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RAMS & CPP for Plastering & Rendering
What compliance documents you need for plastering, rendering, and drylining — 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 — commonly required on commercial sites and housing association contracts.
- Key hazards: Chemical burns from lime-based renders, dermatitis from prolonged wet cement contact, and silica dust from sanding or cutting plasterboard.
What compliance do you need?
Plastering might seem straightforward, but it carries real health risks — from dermatitis and dust inhalation to manual handling injuries and working at height. CDM 2015 applies to all plastering work, whether you're skimming a ceiling in a house or rendering the outside of a commercial building.
Do you need a CPP?
Yes. Every construction project requires a Construction Phase Plan. If you're a subcontractor, the principal contractor produces the CPP — but you'll still need RAMS for your specific activities. On standalone domestic plastering jobs, you take on all CDM duties yourself.
Do you need RAMS?
RAMS are recommended for plastering work, and they're often required on commercial sites and housing association contracts. They're particularly important when working at height, using lime-based products, or when your work creates significant dust.
Common hazards
- Dermatitis from wet work and cement-based products
- Respiratory issues from plaster dust and silica
- Chemical burns from lime-based renders and plasters
- Working at height on scaffolding and hop-ups
- Manual handling of plaster bags, boards, and mixing equipment
- Musculoskeletal injuries from repetitive overhead work
- Slips and trips from wet floors and spilt materials
- Eye injuries from splashes and dust
How The Site Book handles it
Describe your job — "external render, 3-storey block of flats" — and The Site Book creates your RAMS and CPP automatically. It identifies plastering-specific hazards including COSHH requirements for lime products, dust control, and working at height provisions.
Frequently asked questions
- Do plasterers need RAMS?
- RAMS are recommended for plastering work, especially on commercial sites, housing association contracts, and larger domestic projects. They're particularly important when working at height on scaffolding or towers, when mixing materials that create dust, and when working with lime-based products that can cause chemical burns.
- What are the main health risks for plasterers?
- The main health risks include dermatitis from prolonged wet work and cement-based products, respiratory issues from plaster dust and silica (especially when sanding or cutting plasterboard), musculoskeletal injuries from repetitive overhead work and manual handling, and chemical burns from lime-based renders and plasters.
- Do I need a CPP for a plastering job?
- Yes. CDM 2015 requires a Construction Phase Plan for all construction projects. If you're a subcontractor on a larger project, the principal contractor will produce the CPP — but you may still need to provide your own RAMS. On standalone domestic jobs, you take on the CDM duties yourself.
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
- Stilt-work and tower-scaffold controls pre-filled
- COSHH for plaster, bonding, and finishing compounds ready to include
- Dust-from-sanding RPE guidance baked into method statements
- Manual-handling of bags and boards referenced in every RAMS
Cons
- No crystalline-silica monitoring log generation
- EH40 workplace exposure limits not auto-applied to plaster dust
- Lime-render specific COSHH entries are manual uploads 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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