Sid Woryn, Master Instructor at Michigan Builders License, has some advice for Michigan Builders regarding keeping logbooks and taking photos. He wants to help builders succeed. Learn how his advice could help you from liabilities.
He will discuss keeping a log book and taking photos, which may or may not be minor when you need them. If you're going to be on a particular job site, like New Construction, for several months, he highly recommends that you keep a log book, make daily entries, and take adequate pictures as well.
For example, on-site 7 a.m. 50 degrees dry condition, and then list anybody working on that site and when they showed up. If you have any trip tickets, like concrete or lumber, delivered, Keep that trip ticket on that page for that entry date. Trip tickets, especially for concrete, are very important so that we can prove the design mix, the air entrainment if it's required, or the chemical additives that were added. So, keep that on that page.
Include who your subs were on that page and any inspections you had that day. Write it down in the log book. Along with that log book, indicate what photos we took that day. Some of your cameras have date stamps. You can have a date stamp on your pictures. Normally, you might have a dozen or more photos per day. But when someone's working, you want to take pictures of them working on the job site on whatever it is they're installing.
Sid has had that issue come up, and the photos helped him tremendously. In one particular case, he could prove to the inspector that they had covered the basement walls with insulated tarps for the night, and it snowed the next night and the next day. So, they could literally prove that they had protected that basement wall for at least five days after the pour was made.
If you're going to spray a cure seal on your concrete, take a picture of them spraying the cure seal on the concrete. That proves that you've done that. Anytime you're going to bury anything like the spread footing or the perimeter drain. Take pictures showing that the perimeter drain is proper and that you have the proper amount of stone fill on top of it.
Get in the habit of taking pictures. They can be very, very valuable. Also, take pictures of any blocking that you have in the wall, indicating the measurements. For example, you know you're going to have a wall-mounted TV. Then, take pictures of the additional blocking you put behind the stud cavities to show where that blocking material is. The most important places are to take pictures of your blocking on your stairway for where your handrail brackets are going to go so that the installer can get the screws in that additional blocking that you prepared for that.
Once again, this is some minor stuff, but it's these little things that sometimes create a problem by not being done right. If you have any problems with inspections, you fail the inspection, take a picture of that failed inspection, and then make the correction.
Sid highly recommends taking pictures of all your inspection notices. If you fail an inspection, the inspector is supposed to give you a tag telling you not only what you failed in but also what code section you violated. That's why you should take a picture of it. If the tag gets lost, you have copies in our photo album of what we've done.
Take pictures of any hazards that might be created. For example, in the course of building, a tree limb falls off the house and does damage to your house. Take a picture of it.
You cannot overdo the photos on your projects. They might not seem important to you at the time, but later on, they'll prove very valuable. So again, take your photos. Do the best you can. They can be a valuable asset to you. Good luck on your job.
