What is a construction site diary?

Also referred to as the construction log or site journal, the site diar

is your construction project’s record of all its worksite progress

including all events and activities that could affect your constructio

progress and quality of your completed work. In saying so, it is

important that you fill out your site diary daily and as incidences

occur. Your site diary is the backbone of all your construction site

reporting .

Today, we will delve into a simple explainer article on construction si

diaries and their importance. To start off, a site diary is a document

of “first record” , where a competent site supervisor or manager

initially records any occurrences on-site.

Why is it important to keep a

construction site diary?

It is important to keep a construction site diary as construction logs

are a great tool to demonstrate what work was done, which tasks

were completed, what problems were solved and what issues were

outstanding on specific days. Daily logs compound to an archive of

records that may be useful at any time. All verbal agreements and

deals come and go but recorded documents can always be retrieved.

Learn more: How to reduce construction delay

by more than 20%

New people or contractors will only see what is on the official

documentation. If a contractor steps out of a job and a new team

comes in, they will not have access to the verbal agreements made in
previous meetings and site visits. They can only work on what’s

officially recorded in your daily reports or meeting minutes.

Your site diary also allows you the ability to track task progress and

not just rely entirely on your memory. Daily logs benefit all on-site

shareholders and make all tasks easily traceable with proper

accountability.

Do not dismiss the significance of your daily

construction logs

Your construction site is a mangled venue of intricate activities,

specific plan details, exhaustive designs, and various construction

professionals. You cannot expect that there won’t be any issues

involved. To make sure that everyone involved in the project

understands each other’s role, different teams need to work

accordingly with a variety of documents usually involving drawings an

procedures needed to complete the construction projects.

Separate shareholders will have independent objectives with regards

to keeping records of construction progress and day-to-day activitie

Keep site records; they are beneficial both to

you and your clients

Having daily construction logs is constructive for you and invaluable t

your clients. Having your daily site logs gives you gainful insight on

your construction site progress and situation. It makes it easier to

demonstrate to your client the project’s continuous progress and th

specific steps or processes they want to see.

Your detailed daily documentation with photo attachments makes it

easy to explain why this-and-that are taking so long to install. The

site diary gives a complete step-by-step account of individual

activities that form an entire process for example, setting up of

foundations and panels, fixing seals, etc.

Your site diary: evidence for your work

activities

Your daily construction site records provide important evidence of

what happened on a specific day. Not necessarily for use in court but

for exhibit in internal information and construction documentation. I

is impossible for you or anyone on the construction site to remember

every event, every discussion or occurrence in the entirety of a

project’s construction lifetime.

Remember to use daily site records, not against someone else, but to

remind our memories and present important details from specific

construction areas, tasks or dates. By logging daily activities and

events including weather conditions, number of workers and their

hours, progress of various particular tasks, safety incidents, quality

issues, and other observations, you build your construction project’s

very own story.

Use your site diary to tell your stories of construction events to

improve your company’s performance or to understand why things

happened the way they did. Track the progress of your team, while

you assess your construction progress against your plan if it’s going

as expected.

Get clearer insight on site

Keeping daily logs of your work progress gives you a better and

clearer insight on ongoing activities and tasks. That means you can

better organise all the separate works and plan with the bigger

picture in mind. For instance, you monitored the progress of how lon

it took to install rebars to reinforce concrete slabs, you may want to

use this data before you proceed with the next level and you may nee

to readjust labor force to improve your overall efficiency and

productivity.

Do not forget that your construction site is a soup of many trades

working together to finish your project. Construction management

becomes a huge complex task trying to organise the many

subcontractors on site.

Your site diary will be a big help in logging when a certain contractor

worked a specific task in a particular location and how his progress

affected the other subcontractors. Your site diary plays an importan

role in assigning and tracking tasks. It gives context to multi-trade

workflows and helps the supervisor coordinate works in that specific

location.

Use your site diary to protect your company

against disputes

Your site diary is your very own document trail to explain things and

events when needed. It is wise to keep a record of your contract

state on site to protect your company if worse comes to worst. You

may have to keep all your daily reports of the construction phase eve

after the completion date.

Include all issues and difficulties in your logs to provide proof later o

that you communicated all necessary information to the concerned

shareholder. Your site diary is your best friend when it comes to

contractual and scheduling claims.

What should I include in my

construction site journal?

Since the site diary is a formal record of your construction project’s

worksite progress, it should include all events that could affect the

progress and your quality of finished work. In the modern fast-pace

construction world, document control and management is imperative

for every construction project. No matter what role you play in the

project—project manager, site manager, estimator, contracts

manager—everyone has the administrative responsibility that is

critical for your project’s success.

For the person in charge of the daily site activities, the daily

construction log or site diary is a very important administrative tool.

Other than being an essential record of your project’s development,

your site diary also acts as substantial documentation for many other

construction contract aspects.

Usually, it’s the site foreman or inspector who records all the site

information while the site agent or contractor representative check

the data entries and signs the site diary. The usual site diary usually

includes, but is not limited to the following:

The date and weather conditions

Site diary entries of dates and weather condition reports can help
support your requests for work extensions or provide evidence for

work delays.

The number of workers in various trades

Keeping a record of the people on site (including subcontractor

companies, their workers and their hours) helps you organise

appropriate worker amenities that are specified by law (for example:

commute, accommodations, toilets, showers, mess hall, etc.)

Materials delivered to the site, the quantity

used and retained

Having delivery tracking of materials provides you with what has bee

delivered from all your purchase orders for a specific project.

Items of plant on site, working or idling,

including reasons for being idle

“Plant” refers to any heavy machinery or equipment used on site.

Logging plant details ensure proper handling of equipment and

machinery including issues, delays and their solutions for future

reference.

Any concreting activity, the location and

quantity of the mixes poured

Recording concreting activities provide a history that concreting

processes have been followed.

A brief description of the completed work with

the approximate amount done

Logging your completed work alongside the amount of work done

including labour hours and contractors ensure retrievable proper wor

methodologies and workflows have been implemented.

Complaints, accidents or incidents

Having a log of the complaints, accidents and incidents on-site allows

you to solve and avoid similar issues.

Any work carried out in connection with the

utility service

Documenting such furnishes easy tracking as needed.

Instructions issued to the contractor

Filing instructions to the contractor allows accountability for tasks

and works done.

The bulleted item titles mentioned here are taken verbatim from the

book, Modern Construction Project Management, Second Edition (Tan

et al., 2003). Ideally, the more data your on-site teams can

consistently capture on a daily basis, the better will be your team’s

understanding of work trends, progress, and unforeseen costs.

Additionally, for your paper documents, make sure that all lines and

spaces not used in your site diary or journal must be crossed out so

that your daily logs are kept from possible unofficial alterations or

changes after a workday or significant event has ended.

Do I really need a site diary for my

construction projects?

If you are still asking yourself if you should have a site diary despite

all the arguments presented above, here’s a quick short answer: Yes

A construction site diary is very important and you do need it even

just for these four practical reasons that are basically a simplified
summary of the above paragraphs:

1. You can use your site diary as documentary evidence in any c

construction site disputes. It is always admissible in court.

2. Your construction logs will be requested in any accident inve

Work covers and insurance companies will need your site diar

their investigations.

3. Your site diary will be very handy in monitoring and maintaini

hire equipment to avoid unnecessary multiple hiring.

4. Your site diary also records worker attendances for easy con

invoicing and charge outs.

How do I write my construction

project diary?

Gone were the days of pen-and-paper logging in your site diary. Exce

and word docs and even legacy software don’t cut the work anymore

these things will only waste your time and resources. Remember, the

key to a functional site diary is the accuracy of its recordings. You

would not want to do manual keeping as it presents a risk instead of

protecting you from risks.

The most convenient and accurate way to keep a site diary is to do it

with the use of a construction management app. Use a dedicated site

diary construction management app that allows you to create your

construction logs directly on your mobile device while you are on site.

Easily keep records of your daily logs and monitor your work progress

and track issues as they get solved.

Attach photos and other documents to give more context to your dail
construction entries. Generate and send reports within the app or

export them as site diary PDFs for your email contacts. For quicker

logs, you can use ready-to-use daily log templates.

Having a digital site diary eliminates the risk of losing paper entries

and paper trails. Going digital means having the ability to easily

search through all your documents to retrieve specific information a

needed.

Examples of site diary and templates

Most samples provided online are generic and can be customised for

your specific project needs. No matter what your role is on-site, the

most important part is to fill your site diary forms DAILY and when

SPECIFIC INCIDENTS occur. It is the reference document for many

other documents.

Simple site diary

This site diary template is useful to collect very generic daily site

data. It’s a free template by Contractor Talk that you can download

for free from this link .

Site diary app

This one is an easy-to-use template that is based on an intuitive

construction management app. You can customise to your specific rol

on-site by adding custom elements.

For other construction report templates, we have a library that you

can explore by just clicking the link.

Transitioning to interactive site

diary reports
There are numerous construction management software providers

that either focuses purely on daily construction logs or have it as on

of their features in their project management tool. What we find to

be most useful is a dedicated project management software that can

deliver an end-to-end digital solution to construction.

To illustrate, LetsBuild, a construction management app, has a mobil

site diary as the main focus in its construction project management

software design. You can configure the app to require detailed and

straightforward filling in of daily key site activities and events.

You can even start with a template for quicker daily site reporting,

customise a template for your specific needs, or make a template

from scratch that is suitable for particular recording and reporting

needs. The software basically allows you to automate your daily

logging of construction activities on-site so you can save your time t

focus on more important work.

A digital interactive site diary enables you to capture vital day-to-da

construction data. LetsBuild will allow you to:

Create your forms automatically every day

Capture weather conditions

Link specific checklists and objects that imply major constru

impacts

Attach daily photos of the construction site to your checklis

Automatically count people arriving or leaving the site

Notify on-site workers with their required actions

You can configure what data you want recorded on an everyday basis.
From materials, delivery to equipment status, LetsBuild allows you to

log your activities and data that you need to manage and report on

your projects. Customise your site diary for multi-dimensional

answers to your inspection questions.

You can even link your site diary to your general project schedule so

you can keep all your data in one place. Your daily site diary will

produce valuable data that you can view on your dashboard to improve

your daily decision making. Transition to an interactive site diary

today that ensures your decisions are made in a timely manner and o

an informed basis, and you can avoid any kind of problem in the futu