For demolition contractors
Demolition safety file
Structures that come down in a controlled order, and everything hazardous that was built into them.
Generate your safety file — R500What the law requires
There is no separate safety file law for demolition contractors. The Occupational Health and Safety Act 85 of 1993 and the Construction Regulations 2014 are national and trade-neutral — they apply to demolition work exactly as they apply to every other trade on a South African site, with no minimum project size exemption.
What changes with the trade is the content. The regulations require the file to reflect the work actually being carried out, so the risk assessments, method statements, appointments and registers in a demolition file are driven by the hazards demolition contractors actually create.
Why a demolition file is different
Demolition is the one trade where the Construction Regulations name the work directly. Regulation 14 requires an engineering survey by a competent person before demolition begins, and the sequence that survey produces is the safety control. On South African buildings of a certain age, what the structure contains matters as much as how it stands.
What to get right in a demolition safety file
These are the hazards that should be reflected properly in the risk assessments and method statements — the parts of the file that are easiest to leave generic and hardest to defend when they are.
Structural collapse in the wrong order
Regulation 14 requires a competent person to carry out an engineering survey of the structure before demolition starts, establishing the condition and the risk of premature collapse. The demolition method statement follows from that survey, and neither is meaningful without the other in the file.
Asbestos and hazardous materials in the fabric
Older South African buildings routinely contain asbestos in roof sheeting, ceilings, pipe lagging and gaskets. The Asbestos Abatement Regulations 2020 require identification before disturbance, and removal by a registered asbestos contractor — which is a separate appointment from the demolition itself.
Everyone outside the exclusion zone
Falling debris and uncontrolled collapse extend well past the wall line. The exclusion zone, how it is enforced, and who is permitted inside it during active demolition needs to be written down, because on a busy site the pressure to let people through is constant.
Also governed by: Asbestos Abatement Regulations 2020
Identification before disturbance is mandatory, and removal is restricted to a registered asbestos contractor — a separate appointment from the demolition contractor.
Documents a demolition scope typically triggers
On top of the core compliance pack every construction file carries, demolition contractors should expect to need these. The exact set depends on your scope.
- —Demolition supervisor appointment (CR 14)
- —Barricading and public safety checklists for the exclusion zone
- —Construction vehicle appointments (CR 23) and vehicle checklists
- —Waste management plan and procedure
- —Daily risk assessment, toolbox talk and site diary register
- —Engineering survey by a competent person and, where relevant, the registered asbestos contractor's details
*Items marked * are records you obtain from third parties and file alongside the documents MySafetyFile generates.
Can I start demolition while waiting for the asbestos survey?
No. Identification has to happen before work that could disturb asbestos-containing material, which on an older building means before demolition starts rather than alongside it. Starting first and finding asbestos afterwards turns a planned removal into an uncontrolled release, with the site stopped and the area treated as contaminated.
More background: what a construction safety file is and what a compliant template must contain.
Get your demolition safety file in 8 minutes
MySafetyFile generates a complete, site-specific construction safety file — drawn from a library of 351 documents across 9 categories — in about 8 minutes for R500. Register free, enter your project and scope, and download a file that is ready to print or submit. There is no monthly fee, and one account handles unlimited projects.
Every document is aligned with the OHS Act and Construction Regulations 2014, developed by a SAIOSH-registered practitioner, and carries a unique identification code that ties it to the account and project it was generated for.