CSCS Demolition (Specialist) Questions
Specialist demolition test topic questions.
Demolition (Specialist) — practice questions (untimed, instant feedback)
- 5 questions · pass mark 90%
- Untimed practice — you see the correct answer immediately after each question.
- Some questions need more than one answer — these are clearly marked.
All 5 Demolition (Specialist) questions and answers
These are the same 5 questions as the practice test above, written out with the correct answer and the reasoning behind it. Read them through when you want to revise rather than test yourself.
1. Who is mainly responsible for safety on a demolition site?
Answer: The site manager
- A) The site manager (correct answer)
- B) The local council
- C) The client
- D) The demolition operatives
Why: The site manager oversees the safety procedures and ensures they are followed.
2. When should a structural survey be carried out for a demolition project?
Answer: Before demolition starts
- A) Once demolition has started
- B) While demolition is underway
- C) Before demolition starts (correct answer)
- D) Only if a problem appears
Why: Surveying the structure first identifies weaknesses and shapes the safe demolition plan.
3. Which document sets out the methods and safety requirements for a demolition job?
Answer: The method statement
- A) The project drawings
- B) The site layout plan
- C) The health and safety policy
- D) The method statement (correct answer)
Why: The method statement sets out the demolition sequence and its safety precautions.
4. Why is dust control important on demolition sites?
Answer: To protect people's health and the environment
- A) To keep visibility clear
- B) To cut fire risk
- C) To protect people's health and the environment (correct answer)
- D) To keep pests away
Why: Dust control prevents respiratory disease and environmental contamination.
5. Which survey is carried out to find asbestos before demolition?
Answer: An asbestos survey
- A) A structural survey
- B) An asbestos survey (correct answer)
- C) An environmental survey
- D) An engineering survey
Why: A demolition/refurbishment asbestos survey finds asbestos-containing materials before work starts.
What this topic covers in the CSCS test
Demolition is one of CITB's specialist tests, adding demolition questions to the five core Operatives knowledge areas. In law demolition is treated the same as any other construction work, so CDM 2015 applies in full, with the extra requirement that the arrangements are written down first. Most marks come from what you must find out about a structure, and what must come out of it, before the first bite.
- Surveys done first: the structural survey and the asbestos refurbishment and demolition (R&D) survey
- Pre-construction information: asbestos, stability, past alterations and buried live services
- Written arrangements and the demolition method statement
- Method and sequence, including top-down demolition and high-reach machines
- Exclusion and debris zones, and keeping any collapse inside the site boundary
- Notifying the local authority and protecting the public and neighbouring structures
- Controlling dust, noise and vibration, and segregating waste
Key facts worth memorising
- Written down first
- CDM 2015 regulation 20 requires demolition to be planned so as to prevent danger, and the arrangements recorded in writing before work begins.
- R&D survey, not a management survey
- The client must give the contractor a refurbishment or demolition asbestos survey by a competent surveyor, and asbestos must be removed so far as is reasonably practicable before demolition.
- 14 days for licensed asbestos work
- Licensable work with asbestos must be notified to the enforcing authority on form ASB5 at least 14 days before it starts.
- Six weeks to building control
- You must give notice to the local authority, usually building control, at least six weeks before you intend to start demolition.
- Debris must stay in the zone
- Exclusion and debris zones are sized on the technique, the space around the structure and how far debris can fall. If a collapse could breach the site boundary, the technique is wrong.
- Dust is a killer, not a nuisance
- HSE believes over 500 construction workers die every year from silica dust, so water suppression, on-tool extraction and RPE belong in the method statement.
What people get wrong
An asbestos management survey is enough before demolition.
It is not. A management survey covers a building in normal occupation. Before demolition you need an R&D survey, which is intrusive and looks for asbestos hidden in the fabric.
A scaffold round the building lets you shrink the exclusion zone.
HSE says the opposite. A scaffold does not allow a smaller exclusion zone, and must not be used to support a structure unless designed as a support.
The structural survey can be done as the job goes along.
The structure must be understood before the sequence is chosen: load paths, floor loadings, shear walls, lift shafts, overhangs and past alterations. Surveying later is guessing.
The site manager alone carries responsibility.
Site managers supervise and enforce safe working, but duties run through the whole chain, from the client who appoints competent people and supplies pre-construction information to the worker who must follow the plan.
Answering these questions in the test
The demolition test rewards a strict order of events: find out what is there, write down how it will come down, remove the asbestos and isolate the services, set the zones, then demolish. Any option that has work starting before a survey, a written method statement or a notification is wrong. Where a question names a document, match it to its job: the structural survey tells you how the building stands up, the R&D survey tells you where the asbestos is, and the method statement tells the gang the sequence and the precautions.
Sources
Written from the following. Where a figure could not be verified against one of these, it has been left out rather than approximated — our sources and methodology explains how we date and re-check them. Spotted something wrong? Report an error and we will fix it.
- hse.gov.uk/construction/safetytopics/demolition.htm
- hse.gov.uk/construction/safetytopics/admin.htm
- legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2015/51/regulation/20/made
- hse.gov.uk/asbestos/duty/arrange-asbestos-survey.htm
- hse.gov.uk/asbestos/licensing/licensed-contractor.htm
- hse.gov.uk/construction/healthrisks/hazardous-substances/construction-dust.htm
- hse.gov.uk/pubns/books/hsg150.htm
- citb.co.uk/courses-tests/health-safety-and-environment-hse-test/specialist-test
Topics that come up alongside demolition (specialist)
Ready for the real thing?
When you are scoring 90% or better here, take a timed 50-question mock under exam conditions, then book your CITB HS&E test.