My OperaAir conditioning rant
Friday, September 21, 2007 3:22:05 PM
Why does air-conditioning always seem to be set far too cold!?
In Singapore, I would step into the metro (MRT) sweating from the 30-degree heat at 100% humidity - only to have the sweat instantly frozen onto every exposed bit of skin because the air-conditioning is set at about 18 degrees! (I am not joking, if we'd been walking around a lot before getting on then I would be shivering and trying to cover up for the entire ride.)
It was sometimes hard to get a night's sleep there too, since Jazz's air-con in one of her apartments wouldn't even go above 26 degrees - leaving me the choice of sweating in my undergarments on top of the bed, freezing bits of myself in the air-con blast, or sweating again under the blankets trying to avoid the damned air-con blast.
Here at work, people keep alternating between having the windows open (30-degrees) and then closing them and switching on the air-con (at 20 degrees). I've tried explaining that they could set it just a degree or two cooler than it was when they felt too hot, but they don't seem to get it!
And this is a problem I've noticed lots of people have: why is it so hard to understand how a thermostat works...? Turning a thermostat to maximum on a heating system in winter does *NOT* make it heat up faster! It just means that during a couple of hours the room goes from cold, to comfortable, to hot, to bloody-hell-turn-off-the-heating-because-I-am-melting!
Honestly, it's so easy: as a room becomes a little bit too hot/cold, switch on the air-con/heating and change the setting to *just beyond* the point where it clicks into action... that means it will cool/heat the room a little bit - back to where it was comfortable. After that it WILL KEEP IT AT THAT COMFORTABLE TEMPERATURE AND YOU DON'T NEED TO DO ANYTHING ANY MORE!
Sorry - that's my (frozen) rant over.
(P.S. someone just got up and switched the air-con completely off... why not adjust the temperature instead?!? Now it's gonna get hot again... Arrrgggh!)
In Singapore, I would step into the metro (MRT) sweating from the 30-degree heat at 100% humidity - only to have the sweat instantly frozen onto every exposed bit of skin because the air-conditioning is set at about 18 degrees! (I am not joking, if we'd been walking around a lot before getting on then I would be shivering and trying to cover up for the entire ride.)
It was sometimes hard to get a night's sleep there too, since Jazz's air-con in one of her apartments wouldn't even go above 26 degrees - leaving me the choice of sweating in my undergarments on top of the bed, freezing bits of myself in the air-con blast, or sweating again under the blankets trying to avoid the damned air-con blast.
Here at work, people keep alternating between having the windows open (30-degrees) and then closing them and switching on the air-con (at 20 degrees). I've tried explaining that they could set it just a degree or two cooler than it was when they felt too hot, but they don't seem to get it!
And this is a problem I've noticed lots of people have: why is it so hard to understand how a thermostat works...? Turning a thermostat to maximum on a heating system in winter does *NOT* make it heat up faster! It just means that during a couple of hours the room goes from cold, to comfortable, to hot, to bloody-hell-turn-off-the-heating-because-I-am-melting!
Honestly, it's so easy: as a room becomes a little bit too hot/cold, switch on the air-con/heating and change the setting to *just beyond* the point where it clicks into action... that means it will cool/heat the room a little bit - back to where it was comfortable. After that it WILL KEEP IT AT THAT COMFORTABLE TEMPERATURE AND YOU DON'T NEED TO DO ANYTHING ANY MORE!
Sorry - that's my (frozen) rant over.
(P.S. someone just got up and switched the air-con completely off... why not adjust the temperature instead?!? Now it's gonna get hot again... Arrrgggh!)
(50%)
Pfeleleppfelelep # Monday, September 24, 2007 12:31:33 PM
People usually always take a jacket with them: not for outdoor, but for indoors. They rather dress up then lower the air-cond...
MossMan # Monday, September 24, 2007 12:39:03 PM
Take off your sweater, walk down to the bus-stop, get bus (put on sweater), get off, walk to mall (take off sweater), get inside mall (put on sweater), take off sweater to cross street to next mall... etc. etc.
MossMan # Monday, September 24, 2007 12:41:13 PM
Despite the high-profile campaign (prime-minister spent a summer in his shirt-sleeves (shock! horror!)) I didn't hear about it being a great success.