Pre-ticked for falls and mobile plant, with three rows written. The category most carpenters miss is the second demolition limb, and it catches strip-out rather than anything anybody would call demolition.
There are two demolition limbs and the second one is wider
The first covers demolition of a load-bearing element. The second covers work affecting the physical integrity of the structure, and it does not require the element to be carrying load at all. Taking out a stud partition that turns out to be stiffening a ceiling, or cutting an opening through a wall that was bracing a run of studs, sits in the second one.
That is why a strip-out is high risk construction work more often than the word strip-out suggests. The test is what the element was doing, and the only reliable way to know is a structural check in writing before the wall comes out, from whoever is responsible for the structure.
The dust is the injury you do not notice happening
Hardwood dust is a carcinogen and MDF dust carries formaldehyde-bonded resin. Neither hurts on the day, which is precisely the problem: a control that produces no immediate benefit is the first one to lapse when the cutting station is inconvenient.
On-tool extraction with the right class of vacuum, used at the point of cutting, is the control. A dust mask is what you wear as well. A workshop vacuum on a mitre saw moves the dust around the room rather than capturing it, and a filter changed when it looks full has been failing for a while.
Cut low, lift assembled
Most of the fall exposure in carpentry is avoidable by sequencing rather than by protection. Cutting, drilling and pre-assembly done at ground level shortens the time anybody spends on a platform, and time at height is the exposure. A frame assembled below and lifted is a different job from a frame built in the air.
Where the platform is unavoidable, a podium or mobile tower beats a hop-up for anything longer than a moment, and nothing gets moved while it is occupied. The injuries here are rarely dramatic: they are ankles and wrists from a step that was one rung too far.
Sheet material is a two-person load and everybody knows it
A full sheet of plasterboard is around 25 kilograms of awkward, and the injury is not usually the weight, it is the twist while carrying it through a doorway. Board trolleys, panel lifters and cutting the sheet down before moving it are all faster than the alternative once you count the time nobody spends off work.
The noise on a fit-out is nobody one tool
A circular saw, a nail gun, a chop saw and an SDS drill are each survivable on their own. A fit-out floor with four trades running all of them is a sustained exposure that nobody planned, because each crew is only counting their own noise.
Hearing loss is the injury that arrives without a day you can point at. The controls that work are the boring ones: cutting stations away from the work face, the quietest tool that will do the job, and hearing protection that people will actually keep in because it is comfortable rather than because it has the highest rating on the box.
Hand-arm vibration sits alongside it and behaves the same way. An SDS drill and a multi-tool used across a full fit-out day accumulate exposure nobody is counting, and the first sign is usually fingers going white in the cold months rather than anything on site. Rotating who does the breaking out is a control that costs nothing and is almost never written down.
Common questions
Is a first and second fix carpentry job high risk construction work?
Often not, and it is worth checking rather than assuming either way. New build first fix at ground level with no plant moving nearby may sit outside the list entirely. The same crew doing a strip-out in an occupied building, working off a tower next to a live traffic route, is inside several categories at once.
How do I know if a wall is load bearing?
You do not, and that is the honest answer worth writing down. Get it in writing from whoever is responsible for the structure before the wall is opened, and where there is any doubt install temporary support first. A stud wall running at right angles to the joists above it is the classic one people assume is decorative.
Does a SWMS cover the whole fit-out?
One activity per statement. A fit-out is several: strip-out, framing, boarding, second fix. They have different hazards and different crews, and a single document for all four is the version that gets marked as generic. Writing three short ones takes less time than defending one long one.
Is timber dust really worth a control measure?
Hardwood dust is classified as a carcinogen, and softwood and composite dusts are respiratory sensitisers. The exposure that matters is cumulative over years rather than dramatic on the day, so the meaningful control is one that works every day without anybody thinking about it, which is extraction at the tool rather than a mask in a pocket.
Does a nail gun need its own line on the statement?
Yes, and it gets left off precisely because the tool is so ordinary. A framing nailer drives a fastener hard enough to pass through a hand and into whatever is behind it, and two failures cause most of the injuries: contact-trip firing while the operator is moving, and firing into a stud somebody is working behind. So the line names the firing mode, the eye protection, and the rule about who stands where while a wall is being sheeted. The compressor is a second hazard rather than part of the first: hose whip, and more noise in a room that is already loud.