Heating and Ventilating

Does this depend on whether you are on holiday or in the workplace?
How much time in your year do you spend in your workplace, outdoors, travelling, at home?

How important is it to have a productive internal environment?

What would be your ideal internal environment?

How well do our buildings minimise the extremes of external temperature fluctuations?

How well do our building services cope with the resulting heat gains and losses?

How much does this depend on your activity and the clothes you wear?

That is enough questions for now and I think I know the normal answer to one of the questions. On average we spend 85 per cent of our lives indoors whether in the home, work, school, cinema, etc. However, I am thinking about the time we mainly spend indoors at work. To help with conserving fuel and power in our work environment and to be more comfortable at work, how much should the onus be on us as individuals to dress appropriately?

There are complex technical issues when it comes to thermal comfort in the workplace. Why should employees demand a hot internal environment while sitting there in short sleeves in the middle of winter? There are difficult spaces to heat and cool, of course, such as receptions, atriums, airports, etc where there are two types of occupant, ie transient users such as shoppers or fixed users such as receptionists. There have been TV reports recently of shoppers having to take their coats off when they go shopping. That can't be right, especially when you see employees in short sleeves inside.

Because thermal comfort depends on air and radiant temperature, humidity, air movement and other physical conditions and sensory perceptions, it is impossible to keep everyone happy.

Because of different conceptions of comfort, we should do our best to minimise the real causes of discomfort. The health and well being of building occupants have always been of the utmost importance, but there should be an understanding between users of a building and the operators before we resort to expensive heating and cooling. If only we were to wear sweaters in the office in winter or lightweight clothes in the summer, wouldn't that save millions of pounds and help reduce carbon dioxide emissions?