What does “Comfort” mean?
Another word and concept that we really need to reintroduce ourselves to is “comfort”. We need to discuss the meaning for a few reasons. First, we need to understand that comfort is not a sole short list of criteria that applies to everyone equally. Second, we need to reclaim our responsibility to manage our own comfort. And third, we need to better understand our buildings’ interactions with our Mother, Nature. Three big concepts in a few short paragraphs.
I’ll dive right in. My level of comfort is entirely different in all sorts of ways than my husband’s, or son’s. And we share one house! I grew up in CT with some serious snows, cold, damp, salty air off the Sound, and breezy hot summers. I hike, sometimes bike or walk to work and tend to be physically active in general. My husband grew up in more temperate Netherlands, with occasional winter snows that melted in a day or two. The sun shone less, but extremes were not common. He works at home and doesn’t enjoy outside as much, though kayaking is a favorite for our whole family. My range for comfort is pretty wide and I rarely look at a thermometer. Maarten’s range is tighter and he bases his daily choices (and mood) on the weather report. Both of us are wonderful people, and we need as a society to understand there are great varieties even in a small house. In an office, it can be a mess of conflicting needs and comfort parameters. A building, no matter how sophisticated, cannot be expected to achieve the optimal level of comfort for all occupants all the time. Get over it.
Second, reclaiming our responsibility (and right) goes right along with this. Each of us has the right to be comfortable, but we do not each have the right to expect our comfort is more important than that of our neighbor at work, or our partner at home. So, each of us has the responsibility to tend to ourselves. As our buildings have become more technologically driven we’ve totally forgotten how to do this. Building Management Systems drive buildings to be at 73 degrees all the times (with no flex) and provide (so they claim) instant control of space heating and cooling. I dare say we have each gotten a bit lazy or even needy, and we often expect someone else to make it right for us. I know many people will find this idea of personal responsibility for comfort to be frustrating, but I encourage you to think of it as your right to take control. Keep a sweater at work, sit in your cozy chair with your feet up and a blanket over your legs. Wear socks in the winter (sorry to all who feel they MUST wear pumps year-round). Choose a cup of tea if you feel chilled or move away from the window or wall, which may be radiating cooler temps to you. Learn to layer so those layers can go on and come off as needed Figure out if adjusting your shades can keep the sun off your neck and keep you cooler in the summer. Talk to your HR department about relaxing dress codes in the summer so you can ditch the tie on the warmest days. This is not about sacrifice; this is about your rights. You have the power. You can be master of your own comfort.
Third, working with Mother Nature is the biggest lesson of all and it relates to the previous two points. Anyone who thinks a building should always be nail-on-the-head 73 degrees with 45% humidity is a fool. I’m sorry you ever got that impression and terribly sorry for being part of a profession that may have led you to that faulty conclusion. Think of a building as any complex organism that interacts with temperatures, humidity, winds, sun and shade. There cannot be instant, complete response (it takes a body a little while to warm up in the sun, for example) and there is incredible energy needed if we try to hold the building at a set point in these ever–changing surroundings. And sometimes Mother Nature changes her parameters pretty quickly! A fairly efficient building will struggle, after a weekend of “powerdown” to bring up the cooling on sunny summer Monday, and all of a sudden, the clouds roll in in the early afternoon and everyone is freezing. This is made even worse when there is one temperature setpoint, instead of an allowable range. Even the tightest and best managed certified Passive House (excellent insulation and window systems, tight construction, integrated HVAC systems and proper mechanical ventilation) will have thermo responses to changes in the weather, though a Passive House will take a long time in translating those ebbs and flows to the interior space.
So, how do we address this? Let the building breathe in and out. Accept that it will flex and bend with the variances in the weather. Allow some limited range of response so that we’re not reigning in the performance too tightly for sanity. Example: I work in a 180,000 sf 6 story office building that used to have the temp set year round at 73 degrees, and provided steam system humidification. We changed this to a range that floats as high as 78 degrees in the summer and as low as 68 degrees in the winter, and accomplished a couple of things. 1) We save about $10,000 a year in energy costs. 2) We were able to eliminate the humidification, which was a HUGE cost (nearly $100,000 a year) 3) there is actually less wear and tear on the building systems and we are able to run the cooling system in a modular manner, so we can maintain one chiller at a time and 4) More people are more comfortable more often, as we updated the dress policy to allow personal control of comfort, and 5) This approach can actually be healthier for the occupants as it relates more to external weather parameters and encourages a body to maintain proper seasonal responses.
In summary, my recipe is to first understand we are all blessedly different (and to deal with it) second, to take responsibility for our own personal comfort in our own personal ways, and third to understand that buildings respond to nature’s influences, and we need to respect and work with their response ranges.
Tell me what you think.
Jodi
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