Timeswitches and countdown timers#
You should think about how to keep any power-hungry electrical appliances, like electric urns and heaters, from being left on. It is very common in community buildings to find them on overnight.
You can stop this from happening by putting it the appliance on a countdown timer, for instance, so that when people push the button, it runs for one hour. Sometimes countdown timers are called “time delay push switches”.
If you need the appliance to operate before anyone comes into the building you can instead use a timeswitch to control it and make sure it gets turned off. There are options for appliances with plugs and ones without, but you need an electrician to wire the timeswitch in if there’s no plug.
The cheapest ones are simple mechanical devices - you put it between the wall socket and the appliance and program the times with little pins. They always seem to have a permanent override.
The fanciest ones assume you have a wifi network and let you set the timings over the internet.
Ideally, any “override” should be time limited. If you can’t find a suitable timer and have a small number of well-trained users, signage might work to remind them to switch it off.
If you need to buy new electrical equipment, you could see if there are models with the right controls built in.