Automotive Panel, Exhaust and Muffler risk assessment (NSW)
56 hazards and 440 controls for exhaust replacement shops, auto body repairers and custom vehicle fabricators, already identified and rated. Answer Yes, No or N/A online and download a finished Word report.
Tier 1 · Standard fabrication. 19 activities, 56 hazards, 440 controls.
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The 19 activities in this assessment
Every activity is assessed in three parts — Safety (16 hazards), Process Safety (12) and Occupational Hygiene (28). Untick any activity you do not carry out and it drops out of your assessment.
✓Access to the Automotive panel and exhaust online calculator, tied to the email address used at checkout. Untick any activity you do not carry out and it drops out of your checklist, results and report.
✓A finished Word report (.docx) with every hazard, your answers, the residual risk and your Action Plan already in it — to print, sign and keep with your safety records.
✓The inherent hazard register in Word: every hazard here with what could go wrong, the possible consequence and its starting risk rating, to read before the walk and share with the people you consult.
✓A printable walkthrough checklist for marking by hand on the workshop floor.
What this pack is
Aluminised, mild and stainless exhaust welding, confined underbody positions, and solvent and isocyanate drift from an adjacent paint bay.
Each industry here is a complete risk assessment for one kind of workshop, with the hazards and their starting ratings already identified by a Certified Industrial Hygienist. You answer Yes, No or N/A to the controls, and the calculator works out your residual risk, builds the Action Plan and produces the finished report.
Automotive Panel, Exhaust and Muffler
Workplace risk assessment for exhaust replacement shops, auto body repairers and custom vehicle fabricators in New South Wales: 19 activities, 56 hazards and 440 controls across safety, process safety and occupational hygiene. Completed in the online calculator, which works out control scores, residual risk and a prioritised Action Plan and produces a finished Word report to print and sign.
- ✓56 hazards across 19 activities, each with its consequences and starting risk already rated
- ✓440 controls listed for you, ranked by the hierarchy of control — you answer Yes, No or N/A
- ✓Colour-coded residual risk and a prioritised Action Plan, worked out for you
- ✓A finished Word report to print and sign
- ✓The inherent hazard register in Word and a printable walkthrough checklist for the workshop floor
Tier 1 · Standard fabrication. 19 activities, 56 hazards, 440 controls.
Secure checkout via Stripe. Sign in and start as soon as the payment goes through.
Run more than one kind of work? See every industry
The most serious hazards in automotive panel and exhaust
A sample of the 56 hazards in this assessment, each shown with its consequence and the starting risk rating given by a Certified Industrial Hygienist before any controls are counted. The controls themselves are in the calculator.
Uncommanded deployment with explosive force directly at the worker's head and hands, and modules or inflators becoming projectiles. Inflators can deploy from heat alone, with no electrical trigger and with the battery disconnected. Process Safety · inherent risk 5B.
Fuel vapour explosion, which destroys the vehicle and the bay; gas strut rupture, which fires the rod like a projectile; and phosgene and hydrogen fluoride from refrigerant decomposed by the arc, both of which cause delayed and serious lung injury. Process Safety · inherent risk 5B.
Zinc fume (metal fume fever), lead from old paint (a lead process with notification and biological monitoring duties), chromate primers containing Cr(VI), cadmium from plating, isocyanates from two-pack coatings. None of these are controlled by the arrangements in a bare mild steel workshop. Occupational Hygiene · inherent risk 4C.
Welding fumes are classified IARC Group 1, and coated automotive steel adds zinc, chromate, cadmium and the decomposition products of organic coatings. Each weld is short, so no single task looks significant, but the full-shift dose is the same as continuous welding and it is never measured. Occupational Hygiene · inherent risk 4C.
Chronic manganese exposure causes irreversible neurological injury: tremor, rigidity, impaired balance, cognitive and mood change, resembling parkinsonism. From 1 December 2026 the workplace exposure limit falls from 1 mg/m3 to 0.1 mg/m3 inhalable and 0.02 mg/m3 respirable, a tenfold and fiftyfold tightening. Manganese typically makes up several per cent of mild steel welding fume by mass, so a workshop sitting on the 1 mg/m3 total fume limit can already be at or above the manganese limits. Manganese is normally the first limit a mild steel workshop exceeds, and it is exceeded well before total fume becomes a problem. Occupational Hygiene · inherent risk 4C.
Crush injuries, multiple fractures, fatality. Vehicle and mobile plant incidents are consistently among the leading mechanisms of work-related fatality in Australia. Safety · inherent risk 4C.
Load dropped onto a person: crush injuries, multiple fractures, fatality. Sling angle is the most common miscalculation, because working load limit falls sharply as the included angle opens up. Safety · inherent risk 4C.
Entanglement and degloving, amputation of fingers and hands, severe lacerations; a workpiece drawn into the gap between wheel and work rest can shatter the wheel and eject fragments at lethal speed. Safety · inherent risk 4C.
How one hazard is rated
Hazard S1.1 — manual handling of sections, plate and offcuts — starts at 2D, rated before any controls are counted. The calculator lists 8 controls for it, from elimination and extraction at the source down to PPE, monitoring and emergency arrangements. You answer Yes, No or N/A for each on the floor. Once the last one is answered it works out the control score, applies any severity reduction earned by physical controls, and shows the residual risk as RED, YELLOW or GREEN. Every control you answered No to goes into your Action Plan, most urgent and most effective first, ready for a responsible person and a due date.
Short welds on coated steel, under the car
An exhaust and panel shop welds in short bursts, dozens of times a shift, on steel that is galvanised, plated, primed, painted or aluminised. Each MIG weld burns through the coating in a small bay with no capture, often from under the vehicle, where the plume rises straight into the breathing zone. Welding fume is IARC Group 1, and coated automotive steel adds zinc, chromate, cadmium and the decomposition products of organic coatings. No single weld looks significant, yet the full-shift dose matches continuous welding and it is never measured.
Stainless exhaust work adds its own fume, and mild steel brings manganese, the limit most shops exceed first, which tightens sharply from 1 December 2026. Many shops also sit beside a paint bay, so solvent and isocyanate drift reach the welding area from work that is not yours.
What separates this trade from a general fabricator is the vehicle itself. Airbag modules, curtain inflators and seatbelt pretensioners sit in the pillars, seats, steering column and sills, and can deploy from heat alone with the battery disconnected. Fuel vapour in an empty tank is more dangerous than fuel in a full one, and refrigerant decomposed by the arc produces phosgene and hydrogen fluoride, both of which cause delayed lung injury.
What an inspector asks about in a panel and exhaust bay
The assessment treats the supplemental restraint system as the first gate. Before hot work near SRS components, have you obtained the manufacturer's repair information identifying every component and its location? Is the battery disconnected and the stated discharge period observed and recorded? Are airbag, curtain and pretensioner modules removed and stored charge-face up in a segregated, designated store, never loose on a bench or in a bin? Where a module cannot be removed, is heat shielding fitted and temperature monitored?
It then asks how fuel tanks, filler necks, LPG tanks, gas struts and air conditioning lines are dealt with before cutting, and whether fume from coated steel is captured in enclosed bays. On the workshop plant it checks guards and emergency stops to AS/NZS 4024, work rests on grinders and linishers to AS/NZS 1788, and hoist and lifting gear inspected to AS 3775, AS 4497 and AS 2741.
How a typical exhaust and panel shop answers first time
A first pass usually shows good habits with the welder and gaps around the car. Nobody pulls repair information for a routine exhaust job, so nobody knows where the curtain inflators are. Removed modules end up on the bench. Fume capture exists for bench fabrication but not under the hoist, where most of the welding is done. The paint bay next door is treated as someone else's problem even though its drift is in your air.
The top-tier controls that change the colour are mostly about moving work, not adding signs. Fabricating exhaust sections at a bench under capture rather than on the vehicle, a fixed cut-off saw for straight cuts in place of a hand-held grinder, and barriers separating walkways from vehicle movements into and out of the bays all score heavily.
NOT RATED shows up when you weld a sill or pillar with the modules still fitted. Answer No to removing airbag and pretensioner modules into a segregated store before hot work in their vicinity, and the SRS hazard is not scored. The report prints it as NOT RATED and puts module removal first on the Action Plan, ahead of any fume item.
How your controls are scored
Not generic advice — the specific, hierarchy-of-controls measures written into the pack, matched to how these assets actually fail.
Built for the people who do this work
If you operate, maintain or contract to these assets in NSW, this pack is written for your duties.
- ✓Exhaust replacement shops, auto body repairers and custom vehicle fabricators
- ✓Owners and managers who need a risk assessment that stands up to a SafeWork NSW visit
- ✓Safety coordinators covering several workshops or several trades
- ✓Workshops whose insurer, principal contractor or client has asked for a documented assessment
- ✓Trainers and supervisors inducting apprentices onto workshop hazards
Authored to the codes and the law
The Codes of Practice and Australian Standards these documents are measured against, and the legislation behind them.
- §Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW)
- §Work Health and Safety Regulation 2025 (NSW)
- §Workplace exposure standards for airborne contaminants (Safe Work Australia)
- §AS 1674.1 and AS 1674.2 — Safety in welding and allied processes
- §AS/NZS 1715 and AS/NZS 1716 — Selection, use and maintenance of respiratory protective equipment
Frequently asked questions
Add an in-house CIH risk assessment review
Complete your risk assessment using our digital engine, then have our in-house Certified Industrial Hygienist (CIH) and Full Member of the Australian Institute of Occupational Hygienists (MAIOH) review your specific results to ensure bulletproof compliance.
Post-completion expert review
Not sure if you categorised your site’s controls correctly? Complete your online assessment and send us the generated report. Our in-house experts will review your residual risk scores, validate your “N/A” selections, and ensure your action plan adequately addresses your highest liabilities (like hexavalent chromium or LEL environments) before you sign off.
- Scope
- Remote CIH and MAIOH review of your completed calculator report and hazard register.
- Turnaround
- 3–5 business days.
- Pricing
- Remote review is billed at an hourly rate of $250 AUD/hour (total quote based on the number of sections reviewed).
Walk it, answer it, sign it.
The calculator generates a finished, fully formatted .docx record with your Action Plan already inside it. Print it, sign it off, and you are audit-ready for this workshop.
Price in AUD, no GST charged · Jurisdiction: New South Wales — WHS Act 2011, WHS Regulation 2025 and SafeWork NSW Codes of Practice applied
This is a generic risk assessment for a typical workshop of this kind, to support your due diligence — completing it is not compliance in itself. You must answer it for your own site, consult your workers, put the missing controls in place, and get competent advice where it says so — exposure monitoring, for example, is work for an occupational hygienist. The limits are set out at the front of every report.