Documenting existing conditions before work starts
Two weeks into excavation, the neighbour knocks on the site office door with a photo of a crack in their garage slab and a question about who is paying. You are fairly sure the crack was already there. Your first photos of that side of the site show the excavator, not the garage.
Once work starts, every crack, dent and stain near the site can be blamed on it, and without a record from before, nobody can show otherwise. The record has to exist before the first machine arrives, and a stranger must be able to read it: where, what and when. Some authorities make it your job. In Toronto, for example, the road damage deposit form commits the applicant to inspect the right of way next to the property before construction. If there is damage, the applicant must report it in writing within ten working days of applying and wait for a city pre-inspection before starting work.
Before mobilizing
- Check what is already required: the contract, the permit and the municipality may call for a formal survey or a city pre-inspection, with their own format and deadlines.
- Flag the limits of work, then walk the boundary and the public edge before any equipment arrives: sidewalks, curbs, boulevards, trees, catch basins, signs and the lane.
- Photograph neighbouring buildings from your side of the line, ask the owners in writing before photographing on or inside their property, and offer them a copy.
- Take each defect wide, then close, with a tape in the frame, and a crack gauge where width matters: a crack's length and width, a dent's size, a stain's extent.
- Follow the route the trucks will use, from the public road to the gate, including pavement, curbs and low branches or wires.
- Describe and locate every photo — which property, which wall or curb, what it shows — and file the set in the project under its own tag.
- Repeat the same views at the end of the job, from fixed photo points, so before and after line up.
Common mistakes
- Starting the photos on the day the excavator arrives.
- Close-ups with no wide shot, so nobody can tell which wall they show.
- Skipping the street and the truck route because they are outside the fence.
Checklist
Before the first machine arrives
- Contract, permit and municipal requirements checked
- Site boundary and public edge walked and photographed
- Neighbouring buildings photographed, with permission where needed
- Every defect shot wide and close, with a tape
- Truck route photographed from the road to the gate
- Photos described, located, tagged and filed
- A copy offered to each neighbour you photographed
Check your understanding
Why photograph a crack beside a tape measure instead of simply noting that it exists?
