the Built Environment
say that poorly designed or maintained units
could be part of the problem.
But beyond the AC, changes in any factor
can make you feel colder, not moving around,
sitting too close to event,
or wearing clothes that are too light.
Some studies also suggest that thermostat settings
may be skewed toward men's preferences
who tend to wear longer, heavier layers in the office
and can have a naturally faster metabolic rate.
- We know that it's impossible to make everybody happy.
What the standard can do when it's properly applied
is that we can create conditions
so that the majority of people would be satisfied.
- [Narrator] Some experts say that turning the thermostat up
a few degrees and allowing people to adapt their spaces
to suit their own comfort is one solution to cold offices.
- As soon as you're able to adapt,
then you'll be able to see
that the temperature doesn't need to be
at such a low value that it can allow to climb up.
- [Narrator] Things like providing personal fans at desks
can allow buildings to keep the office warmer
without sacrificing comfort.
An annual program in Japan loosens up dress codes.
So, workers can wear lighter clothes
into the office to help reduce
the need for air conditioning.
But if changing your office thermostat, isn't an option.
You can try asking to move to a different seat.
You might be more comfortable next to a window
where the radiant temperature is warmer
or in a spot with lower air flow, away from event.
And if all else fails, it's not a bad idea
to keep that extra sweater at your desk.
(gentle music)