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Workplace risk assessments for woodworking businesses — completed online, finished as a signed Word report
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Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW) · Work Health and Safety Regulation 2025 (NSW)

Risk assessments written for your kind of woodworking business (NSW)

Not a blank template. Each industry is a complete hazard register with its starting risk ratings already set by a Certified Industrial Hygienist, and an online calculator that works out where you actually stand.

📍 Written for NSW⚡ Start straight away📱 Phone, tablet or computer
Choose what to buy
$795AUD

Cabinet, Kitchen and Panel Manufacture Risk Assessment. One industry; add others at any time.

Secure checkout via Stripe. Sign in and start as soon as the payment goes through.

Online calculator – start straight after payment
Finished report in editable Microsoft Word
Health surveillance pathway, referral form and symptom questionnaire
CIH-authored · WHS Regulation 2025 (NSW)
Pay once · no subscription
5 industries232 hazards1,354 controlsRegulator: SafeWork NSW
Five industries

Find your workshop

Each industry is a complete risk assessment in its own right. Buy the one that matches your work. One purchase gives permanent access to that industry’s calculator and report generator, plus the inherent hazard register in Word, the health surveillance pathway, an inspection readiness checklist and an annual review template.

01Online calculator

Cabinet, Kitchen and Panel Manufacture Risk Assessment

58 hazards and 346 controls for kitchen and cabinet makers, flat-pack and panel processing shops.

See what this section covers →
$795AUD
02Online calculator

Commercial Furniture and Shopfitting Risk Assessment

56 hazards and 340 controls for commercial furniture makers, shopfitters and fit-out joinery workshops.

See what this section covers →
$795AUD
03Online calculator

Floor Sanding and Timber Finishing Contractors Risk Assessment

28 hazards and 147 controls for floor sanding contractors and timber floor finishing crews.

See what this section covers →
$795AUD
04Online calculator

Solid Timber Joinery and Architectural Woodworking Risk Assessment

51 hazards and 303 controls for joinery shops, stair and window makers and architectural woodworkers.

See what this section covers →
$795AUD
05Online calculator

Timber Truss, Frame and Structural Component Plants Risk Assessment

39 hazards and 218 controls for truss and wall frame plants and structural timber component manufacturers.

See what this section covers →
$795AUD

✓Every industry is a separate product: buy the one that matches your workshop.

✓232 hazards and 1,354 controls in total, each rated for severity and likelihood before you start.

✓Each one is completed in its own online calculator on a phone, tablet or computer, and answers save as you go.

✓A finished Word report per industry, with the residual ratings and a prioritised Action Plan already in it, to print and sign.

✓The inherent hazard register in Word, a health surveillance pathway with referral forms and a worker symptom questionnaire, an inspection readiness checklist and an annual review template.

The solution

One assessment per kind of workshop

Wood dust is a carcinogen, and the exposure standards that apply to it have tightened: hardwood dust is now limited to 1 mg/m³ and softwood dust to 2 mg/m³, measured as inhalable dust. What else is in the air depends on the shop: formaldehyde from resin-bonded board, isocyanates from two-pack finishes, solvents from contact adhesives and lacquers, preservative chemicals from treated timber, and the plicatic acid in Western Red Cedar that causes occupational asthma.

Each industry here is a complete risk assessment for one kind of woodworking business, 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.

The problem with “blank templates”
  • ✗You are left to identify every hazard yourself
  • ✗You argue about the starting risk with no baseline
  • ✗You work the hierarchy of controls out by hand
  • ✗You spend hours formatting a Word document

A generic template leaves you with most of the work and all of the liability. Wood dust, formaldehyde, isocyanates and the sensitisers in some species are where the health claims come from, and they are the hazards a general template handles worst.

Every industry

Five industries, each sold on its own

Cabinet and kitchen manufacture, commercial furniture and shopfitting, floor sanding and finishing, solid timber joinery, and truss and frame plants. Pick yours in the buy box; every one is a complete risk assessment with its own online calculator, hazard register, health surveillance pathway, inspection readiness checklist and annual review template.

  • ✓All five industries written to NSW law, each sold on its own
  • ✓Safety, process safety and occupational hygiene assessed separately in every one
  • ✓Completed online on a phone, tablet or computer — answers save as you go
  • ✓Colour-coded residual risk and a prioritised Action Plan, worked out for you
  • ✓One finished Word report per industry, to print and sign
Choose what to buy
$795AUD

Cabinet, Kitchen and Panel Manufacture Risk Assessment. One industry; add others at any time.

Secure checkout via Stripe. Sign in and start as soon as the payment goes through.

Online calculator – start straight after payment
Finished report in editable Microsoft Word
Health surveillance pathway, referral form and symptom questionnaire
CIH-authored · WHS Regulation 2025 (NSW)
Pay once · no subscription
The risk

CIH & MAIOH authored: the exposures that carry the liability

Standard safety checklists miss the chronic health exposures that trigger the biggest claims. These assessments are written by a Full Member of the Australian Institute of Occupational Hygienists, with control scoring for hardwood and softwood dust against the 1 mg/m³ and 2 mg/m³ standards, formaldehyde from resin-bonded board, isocyanate finishes, solvent adhesives, preservative dust from treated timber and the plicatic acid in Western Red Cedar.

Dust explosion in the dust collector, filter unit, cyclone or siloHigh

Explosion rupturing the collector or silo, fireball, secondary explosion in the building, fatalities, loss of premises.

Secondary dust explosion or flash fire from dust layersHigh

Secondary explosion across the whole building, which in dust incidents causes most of the deaths and damage.

Asbestos in old floor coverings, underlay and adhesiveHigh

Mesothelioma, asbestosis and lung cancer, with no safe level of exposure. Asbestos WEL 0.1 f/mL. Removal of more than 10 m2 of non-friable asbestos requires a licensed removalist.

Flammable vapour from solvent-based coatings in enclosed roomsHigh

Flash fire or vapour explosion inside the building, severe burns and fatality.

Wood dust from sanding - wide-belt and hand-heldHigh

Sanding produces the highest wood dust exposures in cabinet making and the finest particles. Wood dust is IARC Group 1 and a respiratory sensitiser.

Settled dust re-suspended by cleaningHigh

Short, very high wood dust exposures for the cleaner and bystanders; the fine fraction most associated with disease.

Wood dust from drum sanding, edging and corner workHigh

Floor sanding produces high exposures to fine wood dust. Wood dust is classified by IARC as Group 1, carcinogenic to humans (sinonasal cancer), with the strongest evidence for hardwoods. It is a respiratory and dermal sensitiser: occupational asthma, rhinitis, dermatitis. The WEL is 1 mg/m3 for hardwood and 2 mg/m3 for softwood (8-hour TWA, inhalable); mixed species are assessed against the hardwood limit as a professional default.

Forklifts, panel trolleys and pedestrians in shared floor spaceHigh

Crush injuries, multiple fractures, fatality. Mobile plant is consistently among the leading mechanisms of work-related death in Australia.

Panels sliding or toppling from stacks, A-frames and racksHigh

Crush injuries and fatality. Unrestrained sheet materials falling onto workers have caused deaths in Australian workshops.

Forklifts, sideloaders and pedestrians in shared areasHigh

Crush injuries, multiple fractures, fatality. Mobile plant is consistently among the leading mechanisms of work-related death in Australia.

Spontaneous combustion of sanding dust in bags and binsHigh

Fire starting unattended hours later, destroying the building or vehicle.

Timber packs and stock toppling or slidingHigh

Crush injuries and fatality; struck-by injuries from recoiling strapping.

A worked example

How one hazard is rated

Take a joinery shop machining Western Red Cedar. The plicatic acid in the dust is a respiratory sensitiser, and the hazard starts as a severity 4, probability C hazard, which is red. The shop has dust extraction on the spindle moulder and the thicknesser and issues P2 respirators, but has no health surveillance and has never measured the dust. The calculator scores the controls actually in place against the controls that apply, lowers the likelihood by the band that score reaches, and lowers the severity only because extraction at the source physically limits the exposure. The missing controls, health surveillance and air monitoring among them, become the Action Plan, most urgent first.

What's built in

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.

01Every control is classified on the hierarchy of control, and each class carries its own weight: elimination and substitution count for most, PPE and paperwork for least.
02Your score is the controls you have in place out of the controls that apply to your site, so marking something N/A never counts against you.
03Controls that physically limit how badly someone can be hurt also lower the severity, not just the likelihood. Rules, training and signage never do.
04A practice that is never acceptable, or a missing control the law requires of every workshop, leaves the hazard NOT RATED and at the top of your Action Plan until it is fixed.
05A result cannot finish green on PPE, procedures and monitoring alone, and a hazard that could kill or permanently disable cannot finish green without elimination, substitution or extraction at the source.
06Every control you answer No to becomes an action, ordered by how urgent and how effective it is. Where air monitoring is one of them, it is on the plan.
Who it's for

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.

  • ✓Woodworking, joinery and timber processing businesses in New South Wales
  • ✓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
Compliance basis

Authored to the codes and the law

The Codes of Practice and Australian Standards these documents are measured against, and the legislation behind them.

Related legislation
  • §Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (NSW)
  • §Work Health and Safety Regulation 2025 (NSW)
  • §Workplace exposure standards for airborne contaminants (Safe Work Australia)
  • §Managing risks of plant in the workplace — Code of Practice (SafeWork NSW)
  • §Managing risks of hazardous chemicals in the workplace — Code of Practice (SafeWork NSW)
  • §Managing the work environment and facilities — Code of Practice (SafeWork NSW)
Questions

Frequently asked questions

Need expert validation?

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).
Request a quote for a remote expert review

Download it, score it online, sign it.

Read the hazard register, walk the workshop with the calculator open, and download the finished .docx report with your Action Plan already inside it. Print it, sign it off, and you are audit-ready.

All prices 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 business of its 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.