Posted By Mark Bywater May, Personally I'd be more concerned with the wasted energy. Smoking shelters are designed to give protection from rain and offer only limited side protection. Thus any benefit given by the heater is negligible and thus a complete waste of energy. So put your environmental head on and tell the staff to wear coats if necessary and save the boss some money...he'll love you for it. Mark

Posted By Barrie (Badger) Etter Re orignal posting the answer is yes ref HSWA s3 I think it is - protection of non employees. Its one of those situations the wrong person gets hammered for some thing they haven't done. Badger

Posted By Dave Wilson Barrie I would disagree if a trespasser rips an electrical appliance of a wall and get electrocuted - unlucky - what do you expect. If you leave live electrical cables hanging out and he gets a jolt - that's a different matter

Posted By Fornhelper Dave I see where your coming from but we've had action taken against us because a 12 year old climbed on to a roof and fell after pulling an adjacent wheelie bin over to assist him getting on to the roof!! I don't agree that the 'person' who put up the heater should be liable but I could envisage a similar scenario in this case. Remember the good old days when it was OK to have broken bottles cemented on to the top of a wall - I've still got a scar but never got any compensation - time barred by now I suppose :-) FH

Posted By Dave Wilson People Occupiers Liability / Defective premises etc. You cannot do anything or make your building unsafe so that it could affect the H&S of people who are likely to come on to your premises, including the young & trespassers etc. However you have to do everything which is reasonable in all the circumstances etc. Leaving things around which scallywags can get on so they can access your roof is different from wanton theft and vadalism and the person then gets injured in carrying out the criminal act - cut the artery in my neck when I broke your window to burgle your property is different from leaving barbed wire behind the window to injure any burglar and he suffers a bleeding femoral artery. H&S at work has got nothing to do with it.

Posted By MP Grayson Having a heater in the tabber's shelter? What next? In order for this to work I suspect that it will be on all of the time. So don't worry about a tea-leaf stealing it. It will be too hot and they will drop it when they burn themselves ;-) Crackin

Posted By NJS a limited knowledge of the area in concern here but......... I thought a smoking shelter was not to be fully enclosed on 3 or more of the faces? i essence it is supposed to no more thasn a roof to shelter from the elements. Putting a heater in an open space is fairly unnecessary surely. as others have pointed out think environmentaly, what a waste of energy trying to heat up Outside, surely a contributory factor to global warming? Also as it is open and exposed to the elements, there seems little the organisastion can do to make it secure, therefore the risk of some little bleeder trying to half inch it is hugely increased as is the risk if electrocution. I would speak to your boss and remind him of his statutory duties to employees and others! if you remind him of "HIS" duties and the fact he cannot delegate responsibility he may reconsider. it would be interesting to hear what the outcome is. NJS

Posted By May Warley Hi All, Our smoke shelter is located just outside the locker room, so the engineer cut off the corner of the window to get the cables through to the power supply. I have also found out the two heaters are for outdoor use and I have been requested to come up with a sign 'last one out, turn heaters off' just now. I spoke to the mgr of my concern on the waste of energy and what I got from him is there are a lot of smoke shelters out there using the heaters, so what else can I say... sigh...

Posted By Sen Sar Maybe a chat to a brewery/pub might help as it must be something they have overcome.

Posted By Mike DF Or get the sparky to set the timer 20 minutes before the breaktimes... It sounds like you have pampered smokers. I did not know that there was an obligation to provide shelters, never mind heating them. Look out in the spring when the air conditioner arrives.

Posted By Dave Wilson Kirsty. I agree with your comments, however if a trespasser vandalises electrical equipment on your premises I cannot see how you could be held liable if they get a belt from it. If this was the case then every single person in the Uk would have to lock up / remove / switch off ALL the equipment before they shut the offices to go home every day.

Posted By Kirsty Davies2 Just to make things a bit more Clearer. Please note that Occupier's Liability Act 1984 states that; "An occupier of premises owes a duty to another in respect of any such risk if he is aware of the danger or has reasonable grounds to believe that it exists; Now as mentioned earlier, the owner do know that there is a possiblity of theft attempt, hence risk of injury, therefore, responsible for not take appropriate steps in the case of injury.