Construction site snag list: from a photo of the defect to closure

A site snag list is a list in which defects and points to be corrected, noticed afterwards in work considered complete, are recorded with the person responsible and tracked until they are closed. On most sites this list starts as a notebook, an Excel sheet or a WhatsApp album; a few weeks later nobody knows which one is current.

The problem is usually not the format of the list but two moments: when a defect is opened and when it is closed. The person who sees the defect drops a photo into the group, but the location, date and responsible party stay buried in the message; and when the work is fixed, nobody updates the list. In this article we explain, using SahaSesi AI, how a defect can be tracked from the photo to closure.

As handover approaches, the site manager and the quality officer walk the blocks floor by floor. A few notes are taken and a few photos are shot in every apartment. When they get back to the office in the evening they have dozens of photos and half-sentence notes; remembering which one belongs to which apartment and which subcontractor becomes the next day’s job. A snag list exists precisely to gather this scatter in one place.

Why do snag lists swell and become unreliable?

• Information is missing at opening. A photo that arrives with “there is a problem here” means nothing in the office if the block and floor are not known.
• The responsible party is unclear. Two subcontractors leave the job to each other, and the defect stays ownerless for weeks.
• Closure is not documented. It is said by word of mouth that the work is done, nobody sees it and the list is not updated.
• The list splits in two. The wider the gap between the real situation on site and the table in the office, the less the table is trusted.

A defect’s journey from photo to closure

1. The foreman sees the defect and sends a photo. One sentence next to the photo is enough: “Block A, 2nd floor, stair railing missing.” There is no app to install and no form to fill in; the WhatsApp used every day is enough.
2. The message is separated out as a defect record. The defect with its photo is opened together with the responsible subcontractor. The foreman gets a “Saved: …” read-back and corrects it if the location or the responsible party is wrong.
3. The defect becomes visible in the office. The record sits in the panel by type; a message that cannot be confidently understood lands in the “awaiting review” list and does not disappear from the office’s view.
4. The subcontractor fixes the work. This step happens on site; the record waits in one place for anyone who asks whether the correction has been made.
5. The closing photo arrives and the defect closes. When the foreman sends a photo of the corrected work, the defect is closed and the number of open defects drops.

A defect should be visible on the day it is opened, and visible on the day it is closed. Everything in between is guesswork.

The daily report is locked after the site manager’s approval; later changes can only be made by a manager, and every change leaves a trace. For defect records this means that when a defect was opened, when it was closed and what was changed in the record afterwards stop being matters of dispute and are answered by looking at the history. Conversations with a subcontractor such as “this defect was not mine” or “we had already closed it” also stand on firmer ground.

What does a good defect record contain?

• Photo. If possible, a general shot and a close-up of the defect.
• Location. Block, floor and room. If this is written in the message, the record can be searched in the office too.
• Responsible party. The subcontractor or crew that has to close the defect.
• Proof of closure. A photo of the corrected work, taken from the same angle. A “done” message alone should not count as closure.

Open defects in the evening report

In SahaSesi AI the evening report is a single page split by site, and alongside the day’s records it also shows the open defects. In a sample report you read a line “2 open defects”, with items beneath it such as “Block A, 2nd floor, stair railing”. Without having to open the snag list separately, the manager sees every evening which work is still open. Because open defects are a separate section of the report, an item that has stayed open for a long time does not slip by either.

Three common mistakes

• Reporting closure by word of mouth. If you do not tie closure to a photo, over time the list reflects goodwill, not reality. Waiting for the closing photo even when the foreman writes “done” is the smallest rule that keeps the list honest.
• Putting several defects in one message. Writing a separate photo and a separate sentence for each defect makes it easier to close each one separately. When five defects are bundled into a single message, the other four are easily forgotten when one is closed.
• Leaving the responsible party for later. A defect with no owner is the one that stays open longest. Writing the subcontractor’s name at the moment the defect is opened simplifies all the later follow-up steps.

To try defect tracking, it is enough to start with a single block or a single subcontractor. By the end of the first week it becomes clear by itself how many defects were opened, how many were closed with a closing photo and which ones stayed ownerless. If you would like to try it with photos from your own site, you can arrange a pilot meeting on the SahaSesi AI page.