school heated from above

[mollykins]

Heat rises, so its sensible to put radiators near the bottom of the room, which most people do.

So why are the heaters in my school in the cieling (its a 1 storey building) with no radiators around the walls?

People frequently ask the teachers but they're jsut as confused as the pupils.

[buildersmate]

If this is a recently-built structure, it's barking mad. Even if there's 300+ mm of insulation above the heating element. I suspect your school might date back to the 80s.
Back in the 80s it was done quite a bit in the ceilings of domestic properties as a cheap (in installation costs) means of heating - but at least there was an upstairs for some of the heat to convect up to. The idea was quickly dropped when it was realised how ineffective it was.

[mollykins]

yeah it was built sometime in the late 70's / early 80's

[R1Geezer]

perhaps they had the plans inverted! Do you have lights on the floor?

[babylilo]

Its mayb to stop scalding? this was the same in my school and the teachers couldn't give us an answer either!? but it might but be just to stop kids bumping into them. I know that this was mainly the case in our science labs but not anywhere else. a dunno a give up!! lol

[VHG]

I wonder if the teachers can spell ceiling?

[mollykins]

oops, i before e except after c. Nobodies perfect may I add.

But in the winter, teachers get in trouble, because they let pupils keep coats and gloves on, evidently, this heating system doesn't work. Today, i was literaly shivering in english. isn't there a minimum and maximum temperature for that matter that work places have to be (except for places that have to be cold or hot for some reason or another).

[fredpuli47]

Yes, mollykins, the temperature must be reasonable for the type of workplace but, unless hard physical labour is carried on there, should be at least 16C. Office workers should not, in any case, have to wear overcoats to be comfortable !

[mollykins]

Plus the heating is always braking, last winter, we had about 5 days off in total because they couldn't fix, and about 2 or 3 weeks in our coats because they could only just kep the heating set to 16 (not neccesarily 16*c room temp), but in science we got thermometers out of the cupboard and he temperature was fluxuating between 14.5 and 17 over the couple of weeks (the teacher just said that the thermometer isn't accurate enough to go on so we had to stay at school).

[mollykins]

And we were told that they couldn't set it above 16/17 (can't remmeber because it was a few months ago now) because that would almost definatly make it completely brake, before they could get it fixed, and if it completely broke, all of the heating system would have to replaced which could take week(s).

[buildersmate]

brake = the thing provided on a car to stop it in a short distance
break = a verb to describe a non-functioning device or a noun to describe an interval of time (as in a coffee break).
Now do 100 lines.

[mollykins]

the school's to cold for our brains to function so we don't learn. is that good enough excuse?

[ummmm]

Yes....stop nit picking. She spells better than many adults on this site.

[fredpuli47]

Ah yes. ' I before E, except after C' as any species of teacher could tell you ! Oh dear, 'species'.
Give the kid a brake [which the OED gives as an archaic spelling of 'break']. It sounds as though the heating is 'archaic' so it's right that the spelling should be !