Sanitation is the part of Title 8 that nobody thinks about until the count is wrong. A warehouse grows from 40 people to 70 over two hiring seasons, the restrooms stay exactly as the tenant improvement left them, and the first person to notice is a Cal/OSHA inspector who came in on a different complaint. I have walked enough of those buildings to know the shortfall is almost never deliberate. It is arithmetic nobody redid.
Two sections carry most of the load in general industry: Section 3364 for toilets and Section 3366 for washing facilities. Construction has its own rules in Section 1526, and agricultural hand labor is sent to Section 3457. What follows is the fixed-site version: offices, plants, warehouses and shops.
Section 3364: the toilet count
Subsection (a) requires separate toilet facilities for each sex and sets the minimum number of water closets by headcount. The table is short enough to keep on a sticky note:
- 1 to 15 employees: 1
- 16 to 35: 2
- 36 to 55: 3
- 56 to 80: 4
- 81 to 110: 5
- 111 to 150: 6
- Over 150: one more for each additional 40 employees or part of 40
Urinals can stand in for some of the water closets in a men’s room, but water closets still have to make up at least two-thirds of the minimum. Trough urinals are counted by length, so a 48-inch trough counts as two units, not four.
The exceptions changed in July 2020 and they matter more than the table for small employers. With fewer than five employees, one single-user facility designated for all-gender use is enough. Beyond that, single-user all-gender rooms count toward the requirement as long as the total meets subsection (a), every single-user room is designated all-gender, and the multi-user rooms are split equally.
Subsection (b) is the one that gets cited in the field. Facilities must be clean, in good working order, and accessible at all times. Where practicable they should sit within 200 feet of the regular work location and no more than one flight of stairs away. A locked restroom that only the shift lead can open fails (b) no matter how many fixtures are behind the door. Subsection (d) adds what sounds obvious: an adequate supply of toilet paper for every water closet.
Section 3366: washing facilities
Here the count depends on the kind of establishment, and the difference is large. An office needs one lavatory for 1 to 15 employees, two for 16 to 35, three for 36 to 60, four for 61 to 90 and five for 91 to 125, then one more per 45. An industrial site (a factory, a warehouse, a loft building) needs one lavatory for every 10 employees up to 100, then one per 15 after that.
Run the same 70 people through both columns. As an office they need four lavatories. As a warehouse they need seven. A business that converts office space into light assembly often keeps the office fixtures and never revisits the number.
Subsection (d) is where the industrial hygiene shows up. Every lavatory needs running water and a suitable cleansing agent, and the water must be at least 85°F where regulated carcinogens are used or where skin contact can occur with any substance carrying the “S” notation in Section 5155. Cold-only taps beside a solvent line are a finding. So is a sink with no soap.
Subsection (e) requires individual hand towels or warm-air blowers near the lavatories. Subsection (f) applies only where showering is required by the employer or by another order (several of the substance-specific standards require it). Then the rule is one hot-and-cold shower per ten employees showering on the same shift, separate rooms for each sex unless there are fewer than five employees and the room locks from the inside, soap, and individual clean towels.
How I check it
I count heads on the largest shift, not the payroll total, because the standard is about who is in the building. Then I count fixtures, walk the distance from the farthest regular work station, and turn on the hot tap. That last step takes ten seconds and catches the most citations.
None of this is complicated. It just has to be redone every time the floor plan or the headcount changes.
Michael Karl McNeil, REP, RIH, EPP, QSD
Michael Karl McNeil — environmental health and safety, industrial hygiene, Cal/OSHA citation defense.
