What should be photographed before it is covered up?

The arithmetic

Once work is concealed, the only way to see it again is to open something up. That is scaffolding, a contractor, a programme impact, and a bill — three years later, in a dispute, with everybody already annoyed.

A photograph taken thirty seconds before the cover-up turns that entire exercise into a search. There is no other item of site documentation with a return on effort remotely like it.

The shot list

Not exhaustive, and every project should write its own — but this is the spine of it:

• Reinforcement, before the pour: bar size, spacing, cover, laps, and the tag or drawing reference visible in the frame.
• Waterproofing, before the screed or protection board: laps, upstands, terminations, penetrations.
• Services above ceilings, before the tiles go in: routing, supports, and clearances.
• Fire-stopping, before boarding: the seal, the penetration, and the certification label if there is one.
• Buried services, before backfill: route, depth and bedding — because the alternative is a digger, later.

Make it a gate, not a good habit

The shot must be a required item on the cover-up inspection — something that refuses to be signed without it. Not a reminder, not a policy, not a toolbox topic.

Because good habits do not survive a wet Friday afternoon with a concrete truck waiting on the gate, and that is precisely when the pour that later gets argued about will happen.

Terms

• Hold Point