Court Construction Record Preparation Checklist

Raise the construction record when asking for quotations rather than after appointing somebody, so it forms part of what was agreed.

Introduced later it is a request; introduced early it is simply part of how the job runs.

Ask each contractor what they normally photograph and record during a build of this kind, and write the answer down before asking for more.

Asking first tells you what is ordinary, which is a better starting point than a list you invented.

Agree a short list of stages at which photographs are taken, rather than a general commitment to record the work.

A general commitment produces a folder of nothing in particular; named stages produce the images somebody will later want.

Agree who takes the photographs, who keeps them and when they are handed over, and write that into what was agreed.

Records held by a contractor with no handover point tend to stay with the contractor.

Ask for a plain list of what gets covered over at each stage, and use that to decide when somebody needs to be present.

This one question converts the whole exercise from guesswork into a short diary.

Explain that the record is for the facility's own future use rather than for checking the work, so nobody reads it as supervision.

Contractors are considerably more willing when the purpose is stated plainly and is not about fault.

Nothing in this record inspects, approves or checks the work; inspection is carried out by qualified professionals engaged for that purpose.

Agree who holds the record if the work pauses, the contractor changes or the job stops part way, and how you would obtain it.

The record is most valuable and least obtainable in exactly the circumstances nobody plans for when they agree it.

Name the person responsible for the record on your side and a second person who covers when the first is unavailable.

Committees and households both lose records to the assumption that somebody else was going.

Ask the contractor to give notice before anything significant is covered over, and agree how that notice reaches you.

Notice is the whole mechanism; without it the record depends entirely on luck and the weather.

Ask the contractor to take their own photographs at the agreed stages as well, so a missed visit does not mean a missing stage.

Two sources are what keep the record complete when somebody is ill or a stage moves forward a day.

Agree that ordinary phone photographs are acceptable, so that nobody holds up a stage of the work waiting for better equipment.

The record fails from absence rather than from quality, and setting the bar low keeps it happening.

Keep a short dated diary alongside the photographs, noting what happened and what the weather did on each day somebody was on site.

A line of text each day frequently explains a photograph that would otherwise mean nothing later.

Collect the photographs weekly rather than at the end, and check they show what you expected while work is still open.

A set requested at completion arrives incomplete, and the gaps can no longer be filled.

Ask for photographs of the area once it has been stripped, taken from each corner and showing the whole footprint.

This is the only image anybody will ever have of what the court is actually sitting on.

Ask for photographs and a note of anything found during excavation, including old surfaces, made ground, drainage or anything unexpected.

What was found is as useful to a later adviser as what was built, and it is recorded by nobody unless requested.

Note in the diary when it rained heavily while the ground was open, and photograph the area on those days if somebody is there.

Weather during construction is part of the site's history, and it is the part that is never written down.

Ask for photographs of any part of the formation that looks or behaves differently from the rest, without asking for an opinion on it.

A record of a difference is useful; a request for a judgement about it puts the contractor in the wrong position.

What any ground condition means, and what it requires, is a determination for the qualified professionals engaged on the project.

Ask for photographs that include a permanent feature such as a fence line or a building corner, so positions can be worked out later.

Images with nothing fixed in shot locate nothing once the ground is closed.

Ask for a note of what material was brought in, roughly how much, and what it was used for, kept with the delivery paperwork.

Delivery notes are the most complete record of a build and the first thing thrown away.

Ask for photographs of the surrounding ground, the access route and any compound area before work starts, since reinstatement is otherwise argued from memory.

The court gets photographed and the ground it was reached across does not, which is where most completion disagreements actually sit.

Ask for photographs of each layer across the whole area before the next one goes on, taken from the same positions each time.

Repeating the same viewpoints turns a folder of images into a sequence that can be read.

Ask for photographs of the edge detail all the way round before it is buried, including corners and any change in edge type.

The edge is what the field of the surface works against, and it is the least photographed part of any court.

Ask for photographs where the court meets a path, a fence base, a wall, a step or anything else that was already there.

Junctions are where two trades meet and where questions arise later about which of them owns a problem.

Ask for photographs of anything laid beneath the playing surface, including any resilient or intermediate layer, before it is covered.

What is under the surface governs how the court plays and is invisible for the whole of its life afterwards.

Keep the specification alongside the photographs so the two can be read together, without attempting to check one against the other.

Holding both is useful to a professional later; using one to judge the other is not an owner's job.

Whether the work matches the specification is established by the qualified professionals engaged for that purpose rather than from photographs.

Note in the diary any change agreed on site, who agreed it and when, without recording a view about whether it was right.

Changes agreed verbally during groundworks are ordinary, and they are the part no drawing will ever show.

Ask for photographs of any drainage laid beneath or around the court, taken against permanent features rather than against a spoil heap.

Drainage under a court is the item most often needed and least often recorded.

Ask where the drainage goes, where it connects or discharges, and for that to be marked on a plan rather than described.

Where it ends up is the question asked years later by somebody standing on a finished court.

Ask for the position of every socket, anchor and fixing to be photographed and noted before the surface covers them.

Sockets are set once and located afterwards by memory, which is why they are so often found by digging.

Ask for any duct, cable route or service crossing the area to be photographed and marked on a plan, including empty ducts.

An empty duct is only useful if somebody can find both ends of it, and that is a record rather than a hope.

Ask for a note of roughly how deep each buried item sits, recorded as the contractor states it rather than as your own estimate.

Depth turns a position on a plan into something somebody can act on safely.

A recorded position or depth is never a substitute for locating buried services and structures before any future excavation, which is arranged with qualified professionals.

Ask for everything buried to end up on one marked plan rather than spread across photographs, drawings and conversations.

A single plan is what gets used later; a folder of separate items is what gets skimmed and set aside.

Organise the photographs by stage and date as they arrive rather than sorting a folder of several hundred images afterwards.

Nobody sorts them afterwards, which is how good records quietly become unusable ones.

Write a short caption for each stage saying what is shown and where it was taken from, rather than captioning every image.

A caption per stage is achievable; a caption per image is not, and the stage is what somebody looks for.

Keep the delivery notes, the specification, any drawings and the site diary in the same place as the photographs rather than filed elsewhere.

The paperwork explains the photographs, and separating them halves the value of both.

Ask for the contractor's own record at handover, and check what arrived against the stages you agreed at the start.

Checking against an agreed list is straightforward; checking against a vague expectation is not.

Keep the record with the facility rather than with the person who assembled it, and tell whoever comes next where it is.

Committees rotate and households move, and the court stays, so the record has to belong to the court.

Add photographs of the finished court from fixed positions, so how it looked when new is recorded alongside how it was built.

The finished baseline is what later change is read against, and it takes one walk round on the last day.