How to keep a construction site diary that settles arguments

What to record every day

• Date, weather and working hours, including rain or heat that stopped work
• Who was on site: mistris and labour by trade, and any visitors
• Work done, by location: ‘first-floor slab steel fixed, east side’
• Material received and released
• Instructions given, and by whom, especially changes from the owner or architect
• Inspections and tests, and their result
• Problems: delays, accidents, shortages and defects
• Photos of each of the above

Why it matters

• Payments: claims for work done are backed by a dated record.
• Delays: you can show which days were lost to rain, approvals or late material.
• Quality: years later you can see when something was built and who was there.
• Changes: spoken instructions become written ones.

Tips for a diary people actually keep

• Make one person responsible, usually the supervisor.
• Fill it in on site during the day, not from memory at night.
• Prefer photos to long text: one photo with a caption beats a paragraph.
• Let the owner and the builder read the same diary.
• Never change old entries; add a correction instead.

A simple template

How Buildiary does this

In Buildiary the supervisor writes the day’s diary on the phone, with photos. Deliveries, releases, attendance and inspections are recorded alongside it, so the owner sees the whole day in one place, in English, Urdu or Arabic.