Air conditioning at work blowing cold over some employees

[iceman]

Hi,

In my company, some employees are complaining that the air conditioning, under which they sit is blowing cold air on top of them and want it switched off. Other employees, who are not sitting under an air conditioning unit are complaining that the office area is too warm and want it switched on.

We have had 2 independent air-con contractors look at it and it appears that the problem is that the ceiling is too low and some employees are getting caught in the air-con cycle.

Does anybody know of solutions to this?
One suggestion I have had is to put a diverting chutes over the outlets, which will disperse the air in a more even horizontal manner, rather than downwards.
Does anyone know where I might get such "diverting chutes"

 

[iceman]

BTW - I work in the Limerick area

 

[Mucker Man]

Maybe this is too simple of a solution but could the people not swap seats?
We had a similar issue in my office and that worked, some people prefer a cooler office and some a warmer one.

 

[iceman]

Thanks for the suggestion.
However, the problem is that the office is full and noone wants to sit under the air-con units.

 

[johnno09]

Can I suggest email this into Fix It Friday on Ray Darcy. Im sure if theres a solution he'll find out what it is.

p.s. I wouldnt bother ringing the parliamentary party looking for solutions to problems though

 

[allthedoyles]

Have you tried changing the settings - try automatic and reduce the fan .-

Set it to 20 degrees .

 

[Lauren]

Cold people wear a jumper, warm people take theirs off???

 

[markpb]

Cold people wear a jumper, warm people take theirs off???

We have the same problem in our office. It's not down to personal preference - the desks underneath the vents are too cold and breezy for people to sit there, even people who like a cool office.

We stuck pieces of A3 card over ours to direct the air along the ceiling instead of straight down. It's probably not the kind of professional solution the OP was expecting but it works for us

 

[lightswitch]

Was the room initally designed to be working office space or was it supposed to be a meeting room or used for some other purpose?

I only ask because this can often happen whe the air con unit is not installed with the use of the space specified correctly. eg, If there were a board room table in the middle of the room the air con unit might work perfectly, if that was the intended purpose of the room at design stage.

If you now have people seated around the room in various places on a permanent basis then they will be having problems with hot/cold areas. It may of course not be an option for these people to be moved to another area of the building.

The air con people should be able to source diverting chutes for you, seeing as they recommended them.

 

[iceman]

Have you tried changing the settings - try automatic and reduce the fan .-

Set it to 20 degrees .

Good suggestion (Thanks) - We are looking at replacing the controllers with timed ones, so that we can turn off/down when people are inthe office and turn on/up during break times

Was the room initally designed to be working office space or was it supposed to be a meeting room or used for some other purpose?

I only ask because this can often happen whe the air con unit is not installed with the use of the space specified correctly. eg, If there were a board room table in the middle of the room the air con unit might work perfectly, if that was the intended purpose of the room at design stage.

We moved into this building a while ago and I think that originally the office area was a production floor, so the location of the air-con units was probably okay for this.

 

[onq]

Its a pity this was posted here even though it deals with working conditions - it falls to a building professional to deal with and the closest thing we have to a forum dealing with such issues is the Site Planning Self Builds and Extensions Forum.

Someone designed this system - at least we hope they did - and they sould be requested to comment. Failign this a competent mechanical and electrical consulting engineer should look at this with an architect / Interior Designer to devise an aesthetically acceptable functional solution.

As one other poster has noted, it will probably rest on the installation of baffles or diffusers or both, but you have to consider their interaction with any lighting, service ducts, smoke detectors, evergency lighting etc.

One exercise you should do as a matter of course is to see whether there is any chance of employing a passive ventilation solution, to both reduce cost and improve amenity in the office.

ONQ.

 

[Complainer]

Those under the vents should get a thermometer and measure the temp. There are HSA regs about minimum temps in a workplace.

 

[AlbacoreA]

We got the AC guys to discretely tape up cardboard sheets to redirect the flow. Sometime a very narrow strip of card can redirect a lot of the airflow.