When Micah Pollak posted his go-to thermostat settings online, he had no inkling of the trouble that lay ahead. Micah, an economist at Indiana University, noted that “most of our friends” tend to set their air conditioning units between 68°F and 73°F during the summer months, he observed in late June. “We preserve ours at 77-78F. What do you think? Are we monstrous? The debate raged on for almost a thousand responses before a surprising agreement emerged: yes, Micah’s family are indeed monstrous, with all the characteristics of lizards.
As Micah went about his daily routine, he unwittingly tracked a series of numbers disseminated by the Environmental Safety Company every summer, following a broadcast on local television providing tips on how to reduce energy consumption and lower utility bills. To optimize energy efficiency and reduce bills during heat waves, consider setting your thermostat to 78°F (25°C) when you’re home, 82°F (28°C) in the evenings, and 85°F (29°C) when you’re away for extended periods.
For many people, embracing a sleeping temperature of 82°F seems utterly preposterous. Despite consultant warnings, another factor to consider is the impact of rising vitality costs on businesses. As utility companies invest in grid resilience to combat climate change effects, expenses are expected to surge further. Excessive climate events have become increasingly common, with heatwaves standing out as a particular concern when thousands of people rely on air conditioning units to stay cool.
While cranking up your thermostat may not be an ideal solution to stay warm, it’s not entirely unforgivable either. Typically, when temperatures soar, I find myself adjusting the thermostat to a comfortable 72 degrees Fahrenheit. If I may become accustomed to a pleasant indoor temperature of 78 degrees, I wouldn’t just reduce costs; I’d also be contributing to maintaining the power grid’s stability and ensuring everyone else can enjoy some relief from the heat as well? The financial savings are indeed actual. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, increasing your air conditioner’s temperature by one degree can result in a 6% decrease in cooling costs, with diminishing returns as you set the thermostat higher. Simply put, if your average monthly cooling bill is $170, increasing your thermostat by just one degree can save you over $10 per month.
There’s one huge downside, although. That purported 78-degree baseline isn’t a genuine recommendation from federal authorities. While the EPA’s Energy Star program provides general guidelines on programmable thermostat settings, it does not offer specific recommendations for setting temperatures during the summer season. Here are the actual energy-saving settings presented in the information.
“A person’s family temperature preferences are a deeply personal choice, and ultimately, individuals should prioritize their own comfort,” Leslie Jones, a public affairs specialist at Energy Star, said.
The company recommends adjusting heating and cooling settings by up to 10% simply by setting your thermostat 7-10°F higher or lower for 8 hours a day, relative to its standard setting. In other words, if you normally keep your home at 71°F when you’re present, consider raising it to 78°F when you leave for the day.
Setting your thermostat to 78 degrees Fahrenheit is hardly an unsettling notion. If you’re setting your thermostat to 72°F, you might be sacrificing a bit of energy and zest.
Who wants the federal government dictating what they must do during sweltering summer temperatures? While many assume they understand how air conditioning works, the actual key to maximizing its efficiency and conserving energy lies in debunking these assumptions. To address the widespread criticism of our thermostat settings, I consulted with experts in thermal comfort, HVAC systems, and architectural design.
Many of the most effective ways to stay cool are surprisingly simple and affordable.
What drives us to fight over the temperature in our homes, workplaces, and cars? Is it a quest for ultimate comfort, a need for control, or a desire to assert dominance over others? The answer may lie in the complexities of human psychology. Perhaps it’s the primal urge to create a sense of security by controlling one’s environment. Or maybe it’s simply a matter of personal preference, with some people valuing warmth and coziness while others prefer a cooler, more refreshing atmosphere. Whatever the reason, the thermostat has become a symbol of our ongoing struggle for control, comfort, and connection in an increasingly complex world.
The age-old ritual of thermostat wars has been woven into the fabric of American culture. Throughout the seasons, it’s common for a home to struggle with maintaining an optimal temperature that suits everyone in the household.
It’s also for a noble purpose. Physiologically, each of us has a unique optimal thermal comfort zone.
In response to a human thermal efficiency researcher at the Netherlands Institute for Utilised Knowledge Technology (TNO), it ultimately boils down to several critical factors. The environmental conditions – including temperature, humidity, wind, and solar radiation – are undoubtedly the dominant factors. If the temperature is sizzling hot outside, you’ll likely feel like it’s burning up. While an individual’s metabolic rate and fundamental physiology are crucial factors, it is equally important to consider their age, overall health, and what they’re wearing.
Individuals claiming they “run hot” are often unwittingly referencing the role of metabolism in their physiological response. Those with high metabolisms may unknowingly generate increased body heat as a byproduct of their bodily processes. Individuals possessing excess muscle mass tend to possess more robust metabolic processes, retain body heat more effectively, and generally prefer ambient temperatures that are slightly cooler than average. Who suffer from decreased metabolisms and may need to wear an extra layer in their uncomfortably air-conditioned office spaces. As people age, their metabolic rates naturally slow down, which might explain why your grandparents seem to maintain a comfortable indoor temperature at home?
Given the significant regional and individual differences in climate preferences, it is indeed challenging if not impossible to pinpoint a single thermostat setting that would uniformly satisfy all Americans. It’s astonishingly challenging to reach a consensus within a single household. However, the excellent news is that our bodies are incredibly adept at adapting to new environments. According to Kingma, the human body takes approximately 14 days to adjust to a new thermoregulatory baseline. For those accustomed to New York City’s relatively mild summer average of 80°F, moving to Miami, where temperatures are closer to 90°F, you’ll likely adapt quickly.
The identical considerations hold for thermostat settings as well. While subtle changes can occur with environmental adjustments, it’s essential to maintain a realistic expectation that such modifications won’t dramatically alter your physiology within a pair of weeks? As a result of their unique properties, followers are remarkably effective at facilitating the evaporation of sweat by transferring air around the skin and its pores. Wearing unfastened clothing has a similar effect.
According to Kingma, most solutions to this particular drawback do not require advanced technology. Human beings have always had to adapt to varying temperatures.
The significance of evaporation cannot be overstated at this juncture. Sweating has a cooling effect because the fluid on our skin’s surface and in pores evaporates, ultimately bringing down our body temperature. When humidity levels are high, the air becomes overwhelmed with moisture, hindering the evaporation of sweat and making it difficult to relax. In arid conditions or on blustery days, the warmth is dry and unforgiving, prompting sweat to evaporate at an accelerated pace, thereby facilitating effortless cooling. Situation
Initially, our focus on reducing humidity enabled us to pioneer the development of air conditioning technology. In 1902, engineer Willis Service intervened at a Brooklyn printing firm plagued by summer heat-induced wrinkles on its journal pages. The machine dispatched a stream of air through coils filled with icy cold water, effectively removing excess moisture and cooling the surrounding space. In 1922, the pioneering Service Air Conditioning Firm of America introduced its groundbreaking development: a practical and efficient centrifugal refrigeration compressor, revolutionizing modern air conditioning technology.
Most air conditioning (AC) models currently operate efficiently through a streamlined process comprising just three straightforward steps. They extract warm air from the room, chilling it by passing it through coils filled with refrigerant, and then pump the cooled air back into the space while dissipating the heat to the outside environment using a compressor, which is why your air conditioner can sometimes produce a noise reminiscent of a starting car. Warmth pumps function similarly when cooling, with more on that to follow momentarily.
Air conditioning is an energy-intensive process, and the refrigerants used in them pose several concerns of their own. The most widely used refrigerants, responsible for powering these machines, were initially chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and hydrofluorocarbons (HCFCs), commonly known as “freon,” which are potent greenhouse gases that deplete the ozone layer and contribute to global climate change. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has been phasing out many of these chemical substances to adapt. While some fashionable substitutes for traditional chemicals do not deplete the ozone layer, they still possess significant greenhouse gas properties.
While air conditioning has long provided comforting relief from the heat, its widespread adoption has had a profound impact on the environment?
While they necessitate abundant vitality, which cannot always be supplied by fossil fuels alone, many air conditioners also emit additional greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. While air conditioners provide a welcome respite from summer’s heat, they also have an unintended consequence: contributing to global warming in the long run. .
While innovations like warmth pumps hold potential for a more environmentally friendly approach to heating and cooling, the widespread adoption of such technologies is likely to be hampered by the significant financial and logistical challenges involved in replacing existing, outdated HVAC infrastructure. For many, along with renters and surety companies, these upgrades may seem out of reach entirely. The battle for control of the temperature settings persists.
A futile endeavor to ensure universal comfort.
There is no single, magic thermostat setting that will simultaneously satisfy everyone’s comfort needs while maximizing energy savings. For individuals such as Micah, an economist, a temperature of 78 degrees throughout the day is considered pleasant. For others, 68º is ideal. Efforts have been made to address this drawback at an organizational level. Have you ever suffered through a sweltering summer day in a large office building, where some well-intentioned cooling attempts fell short?
While there is often a significant difference between controlling the temperature at your place of work versus at home, one key distinction lies in the fact that you typically have little to no control over the office thermostat. While workplaces strive to create comfortable environments for everyone, let’s gain insight into the decision-making process that occurs in our personal lives.
Established by the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), the organization sets industry standards for all HVAC-related matters. The standard ANSI/ASHRAE Customary 55 provides guidelines for optimizing thermal comfort in built environments by offering recommendations on how to manage factors such as air temperature, humidity, and ventilation. The system enables real-time adjustments to temperature, humidity, airflow, and thermal radiation within a given space, precisely tailoring its conditions to accommodate the specific exercise routine and attire of those present. When building an enterprise and seeking to create a comfortable work environment for all employees, consider this insight.
ASHRAE diverges from the EPA’s approach by establishing specific temperature guidelines for building thermostats. The temperature range is roughly 23° to 26°C, or 73.4°F to 78.8°F during the summer season. According to a former ASHRAE president, “At least 80 percent of both women and men thrive in temperatures that span this range.” However, others might argue that the upper end of this spectrum can be uncomfortably hot, potentially hindering productivity. According to scientific research on temperature and work efficiency, findings suggest that an optimal temperature range exists, specifically between 22°-24°C (or 71.6°-75.2°F), which aligns with this assumption. However, when considering the optimal temperature setting, the quantity on the thermostat is merely one aspect to take into account.
Despite their sleek design, even cutting-edge office buildings are often no match for soaring energy costs. While the Environmental Protection Agency recommends that raising a single-digit thermostat setting by one degree can result in up to 6 percent savings on cooling bills, these savings become exponentially greater when scaled up to an entire building or city. According to a 2023 examination of three-year climate and vitality value data, a solitary setpoint adjustment paired with behavioral adaptations effectively streamlined energy consumption. In urban environments where buildings often rely heavily on air conditioning systems, behavioral adaptations like adjusting fan settings and dressing lightly become crucial.
According to Robert Bean, a fellow and lecturer at the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), the understanding of cool air has empowered architects to create structures that would otherwise be unbearably uncomfortable in our typical environment. “As our surroundings undergo these adjustments, we find ourselves facing an awkward predicament.”
Several prominent investigations have focused on refining thermostat settings and yielding significant financial gains. In 2005, Japan’s then-Environment Minister Yuriko Koike implemented a policy requiring government offices to set their thermostats to a maximum of 82°F (28°C) from May to September to conserve energy and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. As a morale booster, the company has introduced a relaxed dress code policy, permitting employees to swap traditional business attire – think suits and ties – for more casual, laid-back options, such as Hawaiian-style shirts and linen trousers. . Major corporations followed suit, adopting the federal government’s initiative within a span of two years to launch Cool Biz. By 2023, an estimated 86 percent of workplaces will likely have implemented some form of flexible work arrangements.
When it comes to vitality financial savings, setting the thermostat higher is a simple yet effective approach. Estimates vary, but Cool Biz is credited with reducing Japan’s carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 10 million tonnes annually through its innovative work attire program. Following the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster, this system gained significant importance as reactor shutdowns nationwide and subsequent government-mandated energy-saving measures emphasized its crucial role in promoting efficiency and conservation. They . Doesn’t there exist an initiative to conceal thermostats during winter periods? In reality, it’s commonly known as the Heat Business.
Notably, Kingma, a renowned Dutch researcher, quipped, “It’s not rocket science.” “As long as one has the ability to adapt, the problem can likely be resolved through effective adaptation.”
While not everyone in Japan may share a passion for this phenomenon, there is indeed a significant segment of the population that takes great joy in its existence. Research suggests that productivity spikes when temperatures reach a comfortable 77°F, fostering an ideal environment for optimal work performance. Despite Japan’s unique approach showcasing a country’s ability to adapt to diverse indoor temperatures for the greater good, its citizens also manage to prioritize aesthetics while doing so. Can’t we all learn from each other’s resilience and adaptability?
Let’s act with climate consciousness and preserve our precious Earth for future generations.
I confess to preferring my home’s temperature at exactly 72 degrees Fahrenheit. When the outside temperature drops to 72 degrees Fahrenheit or lower, I’ll take advantage of the gentle air by opening a window. When temperatures soar, I retreat to the sanctuary of my Brooklyn home, allowing the air conditioning to envelop me in a cool oasis as I eagerly anticipate the approaching dusk.
No more than, that’s what I’ve grown accustomed to doing. During the course of reporting this story, I found myself no longer adjusting my thermostat to its usual setting of 72 degrees. Following discussions with thermal comfort experts and heating, ventilation, and air conditioning specialists, I’ve found that excessively boosting the air conditioner’s output isn’t just an inefficient use of energy, but also fails to provide noticeable comfort benefits as well. Getting cold sweats on a sweltering July day due to an overzealous air conditioner is absurdly unnecessary. Given the advice from the consultants, I started taking their suggestions on board. But aren’t these consultants actually individuals who have built their expertise by standing on the shoulders of others?
According to Stefano Schiavon, a professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and a member of ASHRAE, he recommends that his colleagues adopt a “followers-first” approach to cooling. “When the heat becomes unbearable,” he said, “the first thing to turn on is a fan.” Even when using air conditioning, fans can be used in conjunction with it to maintain a comfortable temperature, especially if you’re trying to stay cool at a higher thermostat setting. Wearing unfastened clothing adds an unparalleled layer of excitement to the entire experience.
“A proposal, reportedly driven by the air conditioning industry, suggests that fans are relics of the past and are no longer necessary.” “Follower users don’t require elaborate fabrication; instead, they tap into a minute fraction of their potential, making them highly attuned to others who instinctively understand how to harness their capabilities.”
By adopting certain habits and incorporating simple strategies into your daily routine, you can also maintain a comfortable body temperature while conserving energy. By operating your dishwasher and doing laundry in the evening, you reduce the amount of excess heat that enters your home. By dedicating time to seclusion within the most remote areas of your dwelling – often situated on the northernmost side of the building or in a cellar – you can effectively retreat from direct sunlight.
Regular upkeep plays a crucial role in maintaining optimal performance across all systems. Regularly purifying your air conditioner’s air intake vents and updating filters typically. To maintain a comfortable indoor climate, it’s crucial to ensure that warm air stays inside while hot air escapes; thus, be cautious when opening windows and doors, only doing so for ventilation purposes.
Good thermostats are another promising solution, but their effectiveness is limited to newer properties equipped with modern heating systems, excluding those relying on older radiators or window units. If you have a central air conditioning system, you may consider replacing the traditional thermostat installed in your wall with a smart, internet-connected one that offers enhanced features and greater control over your cooling and heating. The thermostat sets the system to mechanically adjust settings at specific times of day or optimizes its efficiency to avoid wasting energy. While some values are good, Amazon’s prime offering stands out as the premier choice. If you have a window unit, make sure it has built-in Wi-Fi connectivity. Your utility firm may already own one of these devices.
Don’t neglect to consider the warmth pump design as well. While warm weather pumps operate on a similar principle to air conditioners for cooling, they utilize electrical energy and refrigerants to extract heat and moisture from the air. Typically, they are unchanged as well, so do not rely on reduced summer-time payments if you make this switch. While warmth pumps do not generate heat directly, they excel at being eco-friendly for building heating due to their ability to shift warmth from one location to another. According to the Division of Vitality, heat pumps outperform traditional furnaces and baseboard heaters in terms of efficiency. Can you please consider installing a new water heater in your home?
“There’s no fallacy in saving energy,” says Jones of Vitality Star. “It’s a matter of defining what works best for you, considering your unique circumstances.”
It’s possible that a groundbreaking innovation could emerge, revolutionizing our methods of staying cool. One innovative approach involves installing radiant panels filled with cold water, which surprisingly cool spaces without actually lowering the ambient temperature. Researchers at Princeton University confirmed the existence of a system similar to this one in Singapore in 2019. Dubbed the Chilly Tube, passersby claimed a refreshing sensation, despite no discernible change in ambient temperature. While the technology to make this happen is still in its infancy, it’s clear that a future without air conditioning is not only possible but also becoming increasingly viable.
To make this futuristic AC-free know-how function effectively, isn’t it crucial that? Followers.
