What actually happens during a site walkthrough

'Walkthrough' covers several distinct moments in a project, each checking for something different. Owners often treat them all the same way and miss the one that actually matters most to them.

Here is what each one is for, and what is worth doing on your side at each.

Before mobilisation, we walk the space to confirm existing conditions, protection requirements and access. Everything gets photographed — including the things you are keeping, because that record is what establishes their condition before a crew ever entered the building.

This is also the practical conversation: which entrance, which hours, where the skip goes, what happens to the parking, what is being stored and where. And if the work is close to a neighbour, this is when their condition survey happens too.

What is worth doing on your side: point out anything you are attached to. A crew cannot protect a floor, a fitting or a piece of joinery it does not know matters to you.

Regular scheduled check-ins against the milestone schedule. We confirm that completed work matches the drawings, that the sequence is holding, and that anything found is being handled rather than absorbed quietly.

For you, these are the moments to ask about anything that looks different from what you pictured. A room framed out reads very differently from a plan, and it is common — and completely reasonable — to realise at this stage that a door swing or a window position is not what you imagined.

This is the walkthrough owners most often skip and most often wish they had not. Just before drywall goes up, everything is visible: every outlet, switch, water line, duct, and blocking for anything that will be fixed to a wall later.

It is the last easy moment to change your mind about anything inside a wall. Moving an outlet now costs almost nothing. Moving it in six weeks costs a patch, a repaint and a conversation about who pays.

Walk the rooms with the drawings and imagine using the space. Where will the bed go, and is there a socket beside it? Is there blocking behind the wall where the television or the handrail is going? Is the light switch on the side of the door you actually approach from?

Near completion we walk the project with you specifically to catch what needs finishing or correcting before final sign-off. This is your walkthrough as much as ours, and it works best when you treat it that way.

Bring a list. Go slowly. Open every door and drawer, run the taps, try the switches, look along surfaces at a low angle where imperfections show. Nothing is too small to write down — a punch list exists precisely so small things get fixed rather than lived with.

Everything gets written up by room and by trade, and closed out one by one. The job is finished when your list is empty, not when ours is.

Whichever walkthrough you are on, the same few habits make it more useful. Go at a time of day when there is good light. Bring the drawings, even if you cannot read them fluently — holding a plan while standing in the room is how most people finally understand their own project.

Ask questions while you are standing in the space rather than saving them for an email afterwards. Almost every question about a building is easier to answer with both people looking at the thing, and half of them turn out not to be questions at all once you are pointing at it.

And write things down as you go. Everyone believes they will remember the four things they noticed. Nobody does.