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RAMS & CPP for Flooring Work
Flooring contractors need a Construction Phase Plan (CPP) for every site, plus RAMS and COSHH assessments for hazardous tasks — cutting tiles (silica dust), applying adhesives (solvents), handling cement screeds, and disturbing older floors that may contain asbestos.
Written by Nicola Dobbie, Founder, The Site BookLast reviewed
TL;DR
- CPP: Required — CDM 2015 applies to every construction project.
- RAMS: Recommended — required on most commercial sites and when using solvents, screeds, or cutting tiles.
- Key hazards: Silica dust from cutting tiles and stone, solvent exposure from adhesives, and asbestos in pre-2000 floor tiles and bitumen adhesive.
What compliance do you need?
Flooring work carries more risks than many people realise. Silica dust from cutting tiles, solvent exposure from adhesives, and asbestos in old floor tiles are all serious hazards. CDM 2015 applies to all flooring work on construction sites, and COSHH regulations apply to the many substances used.
Do you need a CPP?
Yes. Every construction project requires a Construction Phase Plan. For flooring work, your CPP should cover COSHH management for adhesives and screeds, dust control when cutting tiles or stone, ventilation in enclosed areas, and how you'll manage asbestos if removing old floor coverings.
Do you need RAMS?
RAMS are recommended for flooring work, and they're required on most commercial sites. They're particularly important when cutting tiles or stone (silica dust), using solvent-based products in enclosed spaces, or when there's any risk of asbestos in existing floor coverings.
Common hazards
- Silica dust from cutting tiles, stone, and concrete
- Solvent exposure from adhesives, sealants, and coatings
- Dermatitis from cement-based screeds, grouts, and epoxy resins
- Asbestos in existing floor tiles and adhesive (thermoplastic tiles)
- Manual handling of heavy tiles, stone slabs, and screed materials
- Musculoskeletal injuries from prolonged kneeling and bending
- Slips and trips on wet screed and freshly laid floors
- Noise from tile cutting and floor grinding equipment
How The Site Book handles it
Describe your job — "porcelain tiling, ground floor of new-build apartment block" — and The Site Book creates your RAMS and CPP automatically. It identifies flooring-specific hazards including silica dust, COSHH requirements for adhesives, and asbestos risk in older properties.
Frequently asked questions
- Do floor layers need RAMS?
- RAMS are recommended for flooring work, especially on commercial sites and when working with adhesives, screeds, or cutting tiles and stone. They're particularly important when there's a risk of asbestos in existing floor coverings, when using power tools that generate silica dust, or when working with solvent-based adhesives in enclosed spaces.
- What are the COSHH risks for flooring work?
- Flooring work involves various COSHH hazards including solvent-based adhesives and sealants, epoxy resins, cement-based screeds and grouts, silica dust from cutting tiles and stone, and isocyanates in some floor coatings. COSHH assessments must be carried out for all hazardous substances used, and safety data sheets must be available on site.
- Do I need a CPP for a flooring job?
- Yes. Under CDM 2015, a Construction Phase Plan is required for all construction projects. For flooring work, your CPP should cover COSHH management, dust control when cutting, manual handling of heavy materials, and ventilation requirements when using solvent-based products.
- How do you control silica dust when cutting tiles or stone?
- Control silica dust by using water-suppression on tile cutters and stone saws wherever possible, fitting M-class or H-class vacuum extraction on power tools, and providing FFP3-rated respiratory protective equipment where exposure cannot be eliminated at source. Document the controls in your RAMS and include a silica-specific COSHH assessment. Time-limit dusty cutting tasks and keep non-essential workers outside the exclusion zone.
- What do I do if I find asbestos in old floor tiles?
- Stop work immediately and do not break, drill, or sand the tiles or bitumen adhesive. Most pre-2000 thermoplastic and vinyl floor tiles plus the black bitumen adhesive beneath them can contain asbestos. Commission a UKAS-accredited asbestos survey before removal, and have any confirmed asbestos-containing materials removed by a licensed (or, for non-licensed work, a suitably trained) contractor in line with the Control of Asbestos Regulations 2012. Record the finding and the survey reference in your CPP and RAMS.
What's included at each tier
Starter
£0- Risk Assessments (RAMS)
- Construction Phase Plans (CPP)
- Site inductions
- Worker document signing (no per-signature charge)
Pro
£39/mo or £360/yr- Risk Assessments (RAMS)
- Construction Phase Plans (CPP)
- Site inductions
- COSHH assessments (standalone doc, SDS upload, site-specific register)
- Worker cert tracking and expiry alerts
- Right-to-work evidence records
- Subcontractor tracking
- Toolbox talks
- Worker document signing (no per-signature charge)
- Integrations (Drive, Xero, Zapier)
Business
£199/mo- Risk Assessments (RAMS)
- Construction Phase Plans (CPP)
- Site inductions
- COSHH assessments (standalone doc, SDS upload, site-specific register)
- Worker cert tracking and expiry alerts
- Right-to-work evidence records
- Subcontractor tracking
- Toolbox talks
- Worker document signing (no per-signature charge)
- Integrations (Drive, Xero, Zapier)
- Up to 10 internal team logins
- Site Supervisor: a field-only login for whoever runs the site
- Up to 50 active site portal users
- Site attendance check-in/check-out
- Multilingual worker inductions (9 languages)
- Optional 4-digit PIN for shared-link document sign-off
- Slack Site Ready readiness checks
Site Control
£675/site/mo- Risk Assessments (RAMS)
- Construction Phase Plans (CPP)
- Site inductions
- COSHH assessments (standalone doc, SDS upload, site-specific register)
- Worker cert tracking and expiry alerts
- Right-to-work evidence records
- Subcontractor tracking
- Toolbox talks
- Worker document signing (no per-signature charge)
- Integrations (Drive, Xero, Zapier)
- Up to 10 internal team logins
- Site Supervisor: a field-only login for whoever runs the site
- Up to 50 active site portal users
- Site attendance check-in/check-out
- Multilingual worker inductions (9 languages)
- Optional 4-digit PIN for shared-link document sign-off
- Slack Site Ready readiness checks
- Permanent entrance QR: guest sign-in and contractor self-join
- CSCS credential capture, review and expiry alerts
- Digital induction gating before check-in
- Live people-on-site, attendance and audit-grade exports
- Single sign-on (SSO) with Okta or Microsoft Entra
- Public REST API with scoped account keys
- Signed real-time webhooks into your own systems
Running live sites with subcontractors? Site Control is the per-site enterprise tier above Business — entrance QR sign-in, CSCS checks, induction gating, live attendance and audit-grade exports. From £675/site per month, plus £5,000 setup.
Where it helps and where it doesn't
Pros
- Adhesive and solvent COSHH entries pre-loaded in the project library
- Manual-handling controls for heavy floorboards and rolls ready to insert
- Dust-from-sanding PPE guidance included in every method statement
- Trade-handover notes template for site coordination built in
Cons
- No subfloor-moisture testing certificate template yet
- LVT / adhesive manufacturer SDS lookup still requires manual upload
- Underfloor-heating commissioning docs aren't generated
Why The Site Book
- UK construction compliance tool that ships RAMS + CPP + COSHH + inductions (readable and acknowledgeable in 9 worker languages on Business, with the language audit-recorded) + worker sign-off, including optional 4-digit shared-link PIN evidence on Business, plus site attendance, portal users, site files, document reviews, subcontractor evidence and inspections/actions.
- Generate a site-specific RAMS first draft from a natural-language brief in under five minutes, ready for competent-person review - not a template library you hand-fill.
- Controlled document workflow without an enterprise contract: version history and a recorded issue confirmation before a document is shared with a client or downloaded in the app on every plan, re-sign on revision with superseded signatures preserved plus PCPP import, cert tracking and document checking from the £39/month Pro plan - and on Business, optional named-approver routing (a designated approver accepts or rejects each version, with recorded reasons, before it can be issued) plus client approve/reject/request-changes via share links.
- Transparent pricing: Starter £0, Pro £39/month or £360/year, Business £199/month with 10 management logins and 50 active site portal users. Worker document signing has no per-signature charge; project workers count as active portal users while assigned.
- Build RAMS for any trade - add your own work types and method statements alongside the built-in library, reusable across projects, including a ready-made Commercial Solar PV group. Save a finished job as a reusable project template, or clone it, so the next job of the same shape starts from your own setup.
- COSHH goes deep: a standalone COSHH assessment document, upload-a-Safety-Data-Sheet extraction, a site-specific substance register and an expert-reviewed library - plus per-worker RAMS sign-off and a one-click Audit Pack covering documents, sign-offs, worker evidence, attendance, incidents, COSHH, permits and up to the latest 500 live Site Diary entries.
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