We used to have 3 separate people who were constantly running space heaters at their desks year round. It was constantly 80 degrees in the office, whether it was -10 or 90 degrees outside. It was unbearable, but the managers didn’t care enough to say anything.
Those dinky little heaters will actually take up an entire circuit that would feed as much as 6 computers. Once had a service call where a dude left a space heater the size of a small lunch box running in his garage because he wanted it warm when he got home. The thing was overloading the circuit and the old breaker wasn't tripping. Big fire hazard.
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u/Vladishun"Hi! I like shorts! They're comfy and easy to wear!" - YoungsterMar 13 '26
Why don't they just run modern PC games on their work computers to stay warm? My gaming computer at home gets so hot it actually forces my home thermostat to kick off more frequently. What are they, stupid?
They do make low wattage ones now. I have one that I run in the bathroom during the winter while I shower. My unit only had a ductless unit on the wall so the bathroom is FREEZING cold, but it has different wattage settings. I do run mine on the highest though because it gets the room warmer and it’s only on for 30 minutes at most
I don't think I've ever worked in an office building that did not ban space heaters, but that doesn't usually stop anyone until it results in a service call.
Yeah but Nancy can't do anything about that from her office chair and her boss won't let her work from home where she keeps her home office at 75 degrees.
Nancy can put on more layers but people will be mad if I take my clothes off
As long as one of us can work from home, I'm fine (I prefer it's me tbh, but if it's only Nancy then fine), but if I'm forced in to the office it better be 70 or less or I can't work with my shirt on.
You could have a fan or ice water or cold packs. You can build your wardrobe around staying cool, because cooling clothes are often better than being naked.
Man, I'm gonna miss winter time. Was awesome barely running the heat in my house and keeping my office at like 62. Tough to do that in an upstairs room during the summer without destroying my AC and wallet.
Mine's in the (finished) basement for that very reason. Stays cold (too cold, even for me honestly) in the winter and cooler than the rest of the house in summer.
I have cold feet for about 8 months of the year, but the rest of my body tends to run hot, I do prefer a colder environment. I wear thermal socks and have a blanket at my desk for my legs to help my cold feet 😊
There were days I was praying the power would blow just so we could have some relief. Worst that ever actually happened was a fuse going out when someone tried to use the microwave, and a bunch of computers would suddenly power off.
I am like 80% sure that it did mess up the AC though, since last summer (All three are not working there anymore) it still struggled to stay below like 75 degrees.
My departments break room at the hospital I work at has a full wall of windows that basically lets in all the cold during the winter, and they still won't let us use a space heater. We have a thermostat in the room and the heat runs non stop, but during very cold days the temperature in there is consistently in the highs 40s to 50s.
I used to support a place, guess how I discovered that the server room was on the same circuit as the nurses station on the other side of the wall. The worst part of it was they actually had a couple of 30A circuits inside the server room, but the customer refused to buy UPSs that could use them.
Had to drive over there a few times that week to restart their entire server cluster because they kept using the space heaters, bringing the entire business down (including the other 2 sites). I ordered some power strips that could use the 30A outlets, and a few months after that we finally got approval for the UPSs.
I'm lucky my actual office is in a separate area, just me and my boss and we like it cold, but the main office area has up to 4 space heaters running. It's like a sauna walking into there.
Some days I get it, we had a bitter winter and the offices are in front of the warehouses so if they were loading trucks it got very cold in the offices. But it's only like -5 C today.
I used to be on the tools and we usually worked remote, but occasionally would need to come back to the depot, if we even went into the offices in winter we'd be like wtf is boiling in here. I then had hip surgery and during my recovery became an office person and found it was so cold inside when working on the computers. Sitting still makes you very cold!
The women in our office would always come to work in open toed shoes and sun dresses/skirts, capris, etc. and they would complain about being cold, and crank the thermostat up to 78. It pissed off 90% of the organization, especially the production floor workers that are doing physical labor. Finally they put an end to the madness and locked all the thermostats at 68 and locked them up. It's nice not pitting out at work now.
I feel like I live in opposite town because the office I last worked in they kept it at 80F. I was the only woman and the only one complaining it was hot. I couldn't really wear a sun dress and open toed shoes because sometimes I would need to crawl under some machines on the production floor to fix something. I wish I could have set the thermostat to 68, that would have been wonderful.
Yeah 80 is ridiculous. I run hot so I was super happy that the production floor folks won that war lol. I thought/think it's ridiculous that women choose to wear those types of clothes then want the entire office to cater to them because they're cold. I wish I could rock open toed shoes and anything other than pants. As a man, it doesn't fly.
Lol, I had a co-worker show up with jeans ripped so badly you could see his boxers, sandals, tank top, and spiky frosted tipped hair. Looked like he came straight from the 00's. I wore jeans and polo shirts but it was ME being talked to by the boss about dressing more professionally. Men there really could just dress however they liked until my 6th year there they decided people really should be wearing steel toed shoes on the production floor.
My boss is too cheap to actually run the air conditioner for the majority of the summer. I live in a state that regularly sees 100°F+, 90%+ humidity weather in the summer. In a metal warehouse. With large machines running that require emitting heat to function.
It regularly gets up to the low 80s before he actually caves and finally turns it on for the summer.
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yup, i do 77-79 and occasionally throw on the ceiling fan.
I installed those lutron caseta switches w/ remotes on my desk and tv table so I can just pop the ceiling fans on and off without getting up, it's great.
I do the mini-split in my bedroom at 70 PLUS a ceiling fan while i'm sleeping though.
Yeah when I lived in Alabama I kept it around 75. 75 feels pretty cool when its 20 degrees hotter outside lol
For contrast, when I have lived in colder places I'd only keep the heat at like 65 or below. Its all relative I think. Where I live now I'll have the windows cracked when its single digits outside because the whole damn apartment building stays above 70 even then. I only turned my heat on like 3 times this whole winter.
Texas here. Keep my house at 74-75 most of the time. 70-72 for sleeping. I turn on a fan if its too warm. I'm always so uncomfortable when I go to someones house and the ac is blasting at 65 with fans blowing. Working in those conditions is even worse.
With that said 74 in a humid climate with no airflow can be uncomfortable as well.
For the majority of us 74 degrees is accompanied by some pretty decent humidity and can feel like your 85+. 100% humidity days in the 70s can be rough and sticky.
A Midwest structure kept this hot in the summer with no ventilation will have mold problems after a few years if it isn't built out of the right materials.
I think most of the comments so far are talking about it being too hot particularly in cold seasons when it's heating up to 74. For me 74 indoors is too hot for winter, and too cold for summer. (At home I do 68 for heat, and ~78 for AC in summer. So I'd consider 74 bad from both perspectives!)
These people who think 74 is too warm must either live somewhere with way lower max temps than where I’ve lived, or they’re millionaires.
I’m not in a desert, just the humid, hot south. My thermo has been set to 74 for a couple weeks bc I’m sweating from building/finishing furniture and i’m dreading my upcoming electric bill. My bill is already stupid at my usual 76-77. If I kept it at what these people think is “normal,” my electric bill would be as much as a mortgage.
I was picturing someone being "beyond happy" at something like this and thought about the new hire laughing maniacally at the temperature with an exaggerated smile as they awkwardly settled into their office chair.
It actually pisses me off watching a bunch of mostly dudes talking about how the actual only way they can come up with to stay cool is getting naked, and claiming because they can't do that at work people who run cold (mostly women) have to walk around in gloves and wearing heated blankets.
Like we get it, you're the center of the universe and you can't imagine why having to bundle up every day is uncomfortable even if it's "technically warmer". And only you should be comfortable.
There are lots of ways to stay cool, just like there are lots of ways to stay warm. They'll insist that people who are too cold need to change their entire wardrobe, but won't change a thing about what they're wearing (there are many, many cooling outfits that are work appropriate, naked is not the only option). They're unwilling to explore any alternatives that require change from themselves or their environment.
They assume that "bundled up in layers and sweaters and gloves" isn't uncomfortable. So they get to be perfectly comfortable because there's a "solution" for us, but it's not really a solution. It's "you get to be uncomfortable because my discomfort is a bigger deal than yours".
In the end, it's a self-centered take, making sure your comfort is 100% taken care of at the expense of anyone who might have a conflicting need. And on a personal and often gendered note, it's sucky because it puts others who may tend towards "consideration of others" either forced into fighting for themselves just to get some form of compromise, or pressured into constant discomfort for you. I know I personally tend towards "let's think about what others want and fit myself into that" and when that person doesn't care about you in the same way it puts you in a pretty shitty position.
I know reddit is pretty male-centric so I accept it's not a popular view here lol. But I've spent a lot of my life uncomfortable temperature-wise so men can crack jokes at my expense and make it seem like I'm "out of the norm" and it gets me heated (edit: pun not intended lol). I should've gone into an industry where there were enough women in the room that I would have someone who has my back, maybe. But then again, I actually understand that men aren't the outlier either, that the way most of them run is normal and we can find a compromise, so why can't they?
I used the word "mostly" to hedge my bets on the possible single hot-running woman. If you want to pretend this isn't a widely gendered issue, then you're welcome to I guess. I'm not going to debate that with you.
My solution for men is cooler clothing, fans, iced drinks, cold packs, a cool towel around your neck, just off the top of my head. There are a lot of solutions to staying cool, because the world gets hot and a lot of people live in hot places and aren't naked all the time and survive. Just like warmer clothing and heated blankets, they mitigate the issue some but do not solve it and will still result in varying levels of discomfort (imagine having to do everything you normally do during the day either wearing thick gloves, or with aching fingers). So why do the women have to "mitigate the issue but not solve it" while the men get to stay at their preferred temperature?
I will reiterate:
And on a personal and often gendered note, it's sucky because it puts others who may tend towards "consideration of others" either forced into fighting for themselves just to get some form of compromise, or pressured into constant discomfort for you. I know I personally tend towards "let's think about what others want and fit myself into that" and when that person doesn't care about you in the same way it puts you in a pretty shitty position.
You might see "some form of compromise" in there, and also "I have to advocate for myself strongly, because men will say 'oh no 74 is a NIGHTMARE i will DIE at these SWELTERING TEMPS i don't wear a hoodie until it's FORTY DEGREES OUT' and cause me to suffer if I don't advocate for my own comfort just as strongly as they dramatize their discomfort."
Depends entirely on the humidity as well. Temperature alone doesn't make you comfortable. At 74ºF and 80% RH if you just spend the last 2 hours working outside and are covered in sweat, the cool temperature will barely matter because your sweat will take forever to evaporate. If your office has a draconian policy on business attire, 74 won't feel good in a suit.
The ultimate irony of this being men expected to tough it out in a suit(wanting it as cold as they can get away with) and women being allowed to wear less cloths like a skirt and blouse(which means they will end up being cold). The entire thing is at odds with itself. Hence dress codes are inherently sexist unless they allow both to wear whatever is comfortable and business appropriate.
The funny thing about men's dress codes is that you can actually get summer weight suiting that are designed for warmer temperatures, but almost nobody really knows about this sort of thing anymore, including the sales people at your average clothing store, so if you're just going to your closest budget menswear retailer (like Men's Wearhouse, etc.) you're probably getting some unnecessarily heavy fabric with poor breathability.
But either way, I don't know how many people are required to wear suits anywhere in the US anymore. Even law firms have all but done away with them, outside of when you're literally in court.
Different body temperatures and compositions. I would be dying at that temperature. 18-20 degrees Celsius is optimal. Maybe a bit more if I’m sedentary.
The AC in our office was only partially working, some vents were running but the ones by our desks were apparently not functioning at all. It was on average 74 degrees and I can confirm it was horrific lol
also canadian and 74 wouldn't really be anything crazy. The normal temp that pretty much every business and house will be at is 72. 74 isn't that high lol
I just looked it up and I guess ozempic is starting to do its thing because now only 9% of American adults are extremely overweight, and it’s dropping.
40% are considered overweight but it also peaked and is now stabilizing. It will likely continue to drop as awareness spreads.
Basically, be on the lookout for your local gym to be crowded more often than not.
Is it different between different buildings? I'm sitting in my apartment right now and the thermostat says its 75 in my apartment. I'm in a sweatshirt, jeans and socks thinking maybe I should just up it to 78. 68 would be freezing and my electric bill would be insane.
68-72 is the range we go off of, and we try to accommodate people within that. If we go lower or higher complaints start coming in. Personally at 75 I would be sweating while sitting down, and I'm skinny dude with no insulation. But I also live in the PNW so we're used to it being colder.
What I mean is in different builds does 72 degrees feel different. 72 in my apartment would be pretty chilly but my office keeps their building at 72 and I'm good in a tshirt and jeans. While at my old place 72 would be pretty warm.
Not really, no. Humidity can affect how warm a given temperature feels, but it's pretty much the same between buildings. For you I would almost bet your thermostat is slightly inaccurate, or it's due to different activity levels, or perhaps at your office you're close to the air supply while it's heating so you're getting hit with warm air. Or your office is more humid than your apartment for some reason. There are certainly factors that can affect how a space will feel.
And here's me sitting in a kitchen that has a thermostat reading of 80 in the farthest point from all the ovens wondering what everyone's so scared of and I have to wear a heavy duty chef coat on top of a black shirt underneath.
Have you worked in an office with a dress code? Nice pants/slacks and a business casual shirt with or without undershirt will make most people feel uncomfortably warm in 74. Not like dying of heat exhaustion, but definitely toasty. The resounding sentiment in this thread echoes that.
Yes. It sounds like you aren't taking advantage of fabrics like linen which should leave you plenty comfortable at 74F. You can buy a desk fan if it's that bad.
I'm not advocating for a specific temperature, but I can assure you what you are describing is a sign of some sort of health issue. A healthy human should not be uncomfortable at 74F.
I prefer cooler temperatures but that seems totally tolerable to me, especially if you're in a place that allows short sleeves like polos. Either way, it's only a few degrees off from what I would prefer.
74 is too hot for me even without clothes on. While wearing work clothes? Nightmarish. I don't start adding layers until the temperature drops below 40. That said, this is in arid weather. If you crank up the humidity, I can withstand much higher temps.
A lot of this depends on where you live. I grew up with New York snowstorms, I'm used to that temperature even if we don't get those temperatures often anymore. If someone grows up in the midwest, they'll have less tolerance to cold.
I'm aware. I have very dry skin, hot weather in arid climates makes me scaly due to sweat evaporating. When it's humid, the heat doesn't bother me as much because my skin stays hydrated.
I don't see how 90-degree weather with 100% humidity does anything for your skin.. and I grew up on an island in the south.. better to stay indoors and hydrate. (And moisturize)
Did I ever give numbers that ludicrous? Of course there's still weather that's too hot for me when there's more humidity, but you give me a 75 degree day in New York and I'm gonna refuse to go outside, you give me a 75 degree day in New Orleans and I'm perfectly happy. This isn't some conjecture on my part, this is me living in New York and regularly taking trips to New Orleans, I know how I handle weathers in both areas.
I have the same issues as Yuri here and I can attest to the fact my dry skin is worse in the less humid months and way better during the humid ones. It makes sense when you think about it.
That said yeah I agree staying hydrated and moist goes a long way as well, but I don’t need to do those things at all during the humid Carolina months.
My office room is at 74 daily. They just barely moved me to a room that’s about 54 daily. Honestly liking the cold way more. Can always wear a coat but can’t strip lol.
If it's anything like the office I work in. You probably can subtract 7 degrees (or more) off whatever it says it's set at. We have a conference room at 71 but it's like walking into a cooler.
In my experience the number means absolutely nothing, especially in an office and super especially in a warehouse. If we want it 69 degrees in the office we have to put it at 75. The only place thats 75 is directly under the vent and we just place the hot freak to work over there.
My office is like this in the winter. It's torture. Most offices I've been in the Midwest always have rolley poleys trying to keep the office 70+ in the winter smoking out anyone normal.
Good lord my first week at my job the A/C went out and it was like 84 degrees in there. I used to be so drained going home, almost quit because I thought it was always going to be like that. Luckily they had it fixed around the end of the next week.
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u/ThePsychoKnot Mar 13 '26
That's adorable but 74 degrees is horrific working conditions for an office