Good afternoon, HSE's Info-line, Andrew speaking, how can I help?
Hi, my name is Victoria Brady, I'm the training manager here at HSE's Info-line and I am going to answer all your health and safety questions for you.
We're in the middle of winter and it's pretty cold outside. Is there a minimum temperature in the workplace?
There is a minimum temperature which is set down in the Approved Code of Practice to the Workplace Health Safety and Welfare Regulations of 1992. It's specified as sixteen degrees Celsius and it's thirteen degrees Celsius if you are carrying out sort of severe physical effort. So yeah there is a minimum temperature set down.
How do you find out whether or not your workplace is complying with that?
Well there should be a thermometer within the workplace, that's also set down in the Approved Code of Practice, and it should be located somewhere within your workplace. So I would certainly just go and check it out.
What about I mean I am sure no one can imagine it in the middle of January, but what about when it gets too hot at work in the summer?
There isn’t specifically a maximum temperature set down in the Workplace Health Safety and Welfare Regulations, although there is an obligation under those regulations to make sure that your employees are kept reasonably comfortable within the workplace. And there are sort of ways you can do that by maybe providing them with fans, I mean it can be as much as saying the men don’t have to wear ties for a certain couple of weeks to make them feel cooler, air conditioning and just things like that to make sure that your employees are kept comfortable during the hot weather.
