Heating the setting this autumn

[Dennie]

I was wondering what everyone will be doing about heating their buildings this autumn while we are dealing with Covid-19.  We are in a small hut with only fan heaters, high on the wall, which encourage germs to circulate everywhere.  We have no gas supplied to the hut.

Does anyone have any knowledge of infra red heaters or any other form of heating we might use or how effective they are?  We don't have much of a budget to devote to this, but with the weather getting colder we will need to sort something soon.  I just wondered what everyone else was doing.

[louby loo]

We're in a scout hut and they fitted infra red heaters this time last year.  

They are so much better than the fans- but our fans were old anyway.  We do get hot spots, but they heat up in minutes.  Not sure cost wise though.

[lynned55]

My deputy and I were discussing this last week- we have horrible hot air heaters- all they do is blow hot air out and (as you rightly say) circulate germs all over. Unfortunately I have 3 staff that even in 30 degree heat are constantly moaning they are cold but I did say at the end of last term that they need to get themselves fleeces & dress in plenty of layers as its going to have to be extremely cold for us to have the heating on. I'm dreading it going on. 

I'm not sure what else we can do though- we're in an enormous church hall with bare brick walls and 20 foot ceilings. 

 

Edited September 1, 2020 by lynned55

[Mouseketeer]

Ours is also the air conditioning unit type ...which will make my bubbles pointless so hoping for a few weeks at least of not needing it, to half term would be good🤞

[twinthinguk]

thermal base layers are the key, good warm socks and winter boots, I would not be able to cope without them lol we also have hot air heaters which struggle to cope, but the best thing we ever brought for the setting was one of those plastic flap curtains for the large double doors that are open for free flow! that curtain works wonders!  at this time of year, we don't need it but come the chilly weather, its in place.

[finleysmaid]

we are lucky now to have a really good heating system but we did operate like this for a little while. You are going to need to use the heating (as there are minimum heat requirements for your staff) but i would suggest ventilating the room as much as possible and playing outside for as long a period as you can. Along with additional hygiene this is all you can do. Maybe write it up in your risk assessment to so that if you did have any problems it shows you have thought about it. 

[Dennie]

Thanks everyone for your advice.  As staff we are fine and have fleeces.  It is not the cold so much we are worrying about and our setting is warm with the heaters.  We are more concerned about the current heaters spreading germs and especially Covid-19.  It looks like many of you also have the same time of heaters as us so are having to cope with the same issues.

Twinthinguk we would love to get one of those plastic door curtains and have been wondering about it for a while.  Can I ask how you sourced yours?   Can you buy any online?

 

 

[twinthinguk]

27 minutes ago, Dennie said:

Thanks everyone for your advice.  As staff we are fine and have fleeces.  It is not the cold so much we are worrying about and our setting is warm with the heaters.  We are more concerned about the current heaters spreading germs and especially Covid-19.  It looks like many of you also have the same time of heaters as us so are having to cope with the same issues.

Twinthinguk we would love to get one of those plastic door curtains and have been wondering about it for a while.  Can I ask how you sourced yours?   Can you buy any online?

 

 

We use our hallway for small group work for some of our EYPP children ( we had 6) and the cold drafts made the space pretty unusable in the winter, we funded it using EYPP as i was able to show that continued small group work for these children had a big impact on their speech and language . 

it works like a dream, keeps the area warm enough to be used with either the doors open or closed, keeps the heat in really well. We ordered it through one of the resources catalogues on line.

Edited September 2, 2020 by twinthinguk

[Dennie]

On 02/09/2020 at 10:45, twinthinguk said:

We use our hallway for small group work for some of our EYPP children ( we had 6) and the cold drafts made the space pretty unusable in the winter, we funded it using EYPP as i was able to show that continued small group work for these children had a big impact on their speech and language . 

it works like a dream, keeps the area warm enough to be used with either the doors open or closed, keeps the heat in really well. We ordered it through one of the resources catalogues on line.

Many thanks.  It sounds like a good use of space.  We will have to investigate further.