Trades / Demolition & strip-out
Risk assessment and method statement for demolition and strip-out
Strip-out RAMS live or die on what was surveyed before anyone picked up a bar. Asbestos, live services and structural stability are the three things a principal contractor will look for first.
£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 demolition & strip-out 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 demolition and strip-out contractors.
- Asbestos in anything pre-2000: the refurbishment and demolition survey, and stopping work if something unexpected appears
- Structural stability, load paths and the order in which things come down
- Live services in walls and floors, and proving them isolated before breaking out
- Silica and general dust, and the suppression and RPE that controls it
- Noise and vibration from breakers, and exposure limits over a full shift
- Falling material, debris chutes and protection of the floor below
- Occupied buildings next door, above and below, and how they are kept separate
Jobs you can pick
Ten common demolition and strip-out 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.
- Kitchen strip-out
- Bathroom strip-out
- Full strip-out of a house or flat
- Shop or office strip-out
- Remove an internal wall
- Remove a chimney breast
- Take down ceilings
- Remove old floors and screed
- Knock down a garage or outbuilding
- Remove a conservatory
- Something else — describe it yourself
The legislation cited for demolition and strip-out
This is the complete list your document may cite — 17 entries, kept by hand for demolition and strip-out contractors. 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.
- Construction (Design and Management) Regulations 2015
- Demolition and dismantling must be planned to prevent danger, with the arrangements written down before work starts (reg 20), and structures kept stable throughout (reg 19).
- Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012
- Strip-out of pre-2000 buildings can disturb asbestos: it must be identified before work starts (reg 5), in practice by a refurbishment and demolition survey, and dealt with before the area is stripped.
- Electricity at Work Regulations 1989
- All electrical supplies must be isolated, locked off and proven dead before strip-out, with any retained circuits identified and protected.
- Gas Safety (Installation and Use) Regulations 1998
- Gas supplies and appliances must be safely disconnected and capped by a competent gas engineer before strip-out begins.
- Work at Height Regulations 2005
- Falls from edges, through openings created during strip-out and through fragile surfaces must be prevented before work at height starts.
- Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998
- Breakers, saws and demolition plant must be suitable, guarded, maintained and operated by trained people.
- Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005
- Breaking, cutting and demolition plant typically exceed the 85 dB(A) upper exposure action value: hearing protection zones and reduced exposure.
- Control of Vibration at Work Regulations 2005
- Breakers, needle scalers and SDS drills cause hand-arm vibration: assess against the 2.5 m/s² A(8) action value and keep below the 5 m/s² A(8) limit.
- Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002
- Silica and other construction dusts, mould, bird droppings and residual chemicals disturbed during strip-out need assessment, dust suppression and RPE.
- Control of Lead at Work Regulations 2002
- Old lead paint, pipes and flashings: hot cutting or abrading creates lead fume and dust, needing assessment, controls and hygiene facilities.
- Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992
- Stripping out and loading waste, fixtures and heavy fittings: assess loads and use chutes, trolleys and mechanical aids.
- Environmental Protection Act 1990
- Waste duty of care (s.34): store waste securely, transfer it only to an authorised person with a waste transfer note, and segregate hazardous waste such as asbestos.
Why a fixed list instead of asking the model
Ask a language model which regulations apply to demolition and strip-out 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.
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Your demolition and strip-out RAMS
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