Comment by rayiner
1 day ago
> Ceiling fans with a 7.5-metre (24.6ft) diameter help to circulate the air. In the 30C (86F) humid heat of Réunion’s wet summers, which last from around November to April, the resulting breeze reduces the perceived temperature by four to five degrees, to almost the same level usually set for air conditioning.
Who sets their air conditioning to 82F?
Doing this in a tropical country is penny-wise and pound foolish. As Lee Kuan Yew said, you need air conditioning to be able to think in a tropical country: https://awealthofcommonsense.com/2024/09/air-conditioning-on...
"Air conditioning was a most important invention for us, perhaps one of the signal inventions of history. It changed the nature of civilization by making development possible in the tropics. Without air conditioning you can work only in the cool early-morning hours or at dusk. The first thing I did upon becoming prime minister was to install air conditioners in buildings where the civil service worked. This was key to public efficiency."
>Who sets their air conditioning to 82F?
Italy did! The minimum summer temperature was only 1.4°F less than that. Dunno if they've kept it up. Summer this year was brutal in Europe. https://www.smh.com.au/world/europe/italians-sweat-for-ukrai...
I'm reminded of the situation at Verizon in Switzerland ~12 years ago where they didn't have any central air conditioning in the building "for the environment." Swiss summers can be HOT. I've seen 40°C/104°F in my time there. This ended up with a bunch of engineers buying floorstanding AC units for their desks that blew cold air onto them and barfed the resultant differential + work heat out the rear vent. Truly insane.
During the energy crisis in the summer of 1979, President Jimmy Carter issued an emergency conservation plan that mandated air conditioning thermostats in public and commercial buildings be set no lower than 78 degrees Fahrenheit, which is not too far from 80.6 degrees.
The mandate remained in effect for about nineteen months until President Reagan rescinded it less than a month into his presidency.