Prague, Jan 26 (CTK) – Czechs overheat their homes and offices, sometimes up to 24 degrees Celsius, while people in Western Europe usually prefer temperatures around 20°C, daily Lidove noviny (LN) writes yesterday.
“Almost everywhere, the temperature seems to be two degrees warmer than necessary, both compared with the Western countries and with what is healthy and reasonable,” Yvonna Gaillyova, from the Veronica environmental institute, said about the Czech Republic.
She said foreign visitors to the country often complain about overheated rooms.
When British Prince Charles was in Prague in March 2010, his room had to be aired all night to make the temperature bearable for him, although it was still relatively cold outside, Gaillyova said.
She said foreign professors visiting the Faculty of Social Sciences of Masaryk University in Brno, at which she has been teaching, wrote in their report that the university rooms were extremely overheated.
The too warm interiors cost extra money and have negative influence on human health and the environment. Moreover, they worsen the heavy smog that affected most of the country in the last few days, the paper writes.
Gaillyova said the interior temperature could be two or even four degrees lower.
Generally, buildings are constructed for the optimum temperature of 20°C throughout Europe, said Karel Vlach, director on Enbra, a Czech firm that specialises in measuring household consumptions of heat and water.
The Czech standard is to heat rooms to 22-24°C, while abroad the optimal temperature of 20°C is respected or even lowered to 18°C, Vlach told the paper.
This concerns not only Czech households but also offices and sometimes even schools and shops.
Gaillyova said a factor that is as important as temperature is humidity. Quality windows and regular airing are of high importance for the interior conditions, she added.
She said lowering the temperature by one degree saves 6 percent of the heating costs and it also lowers the carbon dioxide emission produced, especially if people use coal for heating.
As there are many coal-fired power plants in the Czech Republic, the lowering of electricity consumption decreases the volume of CO2 emissions, Gaillyova said.
The present air pollution in the country shows a vicious circle: the colder the winter, the more people heat their homes and the more they contribute to the smog situation, she said.
The type of household heating is markedly influenced by energy prices, LN writes.
Radim Sram, from the Institute of Experimental Medicine, said household heating is the primary factor influencing air pollution in many neighbourhoods.
When gas prices went up, people started returning to burning fossil fuels or even waste, Sram said.
Vlach said young people tend to use modern technologies such as heat pumps. “The rising costs of energy force people to save money. Awareness and more fair payments of the costs (in apartment buildings) play a major role as well,” he said.
Unlike in the past when they used to wear sweaters at home in winter, Czechs like to wear short sleeves in their living rooms during all the four seasons of the year.
“Female clerks did not wear the same blouses in summer and winter in the past,” Gaillyova said.
She said this also concerns the broad use of air-conditioning systems in hot summers.
The Japanese prime minister began to demonstratively wear shirts with short sleeves without a tie in order to change the dress code and limit the use of air conditioning in offices during the summer, Gaillyova said.
Due to overheated or highly air-conditioned interiors, people undergo stronger temperature shocks when they go outside, she said.
kva/t/rtj
