Bathroom Snagging Preparation Checklist

Reread your brief and the changes agreed along the way before you look at anything, so you are comparing the room against what was actually agreed rather than what you first imagined.

Half of what owners raise at this point was changed deliberately at some earlier stage and simply never written down.

Arrange to look at the room before it fills with towels, bottles and a bath mat, since those cover the floor edges and surfaces you most need to see.

Once the room is in use, marks and gaps become impossible to attribute to anyone.

Take a torch, a small spirit level and a dry cloth with you, since most of what gets missed is missed simply for want of light.

A torch held close to a wall reveals in a moment what looking at it straight on never will.

Decide who from the household walks the room, and whether the people who did the work are present for the first pass or only for the second.

Looking alone first tends to produce a calmer and more complete list than looking with an audience.

Agree in advance how you will raise what you find, since a written list handed over calmly is treated very differently from remarks made across a room.

The tone of this stage often decides how willingly small things get put right.

Ask what is still outstanding before you start looking, so you do not spend the walk round listing work that everybody already knows is unfinished.

Separating unfinished from unexpected keeps your list credible.

Look along each tiled wall from a low angle with light raking across it, since that is the only way an edge standing proud of its neighbour becomes visible.

Looking straight at a wall hides almost everything that will annoy you later.

Look at the room once in daylight and once with the lights on, because each of those conditions conceals what the other reveals.

Rooms handed over in the evening look different the following afternoon, and that is not anybody being difficult.

Note where tile cuts have landed, particularly at corners, around the toilet and where they meet a door lining, and compare that with what was discussed.

Setting out is a decision made early and shows up here, which is why it is worth checking against the conversation rather than against instinct.

Check whether the grout colour reads consistently across the room, or whether one area has dried noticeably lighter or patchier than the rest.

Whether a patchy area will even out or is something to raise is for the people who did the work or the material supplier to establish.

Look closely where painted surfaces meet tiling, and note any place where the line wanders or the paint edge has already picked up moisture.

This junction is cut in by hand at the very end of the work and is where tiredness shows.

Note anything marked, chipped or scratched now and record where it is, rather than after use makes it impossible to say when it happened.

Timing is the whole argument with surface damage, and it is settled by whoever wrote something down first.

Run every tap and the shower, and watch how quickly water runs away rather than only checking that it eventually does.

Slow drainage is normal to nobody and is much easier to raise before the room is in daily use.

Fill the basin and the bath and let each drain completely while you watch, including whatever the overflow does when the level reaches it.

Overflows are rarely tried at all, and they are exactly the thing discovered later in an unwelcome way.

Note where water actually lands when the shower is running normally, and whether it reaches a wall, a door or a surface that was never meant to get wet.

Spray patterns are set by the head position and the screen, and both can still be adjusted at this stage.

Flush the toilet several times and listen to how it refills, noting anything that carries on running after it should have settled.

Anything that continues to run or drip is for a qualified professional to look at rather than something to adjust yourself.

Run a dry cloth underneath the basin and behind the toilet after water has been used, instead of assuming that a leak would announce itself.

Early seepage is a damp patch rather than a puddle, and a cloth finds it long before a floor does.

Any sign of water where it should not be belongs with a qualified professional, not with tightening anything by hand.

Note how the water temperature behaves when another outlet in the house is used at the same time, and raise anything that surprises you.

What your hot water arrangement should do in that situation is for a qualified professional to establish, never something to judge by feel.

Open and close the door through its full swing and note whether it catches on the new floor, on a threshold strip or on a mat that will live there permanently.

New floor build-ups often reduce the gap under a door, and this is noticed on the first cold morning otherwise.

Open every drawer and cupboard to its full extent and note whether anything collides with a handle, a towel rail, the basin or the door.

Collisions only appear at full extension, which is not how anyone opens things during a quick look.

Move the shower screen through its whole range and note where water would sit on the frame or find its way outside the enclosure.

Screens are adjustable within limits, and this is the moment when adjusting them is straightforward.

Try the lock from both sides and with the door pulled properly closed, since it is the item most likely to be adjusted last and least likely to be tried.

A lock that binds only when the door is fully closed passes every casual test.

Press gently on anything mounted to a wall, such as a rail, a shelf or a hung basin, and note anything that gives, then raise it rather than tightening it.

Fixings in bathroom walls are a matter for the people who did the work; tightening something yourself can make a problem harder to trace.

Check that every access panel can actually be opened without removing something else first, and note what would have to move if it could not.

A panel that is sealed shut or blocked by a fitting is the thing regretted the first time anything needs attention.

Follow each sealant line with your eye from one end to the other, noting where it changes width, stops short or has been run over something else.

Sealant is applied quickly at the end of a long job, and inconsistency along a line is the usual result.

Look at the junction between floor and wall the whole way round the room, including the stretch behind the door where nobody ever looks.

The hidden stretch is genuinely where the least careful work tends to be, precisely because it is not seen.

Note every place where two different materials meet and whether the edge has been trimmed, sealed or simply left as a cut edge.

These transitions are decided on site and rarely appear on any drawing.

Look closely where pipes, valves and fixings pass through a finished surface, since those holes are cut on site and finished last of all.

An oversized hole covered by a loose plate is a common finding and easy to raise now.

Look at the joint where the bath or the shower tray meets the wall, note anything that looks rushed, and ask what that joint is meant to look like.

What lies behind that joint and whether it has been formed correctly is for a qualified professional to establish, not something visible from the room.

Note whether grout lines run continuously where you would expect and where a different kind of joint appears to have been left instead.

Where joints of that sort belong in your room is a decision for qualified professionals; ask why they are where they are rather than assuming an error.

Use the room normally before treating your list as closed, since a great deal of what matters only appears once it is being showered in properly.

A list closed on the day of handover is closed before the room has been tested by anyone.

Note how the room behaves after a hot shower, including how long moisture stays on the surfaces and whether the extract makes an obvious difference.

How moist air should leave this room is for a qualified professional to establish, and is not something to judge from how the mirror clears.

Watch for any smell coming from a waste or a trap and raise it rather than assuming it is something a new room will settle out of by itself.

Anything to do with waste pipework belongs with a qualified professional rather than with air fresheners or guesswork.

Note anything that loosens, drips or changes after a period of ordinary use, and write down when you first noticed it rather than reconstructing it later.

The date you first saw something is often the most useful part of the entry.

Agree in writing how something appearing later will be raised and by whom, before everyone involved has moved on to other work.

This is the arrangement everybody assumes exists and almost nobody actually makes.

Ask what documentation the people who did the work would normally hand over at the end, and confirm locally what applies to work of this kind.

What paperwork is expected for this type of work varies by location and must be confirmed with the relevant local authority and qualified professionals.

Ask for instructions and all written product paperwork for each fitting, including the concealed ones now sitting behind a panel or a wall.

Hidden items are the ones whose paperwork disappears, and they are the ones you will most need it for.

Ask for spare tiles left over from the same batch and write down where they have been put, since matching later is often not possible at all.

Spares are usually taken away with the rubbish unless somebody asks for them by name.

Ask which cleaning products should not be used on the surfaces you now have, and record the answer alongside your list of finishes.

What suits a particular surface is for the material supplier or manufacturer to state, since products that suit one finish can damage another.

Note where the isolation points and access panels are and write down what sits behind each one while somebody is still there to tell you.

This information is obvious to everyone on site and entirely lost within a season of them leaving.

Write each entry as a place and an observation rather than as a judgement, so it can be found and discussed without anybody having to defend themselves.

Wording of the form the wall behind the door has a mark is acted on; wording of the form the tiling is poor is argued about.

Photograph each item with something in the frame that shows where in the room it is, since a close-up of a tile could be anywhere.

Photographs without context are the reason lists get returned with questions instead of results.

Separate things you did not expect from changes that were agreed during the work, because mixing them makes the whole list easier to dismiss.

One entry that turns out to have been agreed weakens every other entry on the page.

Send one list rather than a stream of messages, and keep your own copy of what was sent and when it went.

Piecemeal reporting is the most common reason items are genuinely missed rather than ignored.

Ask what happens to items you both accept will not be changed, and record that outcome plainly rather than leaving them sitting open on the list.

An open item nobody intends to act on quietly discredits the rest of the list.