Pre-ticked for the atmosphere limb and falls, with three rows written. Tiling looks like a low hazard trade right up until somebody cuts porcelain dry indoors.
Dry cutting is the whole of the hazard
Porcelain, engineered stone and most natural stone contain crystalline silica, and cutting it dry produces respirable particles small enough to reach the deepest part of the lung and stay there. The exposures measured from dry cutting are among the highest recorded on any construction activity, and they are produced by a tool that looks harmless and makes a job quicker.
Wet cutting with a continuous feed to the blade is the control, and it works because it stops the dust existing rather than capturing it afterwards. The failure mode is entirely predictable: the saw gets moved indoors out of the weather, the water gets turned off because it is making a mess, and the control disappears without any decision being taken.
Silicosis takes years and then does not stop
It is irreversible and progressive, and it can continue developing after exposure ends. That is what makes it different from most site health risks: there is no point at which stopping fixes what has happened, and the diagnosis often arrives long after the job that caused it.
The practical consequence is that a control which works most of the time is not good enough, because the damage accumulates from the exposures you did not control. It is worth setting up the cutting station properly once rather than deciding each morning.
Engineered stone is a separate question, and it is a prohibition
Australia prohibited the manufacture, supply, processing and installation of engineered stone benchtops, panels and slabs from 1 July 2024. That is a ban rather than a control measure, and it sits outside anything a SWMS can address: no method statement makes prohibited work permitted.
It matters here because the scope of the prohibition and the scope of ordinary tiling are close enough to be confused. Check what the material actually is against the current requirements before the work is priced, because finding out later is not a paperwork problem.
The same caution applies to the offcuts and the waste. Where a material is caught by the prohibition, so is the dust and the debris from it, and a skip on a domestic job is not a controlled disposal route. That is worth settling with the client before anything comes out, because the removal cost lands somewhere and it is usually on whoever did not ask.
Kneeling ends more tiling careers than dust does
Prepatellar bursitis and meniscal damage from years of kneeling are the injuries that quietly end this trade, and they get treated as unavoidable in a way that dust no longer is.
They are not. Kneeling boards, proper knee pads worn rather than owned, and setting out the work so that some of it can be done from a stool all shift the load. The reason it belongs in a SWMS at all is that a document listing only the dramatic hazards teaches people that the slow ones do not count, and the slow one is the one most likely to happen to them.
Large format tiles have quietly made the manual handling worse over the last decade. A 1200 by 600 porcelain is a two-person lift and an awkward one, and the suction lifters that make it manageable are cheap next to a back injury. Cutting the sheet down before moving it is not always possible with large format, which removes the usual escape route and makes the second person the control.
Common questions
Does tiling need a SWMS at all?
Frequently not on the fall limb, since most of it happens at ground level, but the contaminated atmosphere limb applies wherever cutting produces respirable silica in an enclosed area. Tiling a stairwell or working from a platform over a void can bring in the fall limb as well. The tool above answers it rather than assuming.
Is wet cutting always enough?
It is the primary control and it is very effective while the water is actually running. What it does not cover is grinding old adhesive, cutting in a small unventilated room, or the person walking through the area afterwards. Extraction, ventilation and keeping others out of the cutting area are the parts that get forgotten because the saw looks handled.
What vacuum do I need for grinding?
An M or H class unit with the filter changed on schedule. A workshop vacuum passes the fine fraction straight through and out the exhaust, which puts the most dangerous particle size back into the room at head height. It looks like it is working, which is the problem.
Does the engineered stone ban affect ordinary floor and wall tiling?
The prohibition is aimed at engineered stone benchtops, panels and slabs rather than at ceramic or porcelain tiling. The reason it is worth naming here is that people ask, and that the answer depends on what the material actually is rather than on what the job is called. Check the product before pricing it.
Do I need health monitoring, or is the vacuum enough?
Both, because they answer different questions. Extraction is there to stop the exposure. Health monitoring is there to find out whether it worked, and where a worker is at significant risk from crystalline silica that monitoring is a duty rather than a courtesy: a baseline, then repeat checks, arranged and paid for by the business. It matters on tiling specifically because the exposure is intermittent and invisible, so nobody feels overexposed on the day, and the first evidence either way shows up in the monitoring rather than in how anybody feels.