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Comment by SubiculumCode | Hacker News Reader

Driving less is good. I hate my commute anyway. However, I did wonder whether having everyone's houses being actively heated/cooled because you are at home versus the business office would result in more net carbon.

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I would just ask that anyone who makes such a calculation consider that, in the SF offices I used to work in, they heated the fucking garages. They literally heated the massive, multi-level car garages that were, for the vast majority of the time, completely unoccupied by human beings. In San Francisco.

That's not the mention the sprawling lobbies, long hallways, unused conference rooms and so on.

Personally,my homes heat and ac use us u changed whether or not I am home. There has been minimal savings (from my own small sample size) to reducing either while I am away, as when I would return the system would have to work longer to restore the desired temps.

So my situation it actually is a net benefit to work from home.

I think that’s typical. I can drop my thermostat about 7 degrees F in the winter if I’m not home. Just have a window unit AC which I rarely use and don’t even put in some years.

But I’m probably about 40 miles RT to go into my closer office which I have basically not done for years. Sometimes go into the urban one to meet with customer which is about 2x the distance and 3x the time.

For most people commuting costs dwarf the costs of being home for the day—unless they move to a bigger and more expensive place.

> 7 degrees F

Typo? Pipes freeze and burst at that temperature.

Drop by not to. To about 55 degrees.

Same, most people keep their home in a narrow temperate range, especially if you have pets at home.

If you have a modern heat pump system, it's often more energy efficient to keep it at a steady temp. They become more efficient the less they have to work. This means if you're changing the temp while at work, there's a spike when you return where it has to work harder. The efficiency loss there is often worse than what was saved by changing the temps while you were away.

The commute is what killed me. Doing what is essentially unpaid work to get to/from work seems pretty unfair when you’re losing potentially an hour each day doing it.

I have to imagine companies would quit this RTO nonsense if they were forced to pay hourly rates for commutes.

1.5 hours driving a day * 5 days a week = not going to the gym ever.

I'm a pretty big gym rat, so I went even when i did go to the office.

All that to say that having the freedom to go in the middle of the day/lunchtime and also having more energy for it was one of the single biggest benefits I enjoy from remote work as someone who lives alone.

I can also go for short walks around my neighborhood for small breaks without feeling like I'll be judged for not being at my desk/making smalltalk with people who don't wanna be active. Normally those breaks would just be sitting around the coffee maker, or people standing at desks.

Remote work opens up so much for human health in my opinion. I do understand some jobs can't be done from home, but in my opinion that should be reason to compensate them even more.

>Doing what is essentially unpaid work to get to/from work seems pretty unfair when you’re losing potentially an hour each day doing it.

I do not agree with this framing. People have agency to choose where they live and what tradeoffs they want to make in their life. No reason someone willing to live in a certain location should subsidize someone wanting to live further away.

Tell that to the person cleaning your offices.

The person cleaning the office being too poor to live near the office is a separate issue, solved with wealth redistribution and more high density housing.

just fundamentally restructure your government and undertake decades-long construction projects!

That doesn't help the people in the 20-year interim before those changes are made. God forbid wealth redistribution doesn't actually solve the problem.

Yes, I know it is politically intractable, hence all of these problems are unsolvable. But technically, it is feasible, just requires a lot of reduced expectations from people who are anticipating living a certain lifestyle.

Suburban sprawl is highly subsidized in the USA. Having agency doesn't negate the environment your surrounded by.

Yes, and forcing business to pay people the further away they live further subsidizes the sprawl.

It also happens that living in an apartment in the middle of a city is depressing to many people, who wish for green spaces, gardening, and a bit of s p a c e. So I just disagree that suburbia is hell, and high-rise living is next to godliness.

I would live in a world where I was near wilderness, working remotely, but occasionally commuting to work through ultra high speed transport.

So you have agency in theory but not in practice? I don't know many coworkers who can afford to live anywhere near our office aside from management and people far along on the technical promotion path. Every state, city and area is different but I can't imagine these circumstances are rare. Homes without commutes tend to have a much higher price or rental cost than those further away. If 80% of your workers have to commute to get to your office what agency do they really have? The agency to live in a van parked a few blocks away?

Depends on how much you blast the AC/heating while you're home I suppose, and whether or not you have pets and so need to keep your house somewhat heated/cooled all the time anyway.

The office I used to work at had the thermostat set far lower in the summer than I ever would at home.

This is pretty easy to figure out by looking at grid energy use. I think a lot of producers make that public info. Not sure there was much impact.

I keep my house the same temp whether I’m home or not. I figured most people probably do the same.

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