Spain bans setting the AC below 27 degrees Celsius

https://www.theverge.com/2022/8/3/23291066/spain-bans-setting-air-conditioning-below-27-degrees-celsius

by randomperson_24 • 4 years ago

58 100 4 years ago

theverge.com

andreareina2• 4 years ago

*in public places; your home is still yours to cool as you wish (though few homes have AC)

ugjka• 4 years ago

How much effort would it take to add "in public places" to the title? Oh wait, then it is not clickbait...

public_defender• 4 years ago

I guess the "don't wear ties" comment was meant to be less serious, but men's business clothing has driven a lot of office thermostats to 60⁰F over the course of my experience. Men in suits and ties are comfortable at the approximate temperature of a meat locker, while everyone else is freezing and energy is wasted. If the PM were serious about trendsetting to reduce energy use, he would ban the suit jacket and encourage men to wear shorts to work.

bearmode3• 4 years ago

It's not just that, it's also that men have higher skin temps than women. If a man and woman were wearing the exact same clothes, in the exact same room, the man would still almost certainly be feeling warmer.

ZeroGravitas• 4 years ago

What's the relative impact of that vs clothing though?

waqf• 4 years ago

Is that effect mediated by body size, or is it true even when corrected for body size and shape?

mathgladiator• 4 years ago

For whatever reason, I don't comprehend Celsius intuitively. I convert that to Fahrenheit and see 80.6 degrees. Is Spain dry? Or humid? I would revolt as I much prefer cold.

Leherenn2• 4 years ago

Dry. Most of Europe is, except on rare occasions.

rockinghigh• 4 years ago

Norther Spain is quite humid.

manuelabeledo12• 4 years ago

Northern Spain is quite humid all year round.

I don't get why you said that most Europe is dry. Germany, France, the British Isles, the Netherlands, Poland, etc. aren't dry at all.

isametry2• 4 years ago

Sometimes I wonder why I constantly hear the Fahrenheit people whine about Celsius, but almost never the other way around. https://i.ibb.co/7zJ640F/d9p762f83xw71-jpg.webp

arlort2• 4 years ago

I think it might be because Fahrenheit is the one unit in the US customary system which is not particularly arbitrary compared to the metric equivalent and it actually has some advantages in day to day use since it maps pretty well to human temperatures

It probably has an element of catharsis for people on the receiving end of "metric is superior" whining to point out celsius is not particularly rational

Glawen• 4 years ago

You better understand Celsius when you use body thermometer. Normal body temperature is 37, 38 is a light fever, 40 is severe fever. So 27 is temperature of a pleasant summer day, not too hot not too cold.

Ekaros2• 4 years ago

Or depending your location too hot for summer... Then again I don't consider -5 or -10 that cold temperature.

10-15 is nice perfect weather for outdoors.

mantas3• 4 years ago

17 is pleasant, 27 is getting into hot territory

cedilla• 4 years ago

The reason is simply familiarity. If you had lived your whole life with an inverted, nonlinear temperature scale that has freezing water at 53 degree, body temperature at 20 and boiling water at 0 degree you would also find that intuitive.

midasz• 4 years ago

Probably because you didn't grow up with Celcius. Celcius makes sense because it's based on water, 0 is freezing and 100 is boiling. What's Fahrenheit based on? Anything we use in our daily lives?

afiori2• 4 years ago

As usual there is a relevant XKCD even if I can't find it now.

In Fahrenheit 0 and 100 are defined in random ways, but it ends up covering most of the range of temperature human experience in the environment.

Celsius's definition does not include putting a thermometer inside an adult horse, but the common range of everyday temperatures is -18 to 50.

There are points of view in which imperial units can claim to be easier to use.

In the end the SI are technically better for sure; US imperial units are defined in terms of SI units, according to Wikipedia the pound is "legally defined as exactly 0.45359237 kilograms", nor it is a coincidence that -40F° = -40C°

troad3• 4 years ago

Yes, it’s incredibly useful for outdoor temperature. 0 F means it’s very cold, 100 F means it’s very hot. Meanwhile, 0 C means it’s sort of a little cold, and 100 C means your eyes will melt.

I grew up with and actively use Celsius, but this instinctive disdain for other measurement systems leaves me… a little cold. It’s not even like Fahrenheit has weird non-decimal ratios. Save your mocking for the avoirdupois furlongs!

t_mann• 4 years ago

Celsius was based on scientific ideas and works great for describing scientific processes. Fahrenheit was based on everyday weather experience and works great for describing that. They're of course equivalent, and it would be better if the world could agree on one standard (not just for temp, cough cough, metric system).

pvaldes• 4 years ago

Is Spain dry? Or humid?

Both. Spain is one of the European countries with most diverse ecosystems. The local weather ranges from "tropical Mexico" to "Siberian winter". We have deserts and relic cloud rainforests. The inner core is dry and hot (not much unlike US pairies), the North is like Ireland and the West would be similar to California. Canary Islands are subtropical.

Currently most big cities are reaching over the 104ºF (40ºC). A pretty hot year. Environmental crimes made it much worse, so we are having a dry year also.

(Stupid note for myself: It seems that all the years with big wars are extra hot. Somebody should study how all this extra energy released locally by bombs and missiles interact with the weather models).

robobro• 4 years ago

10 is cool,

20 is not.

30 is warm,

40 is hot!

Body temp 37c.

20c = 68f (room temp)

30c = 86f. (68 mirrored)

mantas3• 4 years ago

More like

-20 is cold

-10 is cool

0 is cold and damp

10 is nice

20 is warm

30 is hot

40 is off the charts

citrin_ru• 4 years ago

27 is a comfortable indoor temperature for me (if I wear a T-shirt and don’t do heavy physical work). I wonder where a big difference in preferred temperature comes from, given that body temperature is almost the same for all healthy people?

stefandesu2• 4 years ago

I've never understood why (in some countries) public places are so cooled down in the summer and so heated up in the winter. In Japan, in the summer they put the ACs to what feels like 16ºC, so whenever you go from outdoor (very hot and humid) to indoor, you feel like you'll freeze (because you're dressed for 30ºC). In the winter, they put the ACs to 25ºC, so you move from outdoor to indoor, it's extremely hot and sticky (as you're dressed for 5ºC). Why not meet in the middle and use 21ºC or something all year round? (Or save energy and just change the temperature a little to make it a bit more bearable.)

cko• 4 years ago

I saw a video about Hong Kong where colder shopping malls are considered more upscale. Waste is a Veblen good in that context, I guess.

manuelabeledo12• 4 years ago

I think we might have seen the same video.

It happens in other places in Asia as well, not only Hong Kong. It's quite uncomfortable to go from ~34C and 98% humidity, to an environment at ~20C and less than 50% humidity. I'm surprised people don't get more respiratory illnesses more often.

bamboozled2• 4 years ago

I hate this about Japan too.

In Tokyo, you sweat to death on the subway, then get off with wet underwear into the cold street and yeah, summer trains feel so cold it's like having a high fever when sitting on the train.

stefandesu2• 4 years ago

It's very weird. In my university dorm in the common room, there was always a fight between the local students and the exchange students about the AC temperature.

thematrixturtle• 4 years ago

JR commuter trains "solve" this problem by having some carriages on longer trains intentionally set to higher temperatures, signposted 弱冷房車 ("weak cooling car").

cameronh90• 4 years ago

Myself and many others seem to find 21c too cold in winter and too hot in summer in some buildings. I think it's possibly due to radiant temperature: for example, the walls/roof/floor are hotter in summer so you need to cool the air down more to make up for that.

That said, Japan and some other places (Singapore!) take it to the extreme, and in a modern well insulated building, this is much less needed than it used to be. Maybe it's a hang-over from when wall insulation was terrible?

What I really don't understand is why, in London, the short distance commuter trains and buses are heated so warm in the winter. I'm only on the train for 10 minutes, why would I want to strip down!?

edwcross• 4 years ago

Could it be for driver comfort? I sometimes have the impression that buses have their temperature tuned for the driver, who's staying in the bus for hours and has everyone's safety at least partially related to their comfort. But I find it impossible to confirm this by asking the bus companies why their buses are set this way (e.g. when windows were closed during Covid at about 20°C).

wink• 4 years ago

Oh yeah, I was soaked in the rain in Singapore once and took the bus home, I was basically sure I'd catch a cold, it was like stepping outside in the winter at home after taking a shower...

andreareina2• 4 years ago

In Singapore using a/c is still seen as a luxury so it's a selling point for the malls.

fomine3• 4 years ago

Possibly the engine is too inefficient so the heat is virtually free?

LatteLazy• 4 years ago

Cooling a LOT significantly reduces humidity. Some places do this to avoid damage to goods.

Markoff• 4 years ago

Pff, this is nothing try travelling by bus/minivan in Thailand, now that's freezer box.

manuelabeledo12• 4 years ago

For context, A/C in public places is not as prevalent as in the US. In some large retailers, e.g. El Corte Ingles, it's set to ~24 degrees Celsius, quite lower than outdoors, especially in the larger cities of Central, Southern, and Mediterranean Spain. It feels really cold.

Anyway, the odd voice here is the one from the president of the Madrid region, who went on Twitter to say that they won't comply, mostly not because of the A/C, but another bit that requires stores to shut off their lights when they are closed, effectively keeping their showcases in the dark at night.

Personally, it sounds like the stupidest hill to die on.

hgazx4• 4 years ago

Freedom is a good hill to die on.

gambiting4• 4 years ago

What does that have to do with freedom? You mean the freedom of a business owner to set their AC to whatever they like? Why is that symbolic of "freedom" in any way? As a business owner we have agreed as a society that there is a lot of rules you have to obey already - you cannot throw your rubbish out on the street, you must post your prices clearly, you must provide disabled access, you must give refunds for faulty items, etc etc etc. How is it freedom to be able to set your AC to 25C, but not building disabled access for your customers isn't?

manuelabeledo12• 4 years ago

Then, they alone should suffer the consequences, right?

If they refuse to acknowledge that Spain is in dire need of saving energy, then they should be the first ones to be shut down if/when there is no enough power to warm up the country on winter.

pastacacioepepe2• 4 years ago

The hardest part is that you first have to understand what freedom means. I guarantee most people don't really get it. It's just a nice word to throw around, it has a nice sound to it. "Freedom". "We live in a free country". Yeah, then you proceed to spend half of your life in a work environment where you have no decisional power at all and you're subject to stupid rules imposed by the owners. "Freedom".

nottorp5• 4 years ago

Personally, it sounds like the stupidest hill to die on.

Lit showcases are an anti theft measure too...

manuelabeledo12• 4 years ago

How so?

I mean, in a world where alarm systems usually include vibration and glass break detectors, cameras with night vision, and redundant phones for early alerts, do we really need showcases to be lit all night long?

saargrin• 4 years ago

27C is intolerable to work in..

piva003• 4 years ago

I work from home most days, living in Sweden which makes me more used to colder temps. Some weeks ago we had a few days over 27C and my working space thermometer measured 26C inside. It was perfectly comfortable.

tnova• 4 years ago

My working space thermometer was also measuring 26C last week and I was very uncomfortable. Tolerance for warm and cold temperatures is different for everyone.

orwin• 4 years ago

It's like France, it's in public place only. Your office will be kept at 24.

rstuart4133• 4 years ago

It depends on what the 27C measures. It's dry bulb temperature in desert with a breeze, it might even be a bit chilly.

The 27C headline figure would make more sense if it was something not commonly quoted, the web bulb temperature:

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Psychrometric-chart-Givo...

Yes, outdoors, with high humidity, and 27C can become uncomfortable. But keep indoors away from direct or indirect infra red radiation (hot surfaces in sunlight like external walls and roofs can radiate a lot of IR into windows and the like, sunlight streaming into a window can add 1KW heating per square meter of window), in humidity low enough so you don't sweat, and add a fan then as you can see from that graph (area 12) it can be pleasant up to 30C. But remove the fan, raise the humidity, and even 25C can become downright unpleasant.

Setting the air-conditioning to 27C should be comfortable in the right clothes. Provided it is significantly hotter outside, the air conditioning won't just drop the temperature to 27C, it will drop the humidity as well. Keep the air moving and your body will do the rest.

ChrisRR2• 4 years ago

27? Here in the UK I would've thought most offices keep it around 22-25

capableweb• 4 years ago

No surprise that different people from different climates are used to different temperatures...

ciconia2• 4 years ago

What would a modern human do without technology? Judging from the comments here it seems almost nobody can tolerate anything less than perfect thermal confort. Personally I find this ridiculous. Our bodies are perfectly capable of regulating their temperature over a pretty wide range of circumstances, especially with the help of adequate clothing, yet people are complaining about 18c in the winter or 25c in the summer.

manuelabeledo12• 4 years ago

Judging from the comments here it seems almost nobody can tolerate anything less than perfect thermal confort.

You could use the same argument against any modern technology.

A car? Our bodies are designed to walk for hours. A hot shower? Our bodies can withstand cold water, and don't need to be washed every day anyway. And so on and so forth.

Ekaros2• 4 years ago

We live longest with slight starvation... Doesn't seem to be hugely popular though.

ciconia2• 4 years ago

You could use the same argument against any modern technology.

Yes, technology is there to make our lives more comfortable, but at what price? Is modern society mature enough to weigh the pros and cons of each technology? I doubt it.

Spain bans setting the AC below 27 degrees Celsius

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