The labor commissioner and the inspectors shall have the power to enter any factory or mill, workshop, mine, store, railway facility, including locomotive or caboose, business house, or public or private work, when the same is open or in operation, for the purpose of gathering facts and statistics such as are contemplated by this chapter, and to examine into the methods of protection from danger to employees, and the sanitary conditions in and around such buildings and places, and make a record thereof.