What's Ideal Room Temperature, Anyway?
If you've ever fought with your housemates or family members about the perfect thermostat setting...
If the people in your family are turning the dial of the thermostat like a safecracker turns a lock...
If you've ever secretly tiptoed to the thermostat to crank it up or down...
If you feel like Goldilocks in the home of The Three Bears where it's either too hot or too cold...
Then you need to know these three easy ways to find your ideal room temperature.
The Difficulty With Ideal Room Temp Is...
Finding the perfect room temp that will please everyone is a huge and difficult undertaking because everybody's "ideal" is different.
The definition of ideal room temperature goes something like this:
The temperature at which a person is comfortable - neither too hot nor too cold-- when wearing ordinary indoor clothing.
But even though there is not ONE ideal temp, there are easy ways to determine what range of temps will be healthiest and most comfortable for the entire household.
#1: Consider The Ages of People in the Home
The older the occupant of the home, the warmer the "ideal" room temperature is:
As we age, it's harder for us to stay warm for several reasons:
The fat layer under our skin begins to thin, conserving less heat and providing less insulation
- Our blood vessels lose elasticity, making our blood move slower and causing diminished circulation to our extremities...(why older people often have cold hands and feet.)
- Other medical issues like blood pressure problems and diabetes which often occur in the elderly make regulation of body temperature difficult.
- The average body temperature of an adult 65 or over falls below the 98.6-degree average.
Most experts believe that the ideal room temperature for older adults is between 68 and 75 degrees.
Younger, healthy occupants have cooler "ideal" room temps:
If your household is younger than sixty-five and healthy, the ideal room temp is lower than it is for the older population. The World Health Organization suggests that for appropriately dressed people, the ideal room temperature is a minimum of 64.4 degrees. Colder than 64 degrees can inflame the lungs, and lower than 61 degrees with humidity can cause an increase in respiratory problems like asthma and allergies.
What about babies?
In general, if you're comfortable, your baby will be comfortable too, particularly if they're swaddled or dressed. It's important not to buy into the myth that babies need super-warm temps. One study shows that too hot temperatures have been linked to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome. (SIDS).
#2: Consider the room and the activity
Living rooms and dining rooms are usually rooms where we're not very active. If we're sitting down to dinner or lying on the couch watching tv, our body is not physically active, so if you have zones in your home, you may want to keep those zones set a little higher.
Bedrooms should always be set lower than the other rooms, with experts believing that for most people the best temps for snoozing are 60-67 degrees and 65-72 degrees for older adults. The lowered temperature of a cool room helps us sleep better for these reasons:
- Cool temps stimulate the sleep cycle. When our core body temperature drops, our sleep cycle begins. Deep sleep is enhanced by cool temps.
- Cooler temperatures stimulate what scientists call "brown fat" which fights obesity and diabetes by burning body energy during sleep. (I don't know about you, but I'm for anything that contributes to fat-burning!)
#3: Consider the gender of the occupants
In general, men prefer cooler temps, usually because they have more muscle mass. To keep those muscles moving, their bodies generate more heat and burn more calories than women's bodies do.
Women prefer temperatures several degrees higher than men - which accounts for the thermostat wars that go on in many American homes.
ServiceOne can help!
No matter what your ideal room temperature is, we can put you in it. We can put you in your comfort zone with state-of-the-art equipment and top-notch professional advice. Programmable thermostats, multi-zoned systems, routine maintenance, quotes on new air conditioning and heating systems...we've got you covered.
Call us. 1-407-499-8333.