Before the Concrete Goes In Decision Checklist

Ask how many separate pours the project involves and roughly what each one covers, since a deadline you did not know existed cannot be met.

Owners often picture a single event. Knowing there are several, each closing different things, changes how decisions get sequenced.

Ask what stops being changeable at each pour, and write the answer down as a list of your decisions rather than a list of construction items.

Translating the answer into your own decisions is the step that makes it usable, and nobody else on the project will do it for you.

Agree who tells you a pour is approaching and how much warning you will get, and record that arrangement rather than assuming somebody will call.

The person who knows the date and the person who needs your decision are frequently not in contact with each other.

Ask when each party's information has to be complete for a pour to go ahead, and note which of those depend on a decision from you.

Owner decisions sit upstream of several other people's work, and they are the ones least visible on any programme.

Put each of those deadlines in your own calendar with a note of what it closes, working backwards from the pour rather than towards it.

A date expressed as when a decision is needed is far more useful to a household than a date expressed as when concrete arrives.

Ask what happens to your deadlines if a pour date moves, since an earlier date is as disruptive to a household as a later one.

Owners plan around a date moving later and are caught out when it moves earlier, which happens just as often.

Describe how you want to enter the building at each door, including whether a step is acceptable there, and raise it as a design question rather than a preference.

Level access and step heights are far easier to influence before a floor is set than to remedy once a building is standing.

Do not settle threshold or level access arrangements from general guidance. Put the household situation to a qualified designer and confirm what applies locally.

Ask what the design assumes about the ground outside each door, and note whether any of that ground is still going to be reworked later.

Landscaping decided afterwards can undo an arrangement that worked on the drawing, and the assumption is worth capturing while it is fresh.

Record whether anyone in the household has mobility needs now or may in future, and raise them at this point rather than at fit-out.

This is one of the few points in a project where the answer genuinely changes what is built rather than what is fitted.

Note where you expect different floor finishes to meet, and ask whether the build-up above the concrete allows for the differences you are imagining.

Finishes vary in depth, and the allowance for them is made long before anybody chooses a colour.

Ask what changing your mind about a floor finish later would mean, and record which changes would still be possible and which would not.

Knowing which doors remain open is the useful part, and it turns a vague worry into a short written answer.

Walk the approach to each door as it is described on the drawings and note anything that does not match how you imagined arriving at the building.

Owners read plans as rooms and experience buildings as journeys, and the mismatch usually shows up at a threshold.

List everything you expect to arrive underground, including drainage, water, power and communications, and ask whether anything has been assumed rather than confirmed.

Owners frequently spot an omission here because they are thinking about how they will live rather than about a services drawing.

Name anything you might want outside later, such as an outbuilding, a car charging point, garden power or an irrigation supply, and raise each one now.

These are the classic late additions, and they are cheap to allow for at this point and disproportionate afterwards.

Ask whether any spare duct or route is being provided for future use, and record the answer whether it is yes or no.

A recorded no is useful information for a future owner, who would otherwise spend money establishing the same thing.

Ask at what point each entry position stops being a drawing revision, and add that to the deadline list you are keeping.

This is the specific moment an ordinary change becomes something else entirely, and it rarely appears on a programme.

Ask what would be involved in forming a hole through the finished element afterwards, and record the answer before anyone proposes deferring a decision.

Having the answer already written down changes how a deferral conversation goes, which is the point of asking early.

Whether anything can be cut, cored or drilled in a finished element depends on what is inside it. That is never an owner decision.

Note where any meter, box or cabinet associated with an incoming supply is expected to sit, since the position is usually decided by someone who will not live there.

These land where they are convenient to install, and owners notice their position only once the elevation is finished.

Settle where anything involving drainage will sit, including kitchens, bathrooms and utility spaces, and confirm that those positions are the ones the drawings assume.

Drainage positions follow the room layout, so a layout still under discussion is a drainage position still under discussion.

Note where stairs, lifts or any opening through a floor are expected to be, and ask whether any of them affects what happens below.

Openings are framed as part of a structure rather than cut into it, which is why their position belongs to this stage.

Record anything unusually heavy you intend to put in the building, such as a large appliance, a stove, a bath or a substantial piece of furniture.

Owners are the only party who knows about these, and they are far easier to mention now than to accommodate later.

Whether any load can be accommodated is a matter for the engineer responsible for the structure. Mention the item; do not assess it.

Ask whether the positions of internal walls have to be known at this point, and which of them you are still free to move afterwards.

Some are structural decisions and some are not, and knowing which is which tells you where your flexibility actually lies.

Confirm what each room will actually be used for rather than what it is labelled, since a study used as a utility space changes what is needed below.

Labels on a plan are a poor guide to use, and the difference usually surfaces through a service that is not there.

Ask which decisions in this area genuinely remain open after the pour, and write that list down as your remaining freedom.

Knowing what is still movable is as valuable as knowing what is not, and it keeps later conversations calm.

Confirm whether heating is to sit within the floor at all, and in which areas, since the answer may differ from room to room.

Owners often assume the answer is uniform across a building when the design treats parts of it differently.

Describe how each area is used through the day and which parts of the household keep different hours, and hand that over as the basis for zoning.

Zoning is a question about people rather than about pipework, and only the household can answer it.

Note where large furniture, fitted units and heavy immovable items are expected to sit, and ask whether that affects anything in the floor beneath them.

Furniture layouts and floor heating interact in ways that are obvious afterwards and invisible on a plan.

Ask where any manifold, control or associated equipment will be positioned, and whether that location will be accessible once the building is finished.

These end up in cupboards nobody planned, and asking now is the only way an owner influences it.

Ask what you would need to know before fixing anything into the floor later, and how you would find out where things run.

Fixing into a floor with heating in it is a recurring household problem, and the answer depends on a record made now.

Do not fix into a floor containing heating or services without establishing what is beneath. The record made during construction is the only guide.

Ask whether a record showing the position of anything within the floor will be produced, and make sure a copy comes to you rather than staying on site.

This is one of the most useful documents a household can own, and it exists only if someone asks for it.

Ask which drawing shows the junction where the wall layers meet the floor layers, and keep a copy of that sheet with your own records.

Knowing which single sheet answers a question is genuinely useful when several parties are working from different sets.

Ask which party drew that junction, and whether the same party was responsible for both sides of it or whether two disciplines met there.

Junctions between disciplines are where continuity is most often lost, and an owner asking who owns it is an appropriate question.

Ask for the arrangement to be explained in plain language and write down what you understood, so you can repeat it in a later conversation.

Owners who can describe a junction in their own words get better answers from everyone they speak to afterwards.

Ask at what point that junction can no longer be reached, and whether anything about it is checked before it is covered.

This tells you when any question about it has to be asked, which is the practical part for an owner.

Ask what the design assumes about the ground level around the building at that junction, and whether any later landscaping would disturb the assumption.

External levels get revisited after everyone has left, and the assumption is worth recording while it can still be stated.

Raising external ground against a finished building can undo an arrangement that was sound when built. Raise any level change with a qualified professional.

Keep that drawing with the documents that stay with the property, since it answers questions a future surveyor would otherwise have to guess at.

Buried junctions are exactly what later investigations struggle with, and a kept drawing saves someone opening the building.

Agree in advance who photographs the work before it is covered, and that copies come to you rather than remaining in a site record.

Site photographs are taken for site purposes and are rarely handed over unless somebody asked beforehand.

If you take photographs yourself, take them from the same few positions each time so the images can be compared with one another later.

A set of comparable images is far more useful than a large number of close-ups nobody can place.

Only go onto a working site with the agreement of whoever is running it, and follow their arrangements rather than your own.

Ask for a record of where things ended up rather than where they were drawn, and note that these are not always the same document.

As-built information is what makes later alteration assessable instead of exploratory, and it is commonly skipped.

Record any change made on or just before the day, including anything described as minor, along with who decided it and when.

Changes called minor at the time are the ones nobody can account for later, and an owner is well placed to log them.

Keep the drawings, photographs and notes for each pour together, since each is much less useful separated from the others.

A complete record split across three places behaves exactly like an incomplete one when somebody needs it.

Plan for this record to stay with the property rather than with you, and say so to whoever is assembling the handover documents.

Records that travel with a household instead of a building are lost at the first sale.

Say as soon as you know that a decision will not be ready, rather than hoping the date moves, because early notice widens everybody's options.

Late notice removes the alternatives that would have existed a week earlier, and the owner is usually the first to know.

Ask what the consequence of deferring a particular decision would be, and ask for the answer in writing rather than in conversation.

A written answer is something everyone can return to, and it removes the later disagreement about what was understood.

Ask whether a provisional position can be adopted and later adjusted, or whether the decision genuinely has no interim form.

Some decisions have a safe interim answer and some do not, and owners cannot tell the two apart unaided.

Record who decided to proceed without the decision, on what basis, and what was understood about the consequence at the time.

This note is the one that matters if the consequence arrives months later and nobody remembers the conversation.

Avoid settling a significant decision on the day itself, and ask instead whether the pour can proceed without that part of the work.

Decisions made at the gate are made without the people who should be in them, which is how they go wrong.

After each pour, review what remains open and reissue your own deadline list, since one closed gate usually moves the next one.

Owners tend to relax after a pour, which is exactly when the next set of decisions starts becoming urgent.