What is a safety file for a new house?

How it works in Ireland

The construction regulations require the Project Supervisor for the Design Process (PSDP) to prepare a safety file and give it to the client when the project is complete. Its purpose is practical: anyone who later maintains, repairs, extends or demolishes the house should be able to find out what is inside the walls and what the hazards are before they start.

A safety file for a house usually holds the as-built drawings and specification, the structure and any post-tensioned or unusual elements, the location of services such as electrical cables, water pipes, gas and drainage, the materials used with any hazardous ones noted, details of the wastewater system or other equipment with manuals and servicing needs, and notes on safe access to roofs and other high places. It should also record any residual risks the designers could not remove and how to deal with them.

The PSDP builds the file during the design and keeps it up to date during construction, using information from the PSCS and the contractors. Ask for it as a deliverable in the PSDP’s appointment letter, not an afterthought, and ask contractors to hand over as-built information and product literature as each package finishes. At the end the file goes to you as the client.

Keep the file with the house, in paper and digital copies. If you sell the property, pass it on to the buyer. Solicitors acting for buyers and lenders often ask for it, and it sits alongside the certificate of compliance on completion and the BER certificate in the house’s records. It also helps any future tradesperson: a plumber or electrician who knows where concealed services run does not drill through them.

The safety file is separate from the safety and health plan the PSCS keeps during construction. The plan is for the building stage and the file is for the life of the building afterwards.

A common mistake

Treating the file as a box to tick and getting a thin set of papers at the end. By then drawings are out of date and the contractors have gone. Agree what goes in it at the start and collect information as the work progresses.