Back when I was working for the manufacturers rep company we moved into this big new office on the Isle of Long that was split up into Dilbert-like cubbies. The place had a two-pipe, direct-return hydronic hot water heating system, running on three main zones. Each zone had its own circulator and day-night thermostat. Within each zone there were about six thermostatic radiator valves. We set the electric thermostats for 80-degrees F. during the day, which made the circulators run continuously. The thermostatic radiator valves throttled and did a great job (or so I thought) of keeping the individual cubbies from overheating. At night, the electric thermostats setback to 60-degrees F, which caused the TRVs to open fully and the circulators to operate intermittently. It was a simple, but very effective, control system for the days before outdoor reset became as popular as it is today. Or so it seemed to me.
The challenge, as is often the case, turned out to be a human one. We had people of all ages and both sexes working for our company. One day, one of the women in the Accounting Department decided that it was too hot for her. She was of an age where the anticipator on the internal thermostat was a bit out of calibration. So she began to complain to the other women in the accounting department.
I went into her space and dialed down the TRV, but that didn't stop her complaining. She wasn't a technical person and the concept of the TRV was new to her. At home, she had an electrical thermostat. Couldn't she just turn down the electrical thermostat? The one out in the hallway?
I explained that if she did this then the entire accounting department would be cold. She told me that I was an idiot. She also told the other women in the Accounting Department that I was an idiot, and after a while, she won them over, convincing them that they were also hot. Comfort is perception and the majority rules.
So we did the thing that has nearly become a clich in our industry. We stayed late one night and nailed a Honeywell T87 thermostat to the wall of each accounting cubby. We didn't wire the T87s; we just hung them.
The next day, all the women in accounting thanked me.
See what I mean? Comfort is perception.
I was doing a seminar last January in some Holiday Inn. It was 70-degrees F in our meeting room and the humidity level was just fine. Most of the people in the room were wearing long-sleeve shirts and some wore sweaters as well because it was colder than outer space outside. The people at the seminar had left home that morning dressed for the cold. When they got to the Holiday Inn, the climate was controlled, but they were still wearing their long-sleeved shirts and sweaters. I asked if everyone was comfortable and they all nodded. Temperature okay? Too hot? Too cool? Everyone said it was just fine, and why was I asking?
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