Trades / Joinery & carpentry
Risk assessment and method statement for joinery and carpentry
Carpentry RAMS have to deal with the tools themselves as the main hazard, plus wood dust, which is a recognised carcinogen and the part most documents skip over.
£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 joinery & carpentry 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 joiners and carpenters.
- Circular saws, routers, chop saws and nail guns, and the guarding and training that goes with them
- Wood dust, hardwood in particular, and on-tool extraction rather than a brush
- Working at height for first fix, roof timbers and loft work
- Open joists, stairwells and floor openings before anything is decked
- Manual handling of sheet materials, doors and staircases
- Noise and hand-arm vibration across a full day of cutting
- Existing services in walls and floors when fixing
Jobs you can pick
Ten common joinery and carpentry 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.
- Fit internal doors
- Fit a kitchen
- First fix (stud walls, door linings, joists)
- Second fix (skirting, architrave, doors)
- Replace floorboards or timber floors
- Loft conversion carpentry
- Cut roof or roof trusses
- Fit a staircase
- Build timber decking
- Fit windows or external doors
- Something else — describe it yourself
The legislation cited for joinery and carpentry
This is the complete list your document may cite — 13 entries, kept by hand for joiners and carpenters. 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
- Joinery is construction work: plan, manage and monitor it, induct operatives, provide welfare, and coordinate temporary works and sequencing with other trades.
- Provision and Use of Work Equipment Regulations 1998
- Circular, mitre and table saws, planers, routers and nail guns must be guarded, maintained and used only by trained operatives (woodworking machinery ACOP L114).
- Control of Substances Hazardous to Health Regulations 2002
- Wood dust is a respiratory sensitiser and hardwood dust can cause nasal cancer; MDF, adhesives and treatments also need assessment — on-tool extraction and RPE.
- Control of Noise at Work Regulations 2005
- Saws, planers and routers typically exceed the 85 dB(A) upper exposure action value: hearing protection and reduced exposure.
- Work at Height Regulations 2005
- Roof carpentry, joist installation and work near stairwells, voids and open edges need fall prevention: scaffold, crash decks, guard-rails or safety netting.
- Manual Handling Operations Regulations 1992
- Doors, sheet materials, joists, beams and worktops are heavy and awkward: team lifts, lifting aids and planned routes.
- Lifting Operations and Lifting Equipment Regulations 1998
- Crane or telehandler lifts of trusses, beams and bundled timber need a lift plan, competent operators and current thorough examinations.
- Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012
- Removing old soffits, door linings, fire doors and panels in pre-2000 buildings can disturb asbestos insulating board — check the survey first (reg 5).
Why a fixed list instead of asking the model
Ask a language model which regulations apply to joinery and carpentry 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.
Other trades
Your joinery and carpentry RAMS
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