Fan heaters in the office

[FortyElephants]

AIBU to ask a colleague to turn off the fan heater blowing at her feet?
i am genuinely unsure. If it was cold I would have sympathy but it is not. I have struggled with it many times but today is the second time I've asked her to turn it off. It's too hot regardless of which of the free desks I sit at. She got the hump and moved herself and her heater to a different corner of the office (I have to sit in the specific area, she doesn't)
am I being unreasonable saying please turn off the fan heater in the office?

You have not more right to your preferred temperature than her. I can sympathise with her, I am always cold. It is cold for me even if it isn't for you and I spent a lifetime surrounded by heaters in freezing offices.
I think a polite request for her to move to a different part of the office is fine but you can't really insist she turns the heater off.

I hate fan heaters, they make me feel sick after a bit. If she doesn't want to move next time suggest a hot water bottle.

You aren't unreasonable to ask her, but she's not being unreasonable to refuse either. One of the things I do not miss about being in the office is having to sit between my boss who had her heater on constantly and the males in our team who had the window open in all weathers. There is no compromise that will satisfy everyone unfortunately.

Neither of you is unreasonable. I’m the perpetually freezing person at work and I often have to take myself off to a small meeting room to work as it’s warm in there. This is why I don’t go into the office very often.

There are loads of ways to keep warm without blowing hot air around the room. YANBU

Ask the office to get a inbuilt temperature control fan for under desk usage only.
That way it will click off as soon as the space under her desk is hot.

i can sorta understand but i dont see why or how the heater alone will make an overall temp difference ? what about a temp gague thingy on your desk so you can know if it does make a differece in temp ?

She did move. But I would feel more awkward about asking someone to move than about asking them to turn the heater off!

Does she have her own allocated desk, or do people just sit wherever they can find a space?

I'm always cold and currently have a fan heater blowing on my feet 😬It would be tricky for me to move desks but I'd make the effort to move if I was making a colleague very uncomfortable. As long as they asked me politely and weren't rude/dismissive (e.g. saying IT'S NOT COLD when my hands are a weird white-ish purple colour and covered in chilblains!)

Cold feet (ie a floor draught) can’t be dealt with using a hot water bottle!

I think if she’s got it under her desk directed at her feet there’s not much you can do.

I do sympathise as it’s horrible to work somewhere too hot or too cold, for the both of you.

Can you get a small desk fan?

Can the office provide her with a heated pad and an electric foot warmer instead? They would use a lot less electricity as well.

It's because it's a fan heater and it blows hot air. It's not like a convection heater. The feeling of hot air being blown into the space is just horrible. It makes me feel itchy and suffocated if I'm honest. Maybe if she had a small convection heater with a thermostat it would be more manageable.

fair points , what about windows or doors open ?

It's an open plan shared working environment. We have a large bank of around 32 desks for my part of the service and a lot more desks for other parts. However she's not attached to a specific team so could work anywhere in the office while I have to work in one half of the bank of 32. So I had no option but to be in the same space as her heater. I didn't say it wasn't cold, I said 'I'm so sorry, I can't handle the fan heater being on, it's way too hot for me to work in this temperature' and she got all huffy about being cold so I got a bit defensive and said as it's march now I didn't think it was reasonable to have a fan heater on. Which was probably U of me.

A fan would blow cold air in her direction 🤷🏼‍♀️ it would not counterbalance the effect of hot air being blown in my direction it would just make us both uncomfortable.

That's a good idea thank you!

It's a huge open plan office. And the windows are automatic and either all open or all closed. Opening the windows would have made her much colder and probably made everyone else in the office chilly too!

Fans don't make air cold, it would be blowing her hot air back in her direction.

We have the same with a couple of people with fan heaters and there's something about the hot air they blow that makes me feel sick as well, @NooNakedJacuzziness !!

They're also not brilliant for the environment - it's always better to heat the person not the air. There was some talk about getting company branded bodywarmers a while back, I may revive that and make some of them heated gilets for the cold people in the office!

Fan heaters are fire risks. Ever office I’ve worked in have confiscated them!

A small desk fan wouldn’t make it colder (and would barely reach her unless you’re sitting in each others’ laps), but it might make it feel a bit fresher. £10 from Amazon.

Obvious questions here:

Fire hazard and environmental hazard so why have H&S not removed/ banned them. Plus they cost a fortune to run, amazed that's not been picked up.

If the building has climate control the fan will mess that up so it doesn't work properly.

All round they are a bad idea.

I've contacted facilities today - queried that the heaters I can see here aren't Pat tested and as you say are a fire hazard. Apparently the heating system is going to be fixed this week (!) and all the appliances Pat tested. If they pass they won't be removed until May when it warms up (!!!) I suggested buying a couple of convection heaters instead but they wouldn't be able to be pat tested. Why they have supplied us with bloody fan heaters I don't know.
Typical local government nonsense really. Fixing the heating in March - probably waited to see if there was any money left in the budget. If they do fix the heating I'm going to confiscate the fan heaters and pretend facilities did it. Can't imagine having heating on full blast plus those things!

So she brought in a non PAT tested fan heater from home and the company allows it?

Many years ago, worked in a 6 storey office block. Idiot on top floor brought own heater in, it blew heated dust out as well as hot air and set the fire alarm off, hundreds evacuated and several fire engines sent.

The company is insane to allow this.

No she didn't bring it in - someone here has bought them. I don't know who. But they aren't pat tested and I checked with facilities manager and he's aware of them! I don't get it