Templates
14 Free Inspection Checklist Templates, With Pictures (Printable and App-Ready)
Every template shown, with what it is for and who uses it. Print any of them, or download the file and walk it on your phone with Pass, Fail and N/A.
Blog
Field guides for people who inspect buildings
Written for superintendents, snagging inspectors, clerks of works and anyone whose deliverable is a defect report. No fluff, no gated PDFs.
Apps
The 8 Best Snagging and Punch List Apps in 2026, Ranked
Ranked for one inspector and one report, on what matters on site. We make one of them; it gets the same scrutiny as the rest.
Checklists
The Room-by-Room Snagging Checklist: 111 Checks From the Front Door to the Roof
The whole walk written out, in the order you move through the house, with the trade on every line. Print it, or walk it on your phone.
Field guide
The Construction Defect Field Guide: 40 Defects by Trade, With Photos
Forty defects, grouped by the trade that has to fix them. For each: what it looks like, what usually causes it, how serious it is and what to put on the report. Photographs where a description is not enough.
Reporting
The Complete Guide to Inspection Reports: Structure, Evidence, Sign-off and Examples
The report is the deliverable. This is the whole document, section by section: what goes on the cover, how an item is written so it can be priced, what makes a photograph evidence, and how a report is signed off and closed without a second argument.
Snagging
How Much Does a Snagging Inspection Cost in the UK? (2026 Prices)
Most new-build snagging inspections cost between £249 and £475 in 2026, and the range hides more than it shows. Here is what the price includes, what pushes it up, when it is worth paying and what the money actually buys.
Defects
Why Sealant Fails at the Shower Tray (And How to Report It)
The most common wet-room defect and the most commonly misreported one. The sealant is almost never the problem; it is the first thing to give up when something underneath it moves.
Defects
Diagonal Cracks Above Door Frames: Settlement or Shrinkage?
The crack every new home gets and every buyer photographs. Most are the building drying out; a few are the ground moving. The difference is six checks and a crack gauge, not a guess.
Defects
Efflorescence on New Brickwork: Defect or Not?
The white powder on the brickwork of almost every new house. Nine times out of ten it is the building drying out and the report says so in one line. The tenth time it is pointing at a leak.
Defects
Grout Cracking at Internal Corners: Why It Happens and What to Write
A hairline down the corner of a tiled shower, a crack where the floor tiles meet the wall. It is not bad grout. It is grout in a place that should never have been grouted.
Field guide
Missing Fire Stopping Around Service Penetrations: An Inspection Checklist
A fire-rated wall with one unsealed cable hole in it is not a fire-rated wall. This is where to look, what missing fire stopping looks like above a ceiling, and how to write it up so it is closed with a tested product and a label rather than a can of foam.
Defects
Water Staining on Ceilings: Reading the Pattern Before You Write the Item
A ceiling stain is a message from the room above, written in a language most reports do not read. The shape, the colour, the edge and the position narrow the source to two or three candidates before a single tile is lifted.
Defects
Exposed Wiring and Missing Junction Box Covers: Severity and the Write-Up
The one defect where the inspector's first job is not to inspect. Assume it is live, keep your hands off, photograph from a distance, and write an item that gets a circuit isolated today and a certificate issued before anyone moves in.
Reporting
How to Photograph a Construction Defect So It Holds Up Later
A defect photograph has one job: to let someone who was not there see what you saw, where you saw it, and how big it was. Most fail at the second and third. Eight habits fix that, and none of them needs a better camera.
Fundamentals
What Is a Punch List? The Contractor's Guide for 2026
Who writes it, what belongs on it, when it happens in the schedule, and why most of them fail at the closeout stage rather than the inspection stage.
Fundamentals
Punch List vs Snag List: The Same Job, Two Vocabularies
They describe the same document. But the surrounding vocabulary, substantial completion vs practical completion, retention vs retainage, genuinely differs, and mixing them up costs you.
Templates
The Punch List Template: Every Field That Belongs on One
A field-by-field breakdown you can copy into a spreadsheet today, including the four columns most free templates leave out, which are the ones that cause disputes.
Field guide
The Site Inspection Checklist to Run on Every Walkthrough
A walkable order of operations, structure, envelope, MEP, finishes, safety, documents, plus the items inspectors most often forget until the client finds them.
AI in construction
How AI Is Actually Changing Site Inspections (And What It Still Can't Do)
The useful version of this technology is narrower and more boring than the marketing suggests, and considerably more valuable once you understand exactly where the line is.
Reporting
How to Write a Construction Defect Report That Actually Gets Acted On
The report is the deliverable, not the inspection. Structure, evidence and the specific language habits that get items fixed on the first attempt instead of the third.
Comparison
Choosing a Punch List App in 2026: An Honest Buyer's Guide
Four categories of tool, the features that matter on site versus the ones that demo well, and the seven questions to ask before you commit a team to anything.
Field guide
The 14 Snags That Turn Up on Almost Every Pre-Handover Inspection
The same defects appear on nearly every handover inspection. Knowing the list in advance turns a four-hour walk into a two-hour one, and stops you missing the boring ones.
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