Structural Risk Question Log Checklist

Write each question so that it names a specific location in the property rather than expressing a general unease about the building as a whole.

A question tied to a place can be looked at on a visit, whereas a general worry gets a general reassurance and stays open.

Phrase each entry as something that can be answered rather than as a description of what is bothering you about that part of the work.

Descriptions invite sympathy and questions invite answers, and the difference decides whether an entry ever closes.

Avoid putting the answer you expect inside the question, and keep any hunch you have as a separate note underneath it.

A leading question shapes the response; ask the qualified professionals to give their own view and say so where it differs from yours.

Give each question its own entry even where two of them feel connected, so that one can be closed without the other being closed with it.

Bundled questions get a single answer that addresses the easiest part, and the harder part disappears from view.

Record what prompted the question and when you first raised it, because the trigger is often the first thing a professional asks about.

Knowing what somebody saw or was told at the time helps a professional judge whether the question is still the right one.

Keep the wording of a question fixed once it has been asked, and open a new entry rather than editing the original one as your thinking moves on.

Rewritten questions make answers look wrong when they were correct answers to what was actually asked.

For each open question, write down what is currently being assumed while the answer is awaited, so the assumption is visible to everybody involved.

Work does not stop while a question is open, and whatever is being assumed in the meantime is what the work is quietly being built around.

An assumption nobody wrote down soon gets treated as fact; ask the appointed professionals to confirm which assumptions they are working to.

Write down who made each assumption and whether that person had actually been to the property when they made it.

Assumptions made from a desk and assumptions made standing in the room carry very different weight and should not be filed identically.

Mark any assumption that is now being relied on by a drawing, an order that has been placed or something already agreed with somebody.

Once an assumption is built into an order or a drawing, changing it has consequences; raise those cases with the appointed professionals early.

Record where an assumption has already been contradicted by something seen at the property, even where nobody has yet treated that as significant.

Do not decide for yourself whether a contradiction matters; put it to the qualified structural engineer and record what you are told.

Note which assumptions are yours rather than anybody else's, because those are the ones most easily mistaken for information by everyone around you.

Owner assumptions travel through a project unchallenged, since nobody expects the client to be the source of a technical premise.

Go back through the assumption list whenever anything at the property is opened up, since that is the moment they are most likely to be tested.

Exposure is the only event that reliably turns assumptions into facts, and it is easy to let it pass without checking the list.

Mark clearly which questions nobody can answer until something is exposed, and keep those grouped so they are not chased pointlessly in the meantime.

Chasing a question that cannot yet be answered wastes goodwill and makes the whole log less likely to be taken seriously.

Note which moment during the work would expose each of those questions, so that nobody misses the only occasion on which it can be looked at.

The window in which something is visible is often a single afternoon, and it passes while everyone is thinking about something else.

Ask who will be present when something is opened up and who is expected to look at it before work in that area carries on.

Openings are made when it suits the work rather than when it suits the people who need to see them, so attendance has to be arranged in advance.

Whether work should continue past something exposed is a professional judgement; agree in advance who makes that call and how they are reached.

Agree that anything exposed is photographed and written up before it is covered again, and that those photographs come to you as well.

Once a surface goes back on, nobody can revisit what was there; ask the appointed professionals what they want recorded at that moment.

Write down what should happen if what is found differs from what was assumed, and settle that before the moment arrives rather than during it.

Decisions taken in the middle of an opened-up wall are poor ones; agree the route back to the qualified structural engineer beforehand.

Note who is authorised to say that work in an area should pause, and how that person would be reached at short notice while work is under way.

A pause has to be callable by somebody who is contactable; agree this with the contractor and the appointed professionals before work starts.

Put one name against each question as the person chasing it and a separate name for who is expected to answer it, even where that is the same person.

Separating chasing from answering makes it obvious when the owner is the only person actually pursuing something.

Watch for the same question being put to two different people, because two answers that differ is a worse position than no answer at all.

Parallel enquiries feel efficient and routinely produce a conflict that then takes longer to resolve than the original question.

Record the date each question was asked and the date a response was last chased, so the age of an entry is visible at a glance.

An entry that shows how long it has been sitting is far harder to keep ignoring than one that shows only the question.

Note where a question sits between two professionals rather than clearly within one of them, because those entries stay open longest.

Questions in the space between two appointments belong to nobody in particular, and the owner is often the only person who can see that they exist at all.

Record any question that has been passed back to you to decide, and treat it as yours until it is closed rather than as still being with somebody else.

Where a decision has been returned to you but depends on structural judgement, ask the qualified structural engineer what you are actually being asked to decide.

Ask who is holding the log so that only one current version of it exists, and make sure everybody knows where to look at it.

Two copies of a question list quickly diverge, and after that nobody trusts either of them.

Against each question, write down what cannot proceed until it is answered, naming the specific order, decision or piece of work involved.

A question with a named consequence gets answered; a question described only as important does not.

Flag anything that has already been ordered or committed to on the strength of a question that is still open.

Where something has been committed to before an answer arrives, raise it with the appointed professionals rather than hoping the answer will fit.

Mark any question where carrying on without an answer would put something permanently behind a finished surface.

Anything that will become inaccessible deserves a decision from the qualified professionals before it is covered, not afterwards.

Note where waiting on one answer is preventing a different question from even being asked yet, and keep the second one visible in the log.

Questions that cannot yet be asked are invisible, and they arrive as surprises the moment the first one is answered.

Record which questions must be closed before anybody starts on site and which can reasonably run alongside the work.

Do not make that split yourself; ask the qualified structural engineer and the contractor which questions have to be settled first.

Say plainly which of your own choices are on hold because of an open question, and tell whoever is waiting on those choices that they are waiting.

People assume silence means a decision is coming, and the delay only becomes visible when somebody chases it.

Write the answer next to the question in the words it was given, and note who gave it and on what date it was received.

Paraphrased answers drift, and the drift is only noticed when somebody acts on a version that was never actually said.

Ask for anything settled during a conversation to be confirmed in writing, and keep that confirmation attached to the entry it closes.

Structural answers given verbally are easily misremembered; ask the qualified professional to put anything of substance in writing.

Write down what an answer assumed or depended on, since most answers carry a condition somewhere inside them that is easy to read past.

A conditional answer is not a closed question; ask the professional what would change if the condition turns out not to hold.

Record what the answer did not cover, because an answer to a narrower question than you asked is easy to over-read as covering everything.

Professionals answer precisely, and the precision is what makes an answer sound broader than it was intended to be.

Tell everybody who was working around the open question that it is now closed, and say what the answer actually was rather than that it is resolved.

People carry on working to the old assumption long after an answer arrives, simply because nobody thought to tell them.

Keep closed questions in the log rather than deleting them, so that the reasoning behind decisions stays available to whoever looks later.

A log with the closed entries removed cannot explain why anything was done the way it was.

Reopen the original entry rather than starting a new one when a closed question resurfaces, and note what caused it to come back.

Keeping the history in one entry shows how the understanding developed, which matters more than a tidy list.

Note any answer that was given before something was opened up, since exposure can change the ground the answer was standing on.

Ask the qualified structural engineer whether an earlier answer still holds once the building has been seen more fully.

Record where two answers from different sources do not agree, and take the difference back to both rather than deciding which one to follow.

Never resolve a disagreement between professionals yourself; put both answers in front of them and ask for a single position in writing.

Watch for an answer given about one location being applied to another that looks similar, and challenge it whenever you see it happen.

Similar-looking situations are not necessarily comparable; ask the qualified structural engineer to confirm before any answer is applied elsewhere.

Ask again about an earlier answer whenever a change elsewhere on the project could affect it, rather than assuming that it must still stand.

Answers are given in the context of the scheme at the time, and the scheme rarely stays exactly as it was.

Go through every entry before the work is treated as finished and check that nothing is still sitting open without anybody realising.

Entries go quiet rather than closing, and the difference is only visible when somebody reads the whole list in one sitting.

List anything that was never resolved and say plainly how it was left, rather than closing it quietly because the work has finished.

Ask the appointed professionals to record in writing how any unresolved matter has been left and what would be needed to settle it.

Keep the finished log with the drawings and paperwork for the property, since a future owner or professional will need to know what was asked.

The questions asked during a project are often the fastest route into understanding a building long afterwards.

Note anywhere something was covered up without being recorded, so that the gap is known about rather than forgotten by everybody.

Ask the appointed professionals whether an unrecorded area needs anything noting for the future, and record what they tell you.

Ask which parts of the log the professionals involved would want to see again before anything further is done at the property.

A log handed over without direction gets filed, whereas flagged entries get read by whoever comes next.