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General
Risk Assessments
The HSE has published a number of very useful free
publications that advise how to undertake risk assessments.
Two of these that you should obtain are:
Five Steps to Risk Assessment.
A Guide to Risk Assessment Requirements.
The five steps outlined in the HSE leaflet are:
Step 1: Look for the hazards
This will mean looking at the site and identifying
significant hazards.These could be features such as a
steep roof, a fragile surface where the collectors may be
mounted, uneven ground or obstructions where access
to the roof might be required.
Step 2: Decide who may be harmed and how
This might mean considering the particular risks that
young workers or trainees might face and thinking about
the residents of the household or visitors who could be
hurt by your activities.
Step 3: Evaluate the risks and decide which precautions
should be made.You should consider how likely it is that
each hazard will cause harm, decide which precautions
you might take and then assess, after you have taken
those precautions, whether the remaining risk will be
high, medium or low.Where you identify remaining risks,
you should consider which further action you could take
to control the risks so that harm is unlikely.
Step 4: Record your findings
If you have fewer than five employees you do not need
to write anything down, though it is useful to keep a
written record of what you have done. If you employ five
or more people you must record the significant findings
of your assessment.You must also tell your employees
about your findings.You need to be able to show that a
proper check was made, that you considered who might
be affected, that you dealt with all the obvious significant
hazards, that the precautions you propose are reasonable
and that the remaining risk is low.
Step 5: Review your assessment if necessary
Each solar water heating installation may bring its own
challenges and present its own particular hazards.You
should therefore be careful not to rely on a "standard"
risk assessment for installing a solar water heating system
in a house, but review the particular hazards for each
new situation.The issue of work equipment must be
considered, but at the preparation stage you should
consider where scaffold or other access equipment might
be positioned and look out for any obvious obstacles to
this, such as a conservatory or porch.
In addition to the risks associated with work at height,
you should also consider the risks associated with lifting
and carrying solar collectors, using electric drills and
using blow lamps or blow torches for soldering.This is
not an exclusive list and you should consider all aspects
of the proposed installation to assess whether there are
additional risks that need to be taken into account.
Potterton Solar - Solar Thermal Domestic Hot Water System
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