Occupational Health and Safety (OHS) and Housekeeping Procedures
OHS and housekeeping in plumbing work
The OHS and housekeeping domain tests how you identify hazards before and during plumbing work, select controls, use PPE, and leave the workplace safe. In the Philippine setting, RA 11058 and the OSH Standards require employers to provide information, training, PPE, and safe systems of work; candidates are expected to apply these ideas to actual plumbing tasks.
Core rules
- Inspect the work area at the start of every shift: trip hazards, exposed rebar, open shafts, unstable stacks, damaged cords, and standing water.
- Match PPE to the task: safety glasses for cutting and threading, gloves for solvent cement and sharp edges, safety shoes, hard hat in overhead work, and hearing protection when using a threader or hammer drill.
- Use the 5S approach - sort, set in order, shine, standardize, sustain - and clear offcuts, packaging, and spilled solvent before they become slips or fire loads.
- Treat excavations as a hazard: provide shoring, sloping, barricades, and a ladder for access; keep spoil at least 0.6 m from the edge.
- Ventilate areas where solvent cement, primer, or LPG is used, and keep ignition sources away.
- Segregate waste: PVC offcuts, metal, packaging, and solvent rags go to separate containers; do not burn PVC.
Worked example
A crew must install a 1.5 m deep DWV branch in a trench beside a wall. The candidate identifies collapse, falling tools, and solvent vapour as hazards. Controls: shore the trench, barricade and sign it, provide a ladder within 7.5 m of travel, keep spoil back from the edge, wear hard hats and glasses, and ventilate the area when priming PVC. This reasoning shows the examiner that controls are matched to each hazard, not simply listed.
Traps
Wearing gloves near a rotating threader, using solvent in a closed room, leaving open trenches unguarded, and cleaning up only at the end of the day all lose marks. State the hazard, the control, and the residual risk.