As an employer of site crews, you are obliged to provide adequate welfare facilities and portable toilets for your personnel while they are at work - be it a roadworks project, commercial new build, office renovation or telecom repair works.
Regardless of whether these are short term, temporary or multi-month lasting projects, as far as it is reasonable and practicable, you must supply adequate, clean and safe welfare facilities. It must be very costly to do so, or physically impossible, to provide such portable sanitation units for you to be relieved of this obligation.
What exactly are welfare facilities for construction sites though? These typically include portable toilets, mains connect or chemical toilets, hand washing facilities, rest and changing space, locker and clean space for food consumption. As long as it is reasonable to do so, there should be separate toilets provided for male and female staff.
When it comes to clothes changing area and lockers, these do not have to be separated either, however adequate privacy should be provided (lockable doors). All welfare units should be well ventilated and lit. Apart from the mentioned above, also shower units should be allocated on sites where dirty work is involved. Welfare facilities should feature both hot and cold running water. Hot running water is especially applicable during cold months to deplete the risk of frostbites.
Number of portable chemical toilets and number of washbasins with running water should be estimated based in number of staff on site and whether there are any female staff. Rule of thumb is a 1 toilet for 1-5 of staff, 2 toilets for employees between 6-25, 3 toilets for staff of 26-50. These are estimated for mixed-use. For more detailed guidelines on how many portable toilets to hire for construction works, follow this information sheet on the government website: http://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/indg293.pdf
What if the construction site does not allow for mains connection? No, this is not true. Even if there is no mains connection with power or no sewage system yet, it does not relieve you of your duties of supplying portable toilets and welfare facilities. See, mains connect toilets can be changed to single chemical units that do not require sewage system connection.
Secondly, fresh water supplies and water bowser hire and solve the problem of washing facilities. Water bowser hire usually comes with on-request hand pump that should allow to transport the water supply around the site, plus supply it to any welfare unit. Portable toilet suppliers usually offer non-potable water deliveries and generator hire.
For more details on hire of welfare units and portable toilets, head over to http://www.davlav.com/ - one of UK's fastest growing supplier of welfare facilities for the industry across Essex, London and Britain.
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