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RAMS & CPP for Joinery & Carpentry
What compliance documents you need for first fix, second fix, stud walls, and general carpentry — and how The Site Book handles it for you.
Written by Nicola Dobbie, Founder, The Site BookLast reviewed
TL;DR
- CPP: Required — CDM 2015 applies to every construction project.
- RAMS: Recommended — essential on commercial sites and expected by most principal contractors.
- Key hazards: Hardwood dust (known carcinogen, WEL 3 mg/m³), hand-arm vibration syndrome from power tools, and cuts from saws and routers.
What compliance do you need?
Joinery and carpentry cover everything from first fix timber framing through to second fix kitchens and skirting. The hazards are real — wood dust is a carcinogen, power tools cause serious injuries, and working at height is common. CDM 2015 applies to all carpentry work on construction sites.
Do you need a CPP?
Yes. Every construction project needs a Construction Phase Plan under CDM 2015. If you're subcontracting on a larger site, the principal contractor produces the CPP, but you'll need your own RAMS. On standalone jobs, you take on the CDM duties yourself.
Do you need RAMS?
RAMS are recommended for all joinery and carpentry work. They're essential on commercial sites and expected by most principal contractors. Your RAMS should cover power tool use, dust control, working at height, and manual handling of heavy materials.
Common hazards
- Wood dust — hardwood dust is a known carcinogen
- Cuts and lacerations from power saws, routers, and chisels
- Hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS) from power tool use
- Noise-induced hearing loss from saws and nail guns
- Working at height — roof trusses, floor joists, staircase fitting
- Manual handling of heavy timber, sheet materials, and doors
- Fire risk from wood shavings and dust accumulation
- Slips and trips from timber offcuts and packaging
How The Site Book handles it
Describe your job — "first fix carpentry, new-build housing plot" — and The Site Book creates your RAMS and CPP automatically. It identifies carpentry-specific hazards including dust control for hardwood and MDF, power tool safety, and working at height provisions.
Frequently asked questions
- Do joiners and carpenters need RAMS?
- RAMS are recommended for joinery and carpentry work, especially on commercial sites and larger residential projects. They're particularly important when using power tools, working at height (roof trusses, floor joists, staircase installation), or when the work involves significant dust generation from cutting timber and MDF.
- What are the main health risks for carpenters?
- The main health risks include wood dust inhalation (hardwood dust is a known carcinogen), hand-arm vibration syndrome (HAVS) from power tools, noise-induced hearing loss, cuts and lacerations from power saws and chisels, and musculoskeletal injuries from manual handling of heavy timber.
- Do I need a CPP for a carpentry job?
- Yes. Under CDM 2015, a Construction Phase Plan is required for all construction projects. If you're a subcontractor on a larger site, the principal contractor produces the CPP — but you'll need to provide your own RAMS. On standalone domestic jobs, you take on all CDM duties yourself.
- What dust extraction is required for joinery work?
- Under COSHH regulations, you must control wood dust exposure. Hardwood dust has a workplace exposure limit (WEL) of 3 mg/m³. Power tools should be fitted with dust extraction where practicable, and RPE (respiratory protective equipment) may be needed for tasks like sanding MDF. A dust assessment should be part of your 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
- Circular-saw and router safety controls pre-filled in RAMS
- Working-at-height controls for roof carpentry included
- COSHH for wood-dust, adhesives, and varnishes ready to pick
- Manual-handling of long materials guidance built in
Cons
- No LEV (dust extraction) inspection schedule template yet
- COSHH does not include hardwood-dust carcinogen tier automatically
- Workshop fire-risk assessments not yet generated (site-only)
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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