Trades / Plumbing & heating
Risk assessment and method statement for plumbing and heating work
Plumbing and heating RAMS have to cover two hazards most trades never touch: stored gas and stored hot water under pressure. Add hot works and confined loft spaces and it is a document worth writing properly.
£29 per document. Written for your job in two to three minutes, as an editable Word file and a PDF. Free preview first.
What a plumbing & heating RAMS has to cover
Not every job needs all of these, and the document only carries what your job actually involves. These are the ones that come up for plumbers and heating engineers.
- Gas work: tightness testing, purging, and the fact that only Gas Safe registered people may do it
- Unvented cylinders, expansion vessels and the consequences of a failed discharge arrangement
- Hot works on copper and lead, the fire watch, and working near timber and insulation
- Legionella risk when a system is drained, left standing or recommissioned
- Working at height in lofts and on cylinders, and fragile ceilings below
- Water damage to an occupied property, and isolation before anything is cut
- Manual handling of boilers, cylinders and radiators up stairs
Jobs you can pick
Ten common plumbing and heating work jobs, or describe your own in a sentence or two. Either way the document is written around what you describe, including the site, who else is about and how long it takes.
- Replace a gas boiler
- Fit a full central heating system
- Fit a bathroom
- Kitchen plumbing (sink, dishwasher, washing machine)
- Fit an unvented hot water cylinder
- Replace radiators or power flush
- Leak repairs and pipework changes
- Fit an air source heat pump
- Replace a cold water tank and loft pipework
- Fit a gas cooker or gas fire
- Something else — describe it yourself
The legislation cited for plumbing and heating work
This is the complete list your document may cite — 15 entries, kept by hand for plumbers and heating engineers. The system cannot cite anything outside it, and a document that tries is rejected and written again. Each one only appears in your RAMS if it applies to the job you describe.
- Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974
- General duties on employers and the self-employed to protect workers and anyone else affected by the work (ss.2–3), and on workers to take reasonable care (s.7).
- Management of Health and Safety at Work Regulations 1999
- Requires a suitable and sufficient risk assessment before work starts (reg 3) and operatives given adequate information and training — this RAMS records the significant findings.
- Personal Protective Equipment at Work Regulations 1992
- PPE must be suitable for the risk, correctly fitted, maintained and provided free of charge (including to limb (b) workers since the 2022 amendment), and used as the last line of defence.
- Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 2013
- Deaths, specified injuries, over-seven-day injuries, occupational diseases and dangerous occurrences arising from the work must be reported to HSE.
- Health and Safety (First-Aid) Regulations 1981
- Adequate first-aid equipment and a trained first-aider or appointed person must be available for the duration of the work.
- Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998
- Applies to any work on gas pipework or appliances, including boilers: it must be carried out by a competent gas engineer, with tightness testing on completion.
- Water Supply (Water Fittings) Regulations 1999
- Installations must prevent contamination, waste and misuse of water — correct materials, backflow protection and no cross-connection with non-potable supplies (England & Wales).
- Building Regulations 2010
- Parts G, J and L set the standards the installation must meet for hot water safety (including unvented cylinders), combustion appliances and flues, and energy efficiency (England & Wales).
- Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015
- Plumbing and heating work is construction work: it must be planned, managed and monitored, with operatives inducted and supervised and welfare provided.
- Work at Height Regulations 2005
- Loft work on tanks and cylinders risks falls through hatches and ceilings between joists; high-level pipework needs suitable access equipment.
- Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992
- Boilers, cylinders, radiators and baths are heavy and awkward: team lifts, trolleys and planned routes through the property.
- Dangerous Substances and Explosive Atmospheres Regulations 2002
- LPG and MAPP gas for soldering are dangerous substances: control storage and ignition sources, and manage hot-work fire risk near timber and insulation.
- Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002
- Flux, solvent-weld cement, inhibitors, descalers and other system chemicals need COSHH assessment, ventilation and skin protection.
- Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012
- Pre-2000 boiler cupboards, flues, pipe lagging and textured ceilings may contain asbestos — check the survey before disturbing anything (reg 5).
- Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998
- Press-fit tools, pipe threaders, blowtorches and power tools must be suitable, maintained and used only by trained operatives.
Why a fixed list instead of asking the model
Ask a language model which regulations apply to plumbing and heating work and you get a confident list, some of it right and some of it regulations that were replaced, renumbered, or never existed. On a document that reaches a principal contractor, a wrong citation is worse than no citation — it is the first thing a competent reviewer spots.
So the list above is given to the system as the only thing it may cite, and every document is checked against it afterwards.
Other trades
Your plumbing and heating work RAMS
Pick the job, describe the site, read the free preview. £29 only if you want the rest.
£29 when you unlock it. Nothing to pay until you have read the preview.