“It’s freezing in here,” one of my co-workers said as I walked by her desk.

She was putting on a sweater. I found it odd — I was a little warm.

I got a cold Diet Pepsi from the machine and headed back to my desk.

“Hmm. What are you doing?” I asked another co-worker, who was wrapping a long neck scarf around her neck.

“It’s c-c-cold,” she said, smiling and shivering.

Uh-oh. It was happening again. I sensed that the office temperature battle was on.

Perennial battle

According to a report from the Mayo Clinic, there are some biological reasons women feel cold while men feel comfortable at the same temperature.

Among the reasons: Women have slightly lower metabolic rates, less muscle mass — and less insulating fat around their middle.

Over the years, I’ve seen and heard about office battles caused by these metabolic rate and blubber differences.

¢Mayo Clinic report¢Epinions: space heaters

It begins with the office thermostat getting attention from both sexes. Eventually, a heating, ventilation and air conditioning engineer is brought in to make peace.

Usually that means encasing the thermostat in a clear plastic box, with a lock on it.

(A few experimental trips to a hardware store eventually will land the right-sized hex key to defeat the lock.)

The Wall Street Journal has reported that some HVAC consultants also have provided another solution: the dummy thermostat.

They move the real thermostat out of sight. Then they install a fake thermostat, which actually creates a psychological placebo effect for those who want to control it.

Personal heat

Some women in our office have bypassed the annual thermostat war by bringing in personal space heaters.

I decided to look into the various types, costs and how safe they are. I found more than 300 different models listed on various Web sites.

Prices range from about $17 to about $150, with many in the $20 to $40 range.

Most portable heaters I saw were electric and about a foot tall.

Most of them had two controls: one for the heat setting, the other for the fan speed.

The power settings most common were for 1,500 watts (about 5,200 BTUs) and 750 watts (about 3,000 BTUs).

One of the cheaper ones looked like a toaster oven, only without the door — its wire heating elements glowed red.

Some that looked a little more safe had their heating elements embedded in ceramic casings, which help retain the heat. More expensive electric ones included precise digital temperature controls and even a remote control unit.

Electric portable heaters usually have a fan that lets you point the heat to blow in a particular direction.

Some electric models were filled with “diathermic” oil and looked like radiators on wheels. They also had several temperature settings to heat up the factory-sealed oil, but no fan. The oil, which never needs to be changed, is heated inside the unit, which becomes hot to the touch.

Firing it up

“My office is so darn cold that I’m threatening to get one of those down here,” Lawrence’s fire marshal, Rich Barr, said, laughing.

I asked Barr for some tips for getting a space heater that would keep you warm without threatening the safety of your work space.

He advised getting one that automatically shuts off if it’s tipped over. Also, he said to make sure it had an Underwriters Laboratory (UL) or Factory Mutual seal of approval.

“Generally our preference is for them to get an oil-filled, totally enclosed unit. The reason for that is because there is no exposed ignition source,” he said. “In the electric ones, yeah, there’s a screen over it, but there is still a fairly hot filament.”

Oil-filled space heaters are more expensive, costing about $60 and up.

I found two highly-rated oil-filled space heaters on epinions.com. The Delonghi Portable Radiator and Heater 2507 received a five-star rating by two reviewers on epinions.com. The Lakewood Oil Filled Heater 7096 got five stars from 14 reviewers.

Barr said kerosene-burning heaters have an open flame and also pose a danger of putting off carbon monoxide, he said.

A fresh air source is needed if you use them — and a carbon monoxide detector, Barr said.

He also noted that the electric heaters can draw a lot of amps. So he recommended plugging them directly into a wall outlet or a power strip and to be careful not to overload a circuit that already has computers, monitors or printers drawing from it.

Barr also recommended putting a 36-inch open area around whatever heater you get, so you don’t accidentally catch some office papers — or chair, desk or your socks — on fire.

Some like it hot

I was getting uncomfortably warm and checked our home thermostat. I turned it down from 74 to 70 and walked into the kitchen, where my wife and daughter were watching “Gilmore Girls” on the small TV.

“Dad, I’m cold,” Julie said, wrapping herself up in a blanket.

“I’m cold too,” my wife said, huddling in her heavy hooded gray sweatshirt.

They both looked over at me.

“Huh? Oh, I’m fine.”

Hey, nobody’s perfect.