What was agreed in the room, and what you found when you walked it.

Once the build starts, most of what matters is said out loud and written down by nobody. A pre-start meeting settles a dozen things in an hour. A walk round at the end throws up ninety items that all sound minor until one of them is still not done in March. These are the two records that catch them.

The meetings, and what was agreed against each item

A pre-start meeting with each trade before they come on site is the single cheapest hour on a build, and the one most self-builders skip because they do not know what to ask. So the agenda is written for you: a Word document with the things worth settling on that kind of meeting, your project details already on the head of it, ready to print and take in.

The meeting record's agenda panel: choose the kind of meeting, which package it is about, the day of the meeting, and whether to put your phone number on this one, then download the agenda as a Word document.

Pick the kind of meeting and the package; the agenda comes out ready to take in.

Your phone number goes on only if you tick it, every time. There are people you want ringing you at seven on a Saturday and people you do not, and that is a decision per document rather than a setting you made once and forgot.

The meeting summary on a real build: every meeting held or coming up, what kind it was, which package, when and where it was held, and the agenda and minutes filed against each one.

Every meeting on the build, with its agenda and its minutes against it.

Afterwards the minutes sit on the same row, so what was agreed at the groundworks pre-start is a document with a date on it rather than a disagreement in eight months’ time. They travel into the pack under Construction.

The snag list, and the rule that makes it work

An item comes off when you have been back and looked, not when somebody says it is sorted.

Recording a snag: the room or where on the outside in the reader's own words, the day they walked it, then what it is, what is wrong with it, which of the three kinds it is and whose work it is.

Room by room, in your own words — the kitchen, the back bedroom, the north elevation.

You walk a room, you record what you found, where it is and a photograph of it. No room list to set up first and no numbering scheme: whatever you call it is what it is called. And if you already use a snagging app, you can keep the numbers from it here rather than keeping two lists.

The snag summary grouped by trade: wall and floor tiling, electrical, external works, builder's clean and plumbing, each item with where it is, whether it is a defect or incomplete work, the day it was found and the day it was re-inspected.

The same list grouped the way it gets fixed — by whose work it is.

Sorted by trade it becomes a list you can send: everything the electrician has to come back for, on one sheet, with the day each item was found. The re-inspected column is the one that stays honest — it is filled the day you went back and looked, and until then the item is still open no matter what anybody told you on the phone.

The rest of this part of the record

The day-to-day of the build, the sequence it runs to, and where the services actually enter the plot all sit alongside these two.

The site diary — what happened each day, who was on site, and photographs of what is about to be covered up.
The programme — the order the work has to happen in, and what moves when one thing slips.
The connections record — the applications, offers and live dates for water, electricity, gas and telecoms, which are the ones that hold a house up at the end.

Start seven days Look round a real build