Ours is too warm because of pansies, I think productivity suffers because of this zzzzzzzzz… what temp is your office?

snakebite – Member
Ours is too warm because of pansies, I think productivity suffers because of this zzzzzzzzz… what temp is your office?

😆 I’m with you on that, it’s a battle of wills mate, one of the first things I do when i get in the office in a morning is turn the radiators down. Childish but effective.

I work at home with no flowers in the room and pick a temparature that I find comfortable.

It tends to vary between tropical rainforest and hotter than the face of the sun, with occasional dips into the arctic circle.

It’s a energy efficient self ventilating building that has never worked as designed. Genuinely unpleasant place to be in.

27 at the moment and climbing. 😯

ours varies between about 18 and 24 at a guess, we do have some odd battles though (yesterday some left the rads on whilst some had windows open and in summer you get muppets opening windows when the air cons on).

If I’m the first one in it can be just above 0°C, if my boss gets in before me, then it’s usually like the tropics (28°C+)

24°C today.. It can get hotter, that’s when a colleague falls asleep, usually 11am and 3pm..

In the summer it can go above 30°C with the air con turned on!

Working in a tin building is rubbish.. If it’s cold, its colder inside, and if its hot, its hotter inside.

I have just opened the window.

I used to work with a girl who believed that the appropriate temperature for the office was the same as the inside of a Greggs cheese and onion pasty, just out of the oven*. Used to dive me mad! It all got a bit Withnail…

Probably as she used to strut around the place wearing next to nothing though. Sorry…. what were we talking about again?

* the hottest substance known to man

Jumpers may be worn, but I object to wearing hats and gloves indoors. So if my hands are stiffening up, it’s too cold. Other than that, it’s too warm.

I work in building services and throughout my career have been in the coldest (winter) and hottest (summer) offices known to man. It used to really piss me off that I’d spend all day designing heating and cooling for other people’s offices whilst sitting in crap conditions myself.
I now have my own office with my own AC – set at 19/20 🙂

It never ceases to amaze me how many people can’t work a thermostat.

Someone comes in, thinks “oh it’s a bit chilly,” and whacks the thermostat up to the high 20s. Next person in goes “Christ, it’s warm” and rams it down to 16. Then it packs in completely because the AC has been running full tilt to try and reach an unattainable temperature.

Thank god I have my own office, its set at 18.5 and is spot on for me, mind you its south facing with huge windows so in the summer can reach furnace temp

It’s not so much the temperature of my office that’s the problem, more the dryness of the air … our building is quite amusing though – 3 floors of varying occupancy and use, but only 1 thermostat that controls the whole buildings heating/cooling system (it’s not even proper a/c).

A few years ago I was involved in a project to refurb one of our big office blocks. 60’s building with radiators, opening windows etc. a good number of people who had worked at the same desk for 20+ years!
Couple of million quid per floor, noise suppression technology, clever lighting and a state of the art heating/cooling/air quality system. All centrally managed, no thermostats anywhere.
It took a few weeks for it to bed in, but once it did the air temp was really stable everywhere, but still there were complaints from staff (generally the long serving folk used to opening windows and interfering with radiators)
One weekend, we went round with dummy control units (digital displays, backlit, looked the business, but not connected to anything) and blutacked them to the walls at various locations. Service desk complaints stopped immediately, everyone was happy.

Stupid old Bint! in my office insist on having the air conditioning (control by her desk) set to max heat (29Degrees) all the time, all night, all weekend, 24-7-365. It’s got a sticker on it saying “Do not switch off!!!” and makes loud shivering sounds and shouts “ohhh it’s cold” for everybody in the office on a daily basis. and she’s flipping Scottish and she used to live in Canada FFS!!!!

thankfully it’s not man enough to heat the whole office during winter on it’s own, so it’s bearable during the winter, gets to 24-25, yesterday the sun was out so 26-27.

The other unit (control near my desk) is off during winter but will be set to cool for the rest of the year it will reach 28-29 in here. Her control will still be set to heat and she will still be cold.

I wish I had my own office 🙁 or my boss (the least trusting man in the world) would let me do some work from home

[Edit]oh 24.2 currently from digital thermometer on my desk and watch, bought to aid the endless comments about the cold. currently sat here in shorts and a t-shirt[/Edit]

levelled out at 28 degrees….

Our office hasn’t had the heating updated since the 80s (seriously), and the sensors are useless. In a half an hour this week we tracked the air from the vents vary from 11deg to 32deg output about 4 times.

It’s nonsense.

JEEZ – as the man responsible for such things in my very large Grade A listed building – I oversaw the upgrade to the heating in my office and ensured that the thermostats were locked off at approx 20degC max (#3on the scale). It amuses me that people (especially women in sleeveless tops/dresses and short skirts) who sit at desks all day complain of it being cold. We have 2 thermometers in the office and the average temp is 19-20degC. Think of the Polar Bears…

One weekend, we went round with dummy control units (digital displays, backlit, looked the business, but not connected to anything) and blutacked them to the walls at various locations. Service desk complaints stopped immediately, everyone was happy.

In a similar vein I work in FM and run a large office. The temperature is supposed to be electronically controlled throughout the building to a constant but obviously fluctuates by a degree or so depending on other factors, equipment, no of staff in a given area, solar gain etc.

Anyway, we used to be inundated with complaints it was either too hot and too cold, often in the same area. After a while we just pretended to change the thermastat settings and then told staff. They always thanked us and noticed the difference so I presume it was just a placebo effect most of the time 🙂

Being 120 feet underground my ‘office’ is circa 12-14 degrees all year round.

Warm enough that the shocks and forks bleed easily enough

Think of the Polar Bears…

Bugger the polar bears, I’m thinking of secretaries in short skirts!

You lot can control the temperature of your offices? Lucky people. We have one option: window closed/open.

i work in an old listed building so all the offices are constantly freezing in the winter, except for my office which is the warmest. trouble is my manager suffers from cold feet so will always have a fan heater on under her desk, while the radiator next to her is on full blast. the girl opposite me also likes to do this but she’s in only 2 days a week. there are times that the air gets so warm and dry that i feel like making a trip to the land of nod on a regular basis.

Not sure about your offices but the ones who complain it’s cold here are the usually the ones wearing the least and/or flimsiest clothing.

BINTS THE LOT OF EM! 😆

According to my freebie from Sensirion we are basking in 22.66c with RH of 38.08.

As above, some complainof heat/some of cold. Try to explain how the A/C works, that it should be adjusted by 1 deg at a time & given time to stabilise. Most understand this (all engineers), but a few old boys who live in fleeces even in summer.

IMAG0215 by pten2106, on Flickr

large modern office with no way of changing temperature apart from putting a cardy on/ off. it’s normally on the cool side and a bit dry.
only issues are with solar gain and the building/ person who twiddles the knob not being able to keep up.
this is in complete contrast to our shower facilities in the basement which are like a sauna.

Not too bad in winter here, but at my last place, summer was three months of:

Office a bit too warm.

Adjust a/c control to arctic setting.

Wait a bit

Office now too cold

Adjust control to hottest setting available.

Wait a bit

Office now to warm….

It’s only ever if you have to share an office with women isn’t it?

All men can, in my experience, operate quite happily in temperatures from about 16 up to 22 degrees. Throw a lady in there though and you’re going to have issues, partly because they own internal thermostats are governed by the moon or something but mainly because no matter how often you sit them down with charts and diagrams and things, they cannot fathom out how a normal thermostat works. (As pointed out by Cougar).

Worst still, sit them in a modern car with climate control and you’re in a whole world of pain. I’ve turned off the split control in my car so my wife can’t mess with it. Any changes in temperature when we’re driving along must be triaged through me and I control the thermostat.

Just let men change thermostat levels. They’ll have no problem doing it, just ask. Everyone will be happier that way, trust me.

Currently 26 degrees in here. It’s never below 24 degrees. I have my desk fan on pretty much all year.

I’ve given up complaining. Obviously people here at this sustainability championing company I work for think that 24+ degrees is reasonable.

perhaps it’s the fact that men tend to design, build and administer the climate control systems in buildings without consideration of what women need?

Our office aircon has a hysteresis of 7 degrees, so you set 20 and get anything from 16.5 to 23.5 throughout the day. Add in solar loading and its anything from 16.5 to about 30….

It’s only ever if you have to share an office with women isn’t it?

Seems to be.

The only people I’ve heard complain about being too cold in my office are the ladies. Probably as they’re more interested in dressing to look nice rather than dressing to be warm enough 🙄

In which case, serves you right if you’re cold.

perhaps it’s the fact that men tend to design, build and administer the climate control systems in buildings without consideration of what women need?

Can you buy systems that say “put a jumper on for goodness’ sake you twit” when someone tries to set the temperature above 20 degrees?

Snakebite, fit a ‘stealth’ wireless thermostat whose controller lives in your desk draw or some other classified location. Leave the Dummy / pansy thermostat so they can twiddle the knobs to their heart’s content…. Much like a Sponkee Trompeet. A slow reduction in temperature over a few weeks. Hey presto, pansies become hardy annuals!