How to document concealed work before it is covered
Two years after handover, the facility manager calls: a tenant wants a new doorway in the level 3 corridor, and nobody knows whether the sprinkler line runs through that wall. The photos from the week before drywall show pipe in close-up, with no room number, gridline or tape in the frame. The wall will have to be opened.
Concealed work — services in walls and ceilings, firestopping, reinforcement in slabs, pipe below grade, membranes behind cladding and under tile — can be shown after cover only through the record made before it. Those records usually fail the same way: whoever knows the room photographs the detail, not where the detail is. Some owners require the record: one university's photo standard asks for every wall and ceiling rough-in to be documented after inspection and before concealment.
Photograph it for a stranger
- Name who records each area that closes tomorrow: walls before board, decks before a pour, trenches before backfill.
- Shoot after the inspection and corrections, just before cover, so the photos show the accepted work.
- Fix the location first: a wide shot with a room number, gridline tag or level marker, then overlapping frames along the whole wall, deck or trench, and a pin on the current drawing: a geotag cannot say which wall or floor.
- Measure from fixed points: a tape from a gridline, corner or floor to each box, pipe and sleeve; below grade, the depth from a known elevation.
- Show what was checked, close and well lit: laps, fasteners, pipe markings, firestopping labels, bars and their chairs.
- Report differences from the drawings the same day, in writing and with photos, to the general contractor (GC) or the design team; if one means extra work, record its time and material.
- Describe and file the set before cover: a line per photo saying what it shows, every wall present and readable, originals kept, and the set attached to the area's inspection or report.
Common mistakes
- Shooting while trades are still working, so the photos show work that later changed.
- Starting after the first sheets of board are up.
- Recording what was installed but not what differs from the drawings.
Checklist
Before the area is closed
- One person named for each closing area
- Photos taken after the inspection, just before cover
- A wide shot first, then overlapping frames
- A tape from a fixed point to each service
- The set pinned on the drawing, each photo described
- Differences from the drawings sent in writing
- Originals kept and the set filed before cover
Check your understanding
Your photo shows a pipe clearly but nothing around it. What is missing, and why does it matter after cover?
