What a real engineer would do is invent a mini-fridge that’s powered by heat (e.g. a Stirling engine), and then plug in a space heater to power it.
That’s quite a hypothetical you’ve got there.
It never, ever happens. It’s difficult to get it to happen just in an apartment with two or more roommates, and you will never see it happen in an office with a dozen or more people.
Unless you schedule it so that everyone takes their turn thoroughly cleaning the fridge. And then every person will apply their own standard of cleanliness when it’s their turn. And some people will not be happy with other people’s standards of cleanliness. And people will grumble and bitch to their friends about it, rather than making waves by bitching to the people whom they feel are not putting forth an adequate cleaning effort when it’s their turn.
We have fridges in our office lunch room. The building’s cleaning staff takes care of them; there are signs indicating that the fridges will be cleaned out on Wednesday night, and anything left in them at that time will be discarded. The fridges are heavily used, reliably clean, and there’s a formal, anonymous mechanism for feedback (to the cleaning staff) if anyone is not happy about the condition of the fridges. The system works pretty well.
The same email is sent out every year at our company, and every year we ignore it. YMMV, of course 
My cube neighbor has a rather significant space heater. She turns it on when she gets in and turns it off at the end of the day. It runs while she’s at lunch. She comes in, takes off her shoes, and puts her bare feet by the heater. :rolleyes: And she’s not the only one. Heck, there’s one in the ladies’ room!
I am almost always cold - even in the summer. I keep an extra sweater or jacket in my cube. I wear socks and shoes and pants. I’ve been known to sit on my hands to warm them up. But I refuse to bring a fire hazard into the office. Worse than that - if several are fired up all at once, they’ve been known to trip a breaker - heaven help the engineer or draftsman who’s been working and neglected to hit “Save” every few minutes.
Yeah, I hate space heaters.
My husband figured in the company’s small building, they spend about $800 per month just because of space heaters. I guess the company is doing well - they don’t seem to mind paying it.
Not true, because the space heater would raise the room temperature higher than the central A/C would. (Otherwise why would you have a space heater?) And some of it will be lost to the outside instead of warming up the rest of the building. Also a fridge warms up the room in winter too.
But you’re right about the fridge adding to the A/C load in summer.
[quote=“scr4, post:25, topic:646716”]
Not true, because the space heater would raise the room temperature higher than the central A/C would. (Otherwise why would you have a space heater?) And some of it will be lost to the outside instead of warming up the rest of the building. Also a fridge warms up the room in winter too./QUOTE]
I am aware of this, which is why I called my post a simplification.
I use a midsized Igloo cooler…all my stuff fits in it.
Coffee, Creamer, Bread, Bagels, Snacks, Chocolate, Cookies, Salt /Pepper/Mayo/Hot sauce, Yogurt, Juice…3 Blue Ice Packs on the bottom, silverware and napkins.
If you have a little walk , use a wheelie travel carrier, and you can put other junk on top of it too.
F’ the community fridge. :mad:
We’re a littler wussier than you. We take ours home for a week, then reinstall it under cover of night (well, ok, 6 pm…). It’s amazing how you can lean a big envelope and a binder against the front of a mini-fridge that’s shoved way under the far corner of your desk and it’s invisible!
the large fridge is cleaned once a month in our office. it seems to work well.
on the heater issue… i do dress like i work in a frozen tundra, all year 'round. as cold as it is in the winter, it is colder in the summer!
it is not just the women either, one conference room was set to south pole, year 'round people would go into meetings in winter coats. parka guy was very entertaining. at least it gave people a way to store those bulky winter coats in the office, cutting down on clutter at home!
You may want to check with the property/building owner. Many of them have bans on portable space heaters because of the fire risk. A quick walkthrough by a fire inspector who knows the owner bans them and they’ll be gone.
There must be a way to disguise one to make it look like a space heater.
If you go out of your way to ban space heaters and actually succeed, then you’re going to have to put up with either:
- Skinny chicks bitching about how cold the office is, constantly.
- Roasting your ass off when the heat is cranked ridiculously high to compensate.
This is not a cross worth dying on. Besides, this decree came from the CEO’s admin? Unless you work in a tiny office and are on a first-name basis with the CEO, any complaint along these lines would likely fall under insubordination.
I would recommend keeping it anonymous. Just put together a spreadsheet with use comparisons, and perhaps fire statistics, related to the use of each. Then slip it under the boss’s door on a weekend.
Mind you, you will not succeed in getting the use of mini-fridges re-instated. You will only succeed in getting the space heaters banned. Then enough people will complain about the cold that the heat in the whole office will be turned up, thus creating a huge market for personal fans. Buy up the local supply of ice-drivenpersonal coolers and cash in, bayyy-bee!
My personal response to a heater ban was to buy a heated throw blanket, which is widely coveted throughout the office.
Well, for beginners, the government bodies will not give a hang if there is no violations, which seems to be the case in the OP. Re-reading it, the phrase is that “the offices are surrounded by labs with”… Sounds like a vague attempt to make a mountain out of a molehill. Wow! Offices are actually surrounded by…labs? And in these labs are…combustible materials? Actually separate workplaces that hold something that may catch fire? A regular inferno in the making.
I’m pretty sure that this place is safer than a firehouse from the threats of the space heater, and the OSHA would kick the crap out of any ‘whistleblower’ with a P & M about this.
My Micro Manager resolved a “dirty microwave oven” complaint to the union (Teamsters) was to remove the microwave oven.
In two days it was back.
Our business is transporting people on busses so diesel fuel is a large slice of the pie. Yesterday, I left work four hours early (my choice).
Had to go buy a tire. …and make home-made pizza, 
Tardis “sculpture” .