Construction checklists – Ultimate guide

What are common construction checklists?

1. General safety checklists
2. Equipment checklists
3. Emergency tools checklists
4. Quality and Certification
5. Pre-Work checklists
6. Quality checklists
7. Safety checklists

Checklists are a great tool to use to optimize how you organize your construction project in a number of ways. To effectively manage a construction project, it is imperative that you track and make sure relevant tasks and activities get delivered efficiently and on time.

And for you to execute this effectively, it is absolutely necessary to have your construction checklists as a reference. The key to the successful implementation of a construction project’s processes is simply having a thorough and properly-structured checklist (or group of checklists).

On top of efficient project management, having checklists for your construction project allows you to advance the safety culture in your construction site and within your company. This article will guide you through different construction management checklists for use in various aspects of your project.

Developing construction checklists and templates that suit you

To have a construction checklist that’s easily implemented, it should be clearly defined then accurately created and developed. We have a few tips for creating an effective checklist:

1. Always base your checklist on your needs. There is a myriad of activities in a construction project and each activity requires a different construction management checklist. You have to be perceptive when standardising and making checklist templates that you can use across other projects. Some examples to consider:
   • Maybe you need a checklist for your construction schedule. Create one that can be used in other projects.
   • Maybe you need to organise a checklist for acquiring materials from a supplier. Make a thoughtful checklist template can be uniformly used for all other suppliers.
2. Go digital. With gadgets being a huge part of life and work, having a digital checklist on a centralised platform allows you to communicate your data faster and in a more transparent matter, making activities on site and off site much more efficient to manage. Remember, a construction site can involve a number of contractors. Having a main checklist that can be easily updated and sent to everyone avoids confusion and delays. Excel construction checklist templates are a thing of the past—the manual ticking off and updating, then the scanning to upload them to a database takes so much time and poses risks related to untimely data.
3. Make sure the items in your construction checklist are up to date. An updated checklist makes it easy for the superintendent or project manager to properly delegate the items or tasks on your list to the correct stakeholder and designate functions to the right subcontractor.
4. Study the checklist samples we have in ours. By examining the details of these construction checklists, you get to identify what you need to specifically include in your own construction checklist.
5. Even after reading these tips and you still don’t know how to format your own, look at some of our sample checklists and copy a template that’s applicable to your construction checklist need.

Do you really need a construction checklist?

If you are asking yourself why should you use a construction checklist, we have listed a few reasons why we believe construction checklists are a must for each of your construction project.

1. Construction checklists allow you to manage all aspects of your construction project, especially by having to-do checklists.
2. Construction checklists enable you to have a seamless and organised workflow, which facilitates optimal productivity.
3. Construction checklists allow you to link important elements in your construction project.
4. Construction checklists detail specific information of activities and phases in your project.
5. Construction checklists can categorise particular items, materials, equipment, tasks, etc. in a more meticulous manner.
6. Construction checklists break down complex activities into simple actionable components.
7. Construction checklists clearly define individual responsibility and accountability in the workplace. This kind of ownership drive productivity and is the foundation of high performing teams.

What are the benefits a construction checklist can bring?

Having construction checklists elevate the degree of organisation of all activities in the scope of your construction project.

1. Having a construction checklist allows your project to follow and respect a timeline. If you include a timetable in all your phases and the steps to be executed, everyone’s work is guided by the set deadlines, by which definite construction activities are expected to be finished.
2. Laying out responsibilities and expectations in a construction checklist promotes healthy work ethics and reinforces a healthy work environment. If all stakeholders involved in your project clearly know and are accountable for their responsibilities, disputes and misunderstandings become fewer.
3. Using an updatable construction checklist that specifies work methods and materials for certain tasks automate workflows. This, in turn, allows individual workers more focus to execute their tasks in a timely and efficient manner. This ultimately results to a seamless construction project development.
4. Utilising a construction checklist that allows transparent collaboration and communication, makes it easier to deliver a complex construction project. This makes for clear transactions between entities needing to work together and allows for integrated project delivery or similar outcomes.

Making your construction checklists

Having a proper document or a construction management tool makes life in the construction field easier by outlining your construction schedules with their important elements. Proper construction management alongside your construction checklists is the basis of the success…or failure of your construction project.
To create usable construction checklists, here are some things that might come in handy:

1. Make sure the construction checklist you use is relevant to the project and the particular team you’re a part of. Remember, construction checklists can vary among construction teams in different organisational levels.
2. Put together a construction checklist that is easily understandable especially by the people using the checklist.
3. Fill your construction checklist with time-bound content. That means, your construction project would have only a certain amount of time to achieve its project goals. Have a realistic construction (management) checklist to guide you all throughout the entire construction process and, if possible, the entire lifecycle of the building.
4. Assign point persons that can manage meetings and dialogues regarding the content and status of your construction checklists. This completely avoids any kind of misunderstanding or conflict.
5. Arrange the content of your construction checklist in a particular order—logical, chronological or any particular arrangement that shows your process clearly. This makes the checklist comprehensible, which is highly important.

The many uses of your construction checklist

There are so many ways of utlising construction checklists to your advantage—making the most of it brings so many benefits to your construction project and ultimately, across all your standardised construction processes and operations, and all future building projects. You can have a construction checklist for all steps in all phases of your construction process – from pre-planning to design up until project closeout, and maybe even up to facilities management.
The content of your construction checklist depends on unique factors that need to be considered for each certain project phase. Hence, you really have to be specific when you draft the checklist you would want to develop. We have listed a few particular situations where you can use a construction checklist, just so you get the very real-life practical application:

1. Construction checklists are a huge tool in implementing safety measures and procedures. They are especially useful for employees to comply with safety and health standards to prevent injuries, accidents, and deaths in the construction workplace.
2. Construction checklists are also a great utility for spotting potential risks in the construction site.
3. Construction checklists are also great tools for regular check-ups of equipment and gears.
4. You can use a construction checklist for new workforce employee orientation requirements of your construction project. Having this construction checklist allows you to have an overview of your new employees, their competencies, and their jobs and responsibilities, and their progress on your orientation guide. This makes it easy for you to accordingly delegate tasks according to their capacities and track their progress.
5. You can make a construction checklist for all the raw materials you need alongside their source or supplier. This construction list allows you to determine what items, equipment, and tools you need for all phases of your project, including what you already have and what you still need to order.
6. You can then have a separate construction checklist of all your suppliers. This can include your existing ones and those suppliers you think have the potential to provide you with other needs.
7. You can create a construction checklist around your project time frame with time tables outlining expected output on particular dates. Include specific dates so you can design efficient processes as you aim for your desired goals and results.
8. You can also include a construction checklist summarising all the processes that need to be carried out to complete your building project. This checklist would be very useful for outlining the specifics of your project phases, from planning, development, and evaluation. To make the best out of it, in terms of efficiency, you can include another construction checklist that is only focused on updating processes that have been already implemented.

A checklist for planning your construction checklist

If you tend to be more obsessive-compulsive, here is a checklist guide that was adopted and developed from Software Advice’s project planning best practices.

Form your construction checklist initiative

• Ask “What issue/s are you trying to solve/opportunity are you trying to achieve?”
• Set baselines for scope, budget and timeline, and plan for variance
• Identify your stakeholders and establish stakeholder management plans

Create the process/task breakdown structure

• Outline activities and tasks required to complete each deliverable in your checklist
• Estimate time required to complete each task
• Determine critical path

Schedule your resources

• Identify key resources
• Consider resource constraints
• Decide whether to outsource certain tasks/project phases

Form your construction checklist initiative

Just like how you plan other aspects of your construction project, defining the main objective of your construction checklist helps you create a suitable roadmap to achieve your checklist goals.

For checklists that include tasks or processes involving various stakeholders, identify your stakeholders and the roles they play.

Create the process/task breakdown structure

Your task breakdown structure will help you improve your initial baselines for your checklist’s scope, budget or timeline. If needed, include relevant stakeholders in the process.

• Identify your checklist activities, tasks, or requirements
• Divide each activity into component deliverables
• Outline all tasks required to complete deliverables
• Estimate the time needed to finish each activity or task
• Determine the critical path or the sequence of your tasks

Select your resources

Resources simply refer to “skilled employees”. In planning your checklist tasks involving resources, always consider your budget for them.

Define further (in another checklist, if needed) the skill sets needed to complete particular checklist tasks. Determine the pay rates and make sure it falls within your overall project budget restrictions.

Once you have clearly established your checklist initiative, created your task breakdown structure and assigned project resources, you’re on your way to creating the ultimate construction checklist that would make you reach your project goals in the most efficient and organised ways possible.

An important thing to consider that’s usually overlooked, is having your checklist on a communication or collaboration tool. A digital checklist increases the efficiency performance of your construction checklists as anyone with access can simultaneously check and carry out their assignments, with updates being made in real time.

Free construction checklists to get you started

We have scoured the Internet to give you a knowledgeable database of very useful construction checklist templates that you can browse and use or get inspiration from. We have categorised these construction checklists by generic procedures and by construction phases.

General safety

Find a collection of general safety related checklists including routine construction site risk assessment, and other walkthroughs for construction risks associated with fire, electrical physical and chemical hazards.

Pre-construction risk assessment checklist
This construction checklist helps you identify common construction hazards, risk severity and rating, and propose control measures. Customise this template to suit your construction site activities.

General fire safety inspection checklist
Make routine fire inspections easy and effortlessly assess if you are complying to fire safety standards and protocols. Promote fire safety awareness and easily spot fire risks.

Electrical safety inspection checklist
Assess and analyse your compliance of electrical safety standards in the construction site. Inspect your electrical tools and equipment including power lines, switches, wiring, cables, etc. Also appraise your workers’ knowledge of electrical safety and their responsibilities.

General hazard assessment checklist
Evaluate hazards in your workplace by using this OSHA-based inspection checklist that covers a variety of generic workplace safety and health hazards.

Equipment

The construction site has an abundance of equipment, tools and facilities that allow construction activities to take place and for construction projects to materialise. In order to ensure that equipment and tools are working properly and safely, regular inspections should be performed. We have a few checklist templates that you can use during installation and maintenance works.

Personal protective equipment walkaround checklist
This PPE checklist is perfect for your construction project manager or safety officer for identifying and recording potential work hazards that may be in contact with the body with actionable recommendations.

Hand and power tools pre-use inspection checklist
This checklist is ideal for thorough pre-use inspections to make sure that tools and equipment are in good working condition and safe to use.

Fall protection site safety inspection checklist
Use this construction checklist to look for fall hazards and to ensure that proper preventative measures, such as fall protection, are in place.

Emergency tools

It is undeniable that accidents can happen in the worksite. That’s why you should have emergency procedures clearly established and in place. You should have emergency tools like first aid kits and fire extinguishers are easily available and properly maintained.

Worksite first aid kit checklist
One of your responsibilities in the worksite is to make certain that all first aid kits meet the minimum first aid requirement in the workplace. This

Worksite incident report checklist
This checklist is for recording and reporting any event that took place within the worksite that may or may not have resulted to injury, illness or property damage. It is very important to promote a strong culture of incident reporting, no matter how minor, because all reported incidents should be implemented in preventing a recurrence.

Monthly fire extinguisher inspection checklist
This checklist ensures that your construction site’s fire extinguisher will operate properly in the event of a fire emergency. This monthly checklist ensures your equipment meets the safety standards and measures that is required for emergency purposes.

Quality and Certification

ISO 9001:2015 Internal audit checklist
This construction checklist is for your internal audit to independently and systematically assess the effectiveness of your organisation’s Quality Management System (QMS) and its overall performance. This checklist allows you to demonstrate your QMS compliance and how well you implement and maintain its processes.

ISO 14001:2015 Internal audit checklist
This checklist enables you to audit your Environmental Management System (EMS) if it complies with the ISO standards. This checklist will help you determine gaps for improvement and implement appropriate actions to fulfill intended results of your EMS.

Pre-Work

Construction project planning checklist
The best way to finish a construction project fast is to start slow. Setting aside time to plan out the project properly allows you to choose the most suitable strategy, spot false expectations, and prevent overlooking small essentials. The construction planning checklist is freely copied from Ron Black’s Project Management Fundamentals ©2003 (800-381-8686).

Construction

The construction site is one of the most complex and one of the most high risk environments across all industries. Construction safety standards are put in place to minimise injuries and fatalities in the construction site. You can use our digital checklists library to help ensure a hazard-free worksite and a safety-centered competent team. Execute better inspections by using our detailed construction checklists that you can find in our checklists library.

Quality Checklists

Groundworks
Get your groundworks done and prepare sub-surfaces before the start of any construction work with the help of this construction checklist.

Drainage and other earthworks
This checklist helps you with survey drainage and other earthworks prior to construction, so you can comply with topography requirements, groundwater discharge permits and related work plans.

Demolition works
Comply with all demolition regulations from topographical surveys to demolition plans, demotion inventory, and related demolition strategy with this demolition checklist.

Grubbing
Use this checklist to clear trees and woodlands to prepare for your construction project. Secure your workers’ safety by assessing the risks and hazards before proceeding with any clearing procedure.

Concrete formwork
This checklist helps you monitor your concrete work from floor levels to materials and accessibility while securing the safety of your workers on site.

Concrete pouring plan
This construction template helps you plan and schedule your concrete pouring by detailing the most miniscule of details from pouring date to pouring speed, pouring material and concrete composition.

Concrete reinforcement
With this construction checklist, you can track the progress of your reinforced concreting job and ensure it follows regulatory standards.

Slipforming
The slipforming checklist allows you to keep an eye on the progress of your slipforming project, including the minute details of your vertical rods and threaded connections and their installations.

Precast beams
This template allows you to check your precast beams for proper formworks, mold components, concrete strength data, reinforcement and finishing plans.

Concrete window frames
Use this construction checklist to track the components and post-treatments of your concrete window casts. Avoid doing any kind of rework and prevent construction-related damage.

Flat roof ceiling
Execute your flat roof according to your design plans while complying to industry standards. This construction template will guide you through from the roof type specifications, wind load, tolerances, surface cohesion, etc.

Sloping roof ceiling
Get your pitched roof construction on track and according to specifications and construction standards with the help of this construction checklist.

Green roof
Track the construction of your green roof while adhering to strict building standards by using this solid best practices construction checklist.

Light and smoke domes
This construction checklist assists you with standards and specifications as you build your ventilation and natural lighting systems into your construction project.

Glazing
Build your glass facades and roofs and other glazing works while following regulation standards with this construction checklist. You can customise this checklist by adding categories like noise calculations, glass type, test reports, and by adding your own categories.

Wall tiles
Finish your wall tile installation with this useful construction checklist that involves groutin, drying, buffing among other stages you can add yourself.

Patio tiles
With the help of this checklist, you can track the work progress of your patio tiles on pedestals. Comply with all standard specifications and install them without having to worry about any kind of rework.

Concrete top pouring on precast concrete floor
With this construction checklist, you can inspect your precast concrete floor work with ease. The checklist includes details walkthrough of your pipeworks, steel tubes, structural toppings and reinforcements, vibrational control, and everything else that needs to be checked for quality and safety.

Gypsum blocks
Monitor all tasks and materials involved with finishing your gypsum block walls with this construction checklist.

Raised floors finishing
Elevated structural floors need to be built according to EU Standards that are strict—easily comply with these standards by using our special raised floors checklist.

Windows exterior joinery
Avoid common issues associated with window exterior joinery works with this very functional construction checklist.

Walls lightweight partitions
Easily finish you joint filling and partitions with this easy-to-use construction checklist. Be even more specific with our customisable form templates by adding your own categories.

Concrete repairs
With our construction checklists, you’re sure to have quality and up-to-standards repair procedures.

Sloped concrete
Install your inclined concrete properly with our construction checklist that is specifically made for sloped structures. Be guided with the checklist as you check your load-bearing capacity, the type of slope based on specifications, the substrate you will use for adhesion, etc.

Concrete works inspection
This construction checklist allows you to track the progress of your concrete pouring among other things you can do with concrete works and inspections.

Load-bearing masonry
This form checklist helps you to check your construction activities against load-bearing masonry building codes.

Plaster and cement works
Use this construction checklist to monitor and finish plastering and cementing works covered by standard requirements.

Polymer concrete
This construction checklist is specific to polymer concrete works and extends to the different stages of preparation, execution and aftercare.

Exterior joinery
Ensure your exterior joinery works comply with industry standards by using this construction checklist.

Tower crane foundations
Inspect the critical foundations of your tower crane and make sure its steel support is built specifically for its required level with this form checklist.

Curtain wall facades
Integrate adjoining items like roofs, wall base details, wall claddings and curtain wall facade with the use of this construction checklist.

Facades
Facades need to be built following specific EU codes. Use this construction checklist to check your work is proactively and sensibly using solar energy while making sure the cooling system, orientation and materials used in your facades conform to work safety regulations.

Jointing
Make sure your jointing works are of certifiable quality and comply with standards by using this checklist.

Road works
Manage any kind of road construction with the help of this construction checklist. Ensure that your road work complies with road safety impact assessment requirements, road safety audits, road safety inspections, and safety rankings.

Steel structures
Use this checklist to check your steel structures if they comply with EN1090 requirements.

Painting and wallpaper work
Use this checklist to monitor the finishing phase of your painting and wallpaper work.

Suspended and stretch ceiling
Finish your false ceilings with health and safety in mind and prevent risks associated with suspended ceilings by simply using this checklist.

Foundation engineering
Achieve your foundation objectives as this checklist walks you through with activities concerning your subcontractor’s foundation plans and implementation procedures, load calculations, execution plan, including the working conditions.

Floor finishing
Stick to floor finishing specifications and produce a floor surface that meets the owner’s needs and passes building regulations with the help of this floor finishing checklist.

Parquet finishing
Track the preparation and execution of your parquet flooring as to quality and practice. Use this checklist to check if your wood blocks are dust-free, free of moisture content, and if your substrate is smooth and of level.

Timber structures
Customise our checklist for basic timber works requirements (mechanical resistance and stability, safety in case of fire, hygiene, health and environment, safety and accessibility in use, protection against noise, energy, economy, and heat retention, sustainable use of natural resources) and their proper installations.

Asbestos remediation work
Remove, contain and monitor the removal of asbestos-containing elements in your building site, minimise the number of contractors, workers and persons exposed, and uphold safety and health requirements including continuous supervision of dust-free work processes. This checklist is specific for all kinds of asbestos abatement procedures.

Safety checklists

Safety inspection
Perform a safety inspection with the detailed specifics of a worksite, its location, its layout, its installations, hazardous products, waste management, etc. Uphold a safety culture, identify hazards, assess risks, investigate incidents and prevent accidents and injuries.

Accidents at work and incidents reporting
Collect detailed information about an accident or incident, the victim, the site, including the actions or measures taken to correct or alleviate the situation.

Safety observation reports
Report the details of an incident including corrective measures or actions. Use this checklist template to report your own observations of a situation and the causes from your own perspective.

LetsBuild gives you the power of having any kind of construction checklist you need. Inspect your construction sites and track each progress of each phase. LetsBuild is your mobile checklist solution for the construction and facilities management industries.