Construction quality control checklist

A poured column, a plastered wall and a laid floor all hide their faults quickly. Quality control is the set of checks that catch those faults before they are covered up. This article works through the construction risk analyzer at construction risk analyzer, the documents it asks about, the quality and testing plan it looks for, the hold points that stop work until someone inspects it, and the worked example it uses. By the end, a reader can work out which controls their own project is missing and what to put in place first.

What does the construction risk analyzer check?

The analyzer asks about seven documents and conditions: a signed contract with written conditions; approved drawings; a bill of quantities; a soil or site investigation; the permits or plan approvals that apply; a quality and testing plan; and a price adjustment clause for materials. It scores each as a finding and separates the high findings from the medium ones.

Missing a quality and testing plan scores high. Without it, defects in concrete, steel or finishes can be built in before anyone checks. Missing approved drawings also scores high, because what is to be built stays open to interpretation on site and changes are hard to price. No soil or site investigation on a building, road, water or port project is high as well: the ground may need a different foundation, which means redesign and delay. No signed contract with written conditions is high, because payment, changes, delays and defects have no agreed rules. Permits or plan approvals not in hand score medium, since work can be stopped or have to be changed. Under 50% of skilled roles filled locally is a medium finding, and a rule of thumb rather than a local measurement.

The analyzer's mitigation for a missing quality plan is specific: agree the tests, who does them, how often, and the hold points where work stops until it is checked. Its stated limit is that it cannot tell how much testing a project of this kind needs. That number comes from the specification and the engineer.

How do you build a quality and testing plan?

You build it by naming each test, the person or laboratory that carries it out, the frequency, and the point in the programme where the result must be in hand before the next trade starts. A plan written this way turns inspection into a gate rather than an opinion.

1. List the elements that get covered up: foundations, reinforcement before concrete, slab services before the pour, blockwork before plaster, and roof structure before sheeting.
2. For each element, write the test or inspection and the acceptance it has to meet, taken from the drawings and the specification.
3. Name who carries out the check: the site supervisor, an independent laboratory, or the engineer.
4. Set the frequency, such as every batch, every pour, or a stated number of spots.
5. Set the hold point: the stage stops until the result is recorded and accepted.
6. Record the result and file it with the element it covers, so a later defect can be traced to a pour or a batch.

The material checks the site's calculators name fit into this plan. Concrete strength is specified by the engineer, as a designed mix or a strength class, and tested with cubes, because a nominal volume mix does not guarantee a strength. For reinforcing steel, confirm with the supplier whether it is sold by weight or by the bar, and the grade the drawings specify, with laps, bends and hooks taken from the bar bending schedule.

Which material checks go on the checklist?

Finish and material checks catch shade, thickness and coverage faults that structural tests miss. They are cheap to write down and expensive to correct later, so they belong on the same checklist as the cube tests.

Two habits keep this table useful. Measure rather than assume: a few plaster spots with a tape tell more than a general look at the wall. Keep a sample: a spare tile box and a cube result filed by pour let a later repair match what was built.

What does the worked example on the analyzer show?

The analyzer's example project is a building, direct award, with a contingency of 3%, 8 months, 60% of materials imported with a 20-week lead time, one main supplier, 250 km from the supply town on a gravel road, and 40% of skilled roles filled locally. It has a contract, drawings and a bill of quantities, but no site investigation, permits, quality plan or price adjustment clause. It returns 10 findings, 4 of them high, among them no plan for checking the work and foundations designed without knowing the ground.

The example shows how one missing document pulls others with it. Foundations designed without a site investigation carry a redesign risk, and a project with no quality plan has no agreed way to catch the result on site. The 250 km gravel haul and the 20-week import lead time sit alongside those findings because inspection and testing have to be planned around them: a cube result, a tile batch or a roofing data sheet that arrives late holds up the trade that needs it.

The example returns 4 high findings out of 10, which is the pattern to expect when documents are incomplete rather than absent. A contract, drawings and a bill of quantities are in place, and four other items are not.

What are the analyzer's assumptions and limits?

The analyzer sees only what is entered, so a risk its rules do not describe is not flagged. It does not know the place, the market or the firms involved, and it never rates a contractor. It is not engineering, legal or financial advice, and it is a way to structure a review, not to replace one.

Those limits set how to read the output. A clean result means the entered documents are in place, not that the site is safe or the design is sound. A finding means the document or condition is missing from the entry, and the next step is to ask for it.

The rules cover documents and conditions, not quantities. The analyzer cannot tell how much testing a project of this kind needs, so the number of cube sets, the frequency of plaster checks and the inspections per stage come from the specification and the engineer. On permits, ask the local authority which approvals apply and obtain them before starting. On the contract, check what it allows before acting on any finding.

How do you use the findings on a live project?

You turn each finding into an action with a name and a date, then re-run the analyzer once the documents exist. The high findings come first, because they cover the contract, the drawings, the ground and the quality plan.

1. Gather the seven documents the analyzer asks about, including the quality and testing plan with its tests, frequencies and hold points.
2. Enter the project details and read the findings, noting which are high.
3. For each missing document, write who will produce it and by when.
4. Commission the site investigation before the design is fixed, sized to the structure, and ask the municipal engineer's office whether it holds borehole logs for the plot.
5. Sign the contract on recognised conditions before work starts, with payment, change and dispute terms.
6. Agree the tests, who does them, how often, and the hold points, and write them into the quality plan.
7. Re-run the analyzer after each document is added and keep the record with the project file.

Where a project needs a wider review of what it will cost to run, the business and costs pages cover the commercial side, and the building codes and standards page covers the documents a design has to answer to. For readers training staff to run these checks on site, the education page sets out where the method fits.

What to do next

Open the construction risk analyzer and enter the project: contract, drawings, bill of quantities, site investigation, permits, quality and testing plan, and price adjustment clause. Bring the contract and its conditions, the drawing register, the bill of quantities, any soil or site investigation report, the approval letters, the quality plan with its tests and hold points, and the material price adjustment wording. Re-run it as each document lands.