What Is the Correct Working Temperature for Your Warehouse?

It’s well known that being too hot or too cold at work can have a detrimental effect on the productivity, mood and welfare of your workforce. This is legitimately recognised in the UK by the Health and Safety Executive, and workplace working temperatures are covered by Workplace (Health, Safety and Welfare) Regulations 1992.

Is There a Legal Requirement?

While not a legal requirement, employers have a duty of care towards their employees to provide a reasonable and comfortable environment in which to work. The guidelines suggest reasonable temperatures are:

• A minimum of 16℃ for a normal workplace.
• A minimum of 13℃ for a workplace where there is ‘rigorous physical effort’.

Of course, everyone’s idea of rigorous physical effort may be different, but in general this is classed as activity such as carrying heavy loads.

Variations on the Rules

It would be impossible to have one blanket rule for all workplaces, and variations of the rule can be used if there is particular function that requires a certain temperature. It has to be recognised, for example, that a cold food processing or packing plant would need to operate at a lower temperature than a furniture warehouse. Equally, a warehouse where staff are constantly packing, loading, storing and transporting goods would reasonably be expected to be run at a lower temperature than an office where the workers are sat at desks for long periods.

How Winrow Can Help

At Winrow, we’re experts in commercial heating solutions, with over 30 years’ experience in the industry. Before agreeing to undertake any work for you, we inspect the site in question to fully understand your business, to ensure we make the best recommendations.

Our goal is to provide the most comfortable working temperatures for your workforce in the warehouse or elsewhere. Contact us today to find out how we can improve your business through our specialist heating solutions.