As-Built Drawing Request Preparation Checklist

Walk the property with the drawings you were issued and list every difference you can identify yourself, however small it appears.

Differences an owner can spot unaided are usually the tip of a longer list, and they make the case for a record set concrete.

Ask which drawings in your folder were superseded and which the work was actually built from, since owners routinely keep the wrong version.

Superseded drawings are rarely collected back in, and a folder ends up holding several conflicting versions of the same room.

Note that a drawing marked for construction shows an intention, and ask what exists to show what was actually built in its place.

The distinction sounds pedantic and is the whole reason a record set is worth asking for.

Ask whether the record set will be a marked up version of the original or a redrawn set, since the two age and photocopy very differently.

Hand marked amendments can be perfectly usable, but they need to be legible in whatever form you end up storing.

Record which parts of the property were never drawn at all, such as areas nobody altered, so the set is not mistaken for a survey of the whole building.

A partial set read as a complete one leads a later trade to assume nothing exists where nothing was drawn.

Ask who is producing the record set, what it will contain, and whether it forms part of what was agreed for the project.

Record drawings are frequently assumed by the owner and never assumed by anybody else, which is why they so often fail to appear.

Walk the property with the construction drawings and note every position that moved, however slightly, since small moves accumulate into a different building.

A handful of small relocations makes a drawing subtly wrong everywhere, which is worse than being obviously wrong in one place.

List anything relocated during the work, such as a radiator, a socket run or a waste connection, and record where it ended up.

Relocations are agreed verbally in the moment and are the first thing a later trade needs and cannot find.

Ask what was found during opening up that changed the approach, since these decisions are usually taken on the spot and never recorded anywhere.

Where a discovery changed a structural or service arrangement, ask a qualified professional to describe what was done and why.

Note any dimension that changed because the existing building was not as drawn, and ask for the built figure to be recorded on the set.

Older buildings rarely match their drawings, and the figures established on site are the ones a later designer will need.

Record where a specified item was replaced by a different one, and ask for the substitution to appear on the record set rather than only in correspondence.

Substitutions agreed by message vanish from the project record, leaving a drawing that describes something that was never fitted.

Ask which changes were agreed in writing during the project, and check that each of them appears somewhere on the record set.

The written variations are the easy ones to reconcile, so anything missing from them suggests the set was not fully reviewed.

Ask for the routes of pipework and cabling behind finished surfaces to be recorded, paying particular attention to anything running somewhere unexpected.

Never assume a wall is free of services because a drawing shows none; ask a qualified professional before fixing into any surface.

Note anything buried in a floor or a screed, since these are the routes nobody can trace afterwards without causing damage to find them.

Services buried in a floor are among the hardest things to trace afterwards, and among the easiest to photograph while the floor is still open.

Ask for the position of any isolation point, junction or access hatch that has ended up concealed behind a finish, and how each is reached.

An access point nobody can find is the same as no access point, and finished rooms hide them extremely well.

Record what sits above a new or lowered ceiling and how it is reached, since a ceiling void commonly hides a great deal of equipment.

Lowered ceilings are put in for a reason, and that reason is usually a service run somebody will need to reach.

Ask what was laid underground outside during the works, including drainage and any duct, and how the route was recorded before backfilling.

Ask a qualified professional before any digging near recorded or suspected underground services rather than relying on a drawing.

Note where a structural element sits behind a finish, since knowing where you cannot fix is as useful to a later trade as knowing where you can.

Ask a qualified professional to establish what a concealed element does before anything is fixed to it or cut into it.

Photograph every wall and floor before it is covered, where you can do so safely, with something in the frame that gives a sense of position within the room.

A close photograph of pipework tells you nothing later unless something in it says where in the room you are standing.

Photograph from a consistent position in each room so that images can be compared with one another and located afterwards.

Consistency turns a pile of images into a set that can actually be worked through by somebody else.

Name each photograph by room and wall as you take it, since a folder of unnamed images is effectively unusable within a short while.

Nobody renames photographs later, and an unnamed set is abandoned the first time somebody tries to search it.

Ask the site team to photograph anything you cannot reach safely, rather than going into a working area yourself to take the picture.

Do not enter working areas to take photographs; ask the people already working there for the images instead.

Keep the photographs with the record set rather than on a phone, since these are the images you will want long after the phone has changed.

Pre closure photographs are the part of a project record most often lost to a device rather than to a decision.

Note the areas that were closed up before anybody photographed them, so a later reader knows where no record exists.

Recording the gap is what stops somebody assuming the photograph must be somewhere in the folder.

Ask that every sheet carries a reference and a revision marking, so that this set can be told apart from anything issued before or after it.

Unmarked sheets migrate between folders and become indistinguishable from the drawings they were meant to replace.

Note which sheets are absent from the sequence, since an incomplete set is easy to miss when the numbering appears to run on unbroken.

Sets are commonly handed over short of a sheet or two, and nobody notices unless somebody checks the sequence deliberately.

Ask what formats the set is available in and whether you can open each one without specialist software or a subscription.

Drawings you cannot open are a problem you inherit quietly and discover at the worst possible moment.

Ask for a version that can be printed and read away from a screen, since conversations about a building rarely happen at a desk.

A printed sheet can be marked up on site, which is how most later discussions about a property actually take place.

Note whether each sheet carries a scale bar rather than only a stated scale, since printed drawings are commonly reduced without anyone saying so.

A scale bar usually survives resizing whereas a stated scale does not, which matters when somebody measures from a print.

Record which sheets relate to which part of the property, so somebody unfamiliar can find the right one without opening all of them.

A short index is the difference between a set that gets used and a set that gets put back in the cupboard.

Walk the property with the record set in hand and mark anything that does not match what you can actually see in front of you.

Errors are obvious with the drawing in the room and invisible when reading it anywhere else.

Check the concealed parts of the set against the photographs you took before surfaces were closed, rather than against your memory of the works.

Memory of a service run becomes unreliable very quickly, whereas the photograph remains unarguable.

Ask about anything on the set you do not recognise, since an unexplained item usually means a drawing was not updated after a change.

Leftovers from an earlier version are a frequent defect in a record set, and among the easiest for an owner to spot.

Note anything you cannot check because it is now concealed, and record it explicitly as unchecked rather than leaving it unremarked.

Silence on an item reads later as confirmation, which is exactly what it is not.

Ask for corrections to be made onto the set itself rather than kept as a separate note that will become detached from it.

Ask the qualified professional responsible for the drawings to make corrections; owners should not amend drawings themselves.

Confirm who holds the master version once corrections are made, so that later copies all come from a single place.

Multiple corrected versions in circulation is worse than one uncorrected version, because nobody knows which to trust.

Store the set with the rest of the project record, since drawings separated from the paperwork lose a large part of their usefulness.

A drawing answers where and the paperwork answers what and who, and questions later usually need both.

Ask what a future trade would want from this set, and note whether anything obvious is missing from it while people are still available to ask.

The people who built the property can say in a sentence what the next person will need, if anybody asks them.

Note that a record set describes what was built and says nothing about whether it may be altered, and treat it accordingly.

Any alteration to what is shown on a record set should be discussed with a qualified professional before work is planned.

Lodge a second copy in separate storage or with somebody outside the household, since drawings kept only at the building vanish with a leak or a clearance.

The project record is the one thing that cannot be reconstructed once it has gone.

Add later alterations to the same record rather than starting a new one, so that the history of the property stays in one place.

A single accumulating record is far more valuable than several partial ones covering different stretches of time.

Note where the set is incomplete, so that a later reader does not assume the property is fully described by what they have been handed.

An honest note about gaps prevents the most dangerous assumption a later reader can make.