Posted By David MacFarlane Jack, I am the Safety Manager for a large Building Services Company. I have a great deal of information on plumbing and heating topics, such Risk Assessment, Method Statements, relevant Toolbox Talks, etc. I can email you any specifics that you require. David.

Posted By Austin Gilmartin Dear all, I am a small business which has recently began contracting for a contracting company. They recently have asked me to supply my companies health and safety policies so i can continue work, i have no such policy at the moment and require any health and safety literature on plumbing and heating policies that anyone might have. Any assisstance would be greatly appreciated Many thanks Austin

Posted By Salus Have any of you any H & S experiance? If you have why not have a go yourself, there is plenty on, as an example the HSE site. If you have not can I advise you to at least have a go, you will learn something, or is it just the quick fix you want? H & S is not just about paper exercises, how can you care about your employees if you just want the "paper work" to stay in work? how will you all apply your newly found RA's / MS's to your work and employees? Hopefully not but maybe, if an accident happens some one will want to see a RA. then they will ask who did it then they will ask if you were competent. then they will ask how did you acheive this competency because you got it from someone else and "doctored it" and the big fact that you really do not take H & S seriously, is probally the real reason why someone has been injured. And if you are found to be at fault (negligent)and an employee is injured / disabled/ or worse, will you be able to say I did what any reasonable company / person should have done to prevent it? my views on the this type of thread

Posted By Catman Agree with Salus, my advice would be to ensure they understand the priniciples rather than the specifics of the RA for plumbing. I always prefer to see a to the point one pager assessment completed by a plumber that a 5 page tome completed by one of us, yes ours is more likely to be comprehensive, but is less likely to be used.

Posted By Jim Walker Hi Austin, My bath hot water tap is very slow, can you tell me what’s wrong with it so I can fix it myself for free, Don’t get too complicated as I’ve not done much plumbing before. No I thought not. I think that’s what people so far are trying to get across – difficult to know what your problem is and supply you with all the information you really need to do an acceptable job. A policy is “just” a declaration that you promise to obey the law and generally be a good boy, usually they run to about 5 paragraphs. Yours would probably be similar to my company’s (nuclear decommissioning). The important bit is the systems that “sit underneath” that policy. A quick web hunt will find oodles of policies that you can easily modify. For stuff underneath: The HSE site is a bit difficult to find your way around, however have a look at these pages from it and down load the documents http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/raindex.htm http://www.hse.gov.uk/construction/information.htm http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/conindex.htm http://www.hse.gov.uk/sm...esses/gettingstarted.htm There is some good stuff including templates for doing risk assessments. It must be stressed that RAs ain’t rocket science. And that you don’t have to be risk averse (eliminate all risk). You may say you have not done any for the past 20 years working life. I disagree –you have risk assessed you just did not write it down. For Example, I assume you avoid picking up a pipe just after you soldered it so as not to burn yourself. I bet you use some sort of blanket or shield when heating joints with a blow lamp to stop you setting your customers house on fire? You say you are one man outfit, so that makes things a lot easier for you. Be aware however that your RA needs to consider others effected by your activities and the activities of others (say on building site) that may effect you. You say there is nothing specific to plumbing on HSE web site – I agree. However there is lots you need to be aware of. Mechanics of CDM regs – don’t bother with the war & peace version just a overview Asbestos regs Fire /Hot works (do plumbers do much hot work these days?)