Building walks recorded stop by stop
A building walk checklist is meant to show that someone went through the place and looked. On paper it rarely does. The sheet lists the boiler room, roof, garbage room and parking garage, each with a box. All the boxes get ticked at the desk, in one sitting, and the same sheet comes back every week. The walk may have happened. The paper cannot show it.
If you are responsible for a property you do not stand in every day, the gap is real. An owner or a board asks whether the roof drains were looked at before the storm. A leak in a storage room turns out to be three weeks old. A new superintendent starts and nobody can say which rooms were actually being checked. A site visit is easy to promise and hard to show afterwards, and what was found on the way is usually lost in a text or a conversation in the hall.
A property walk log, step by step
Start by walking the building yourself and writing down each place worth a stop.
- Give each place its own code: the boiler room, the roof, the garbage room, the parking garage. Fix the code where you have to be to see the thing you care about.
- Group them into one round. The Building walk preset fills in the order, 45 minutes expected, and the first checkpoint starting the walk.
- Choose the days and hours a walk is expected. Tick only the days you mean.
- The walker scans the first stop and the walk begins. There is no start code to find unless you want one.
- Each stop asks what its point asks: one tap on a checkpoint, or a reason and a note on a work visit.
- Anything wrong at a checkpoint goes in with Issue, in words and a picture. It waits as a follow-up until you mark it done or the next All clear there closes it.
- The walk is kept with the places it reached and how long it lasted, ready for a monthly report.
Keep the first version short. Eight or nine stops that matter will get walked, and twenty will get rushed. After a month, read the record: a stop that never reports anything may not need a code, and a place that keeps surprising you probably does.
This is the part people miss about a checklist. A walk is a sequence of stops, each stop is one code with one answer, and that is the list without the form. The walker cannot tick the roof from the lobby without a copy of the code, because the roof's code is on the roof.
Worked example: Thistlegate Properties
Thistlegate Properties manages 3 mid-rise residential buildings with 212 suites and one superintendent per building. The owners want every mechanical space seen each weekday and a written monthly record.
Each building gets 9 codes. There are 5 checkpoints: garbage room, parking level, roof hatch, storage corridor and generator enclosure. There are also 4 work visits, one each for the boiler room, the pump room, the electrical room and the elevator machine room, where a reason and a note are wanted. That makes 27 codes for three rounds, which are expected once on weekdays between 08:00 and 12:00.
On Tuesday at Building B, the superintendent reaches the parking level at 09:12, taps Issue, writes that a drain is blocked, and adds a picture. The property manager sees the follow-up and calls the plumbing contractor, who clears it that afternoon. Wednesday's All clear at that stop closes it. On Friday, the walk at Building A runs 31 minutes but skips the roof hatch because of ice. The daily email says one stop was missed and the walk's page names it. The property manager phones the superintendent and hears why.
At month-end, the manager sends the owners a PDF of 63 walks.
Names and numbers are examples.
Recommended settings for each site visit record
| Setting | Recommended, and why |
|---|---|
| Photo | Offered with an issue. Require one only at a point where the view itself is the record, such as a gauge. A walk slows down if every stop needs a picture. |
| Location check | Off for stops in one building, since a phone cannot tell a roof from a basement well. On for separate structures on a large site, at 150 metres. |
| Scan in and out | Not used on checkpoints. The round already keeps how long the walk took. Use it only on a work visit, if time spent in that room matters. |
| Approvals | Approved people only: your superintendents and a relief. Flag anyone else. A contractor who scans a stop should appear on the record as a visitor. |
| Alerts | Daily email for skipped places, which says how many a walk missed, since a missed stop can wait for the morning. An issue opens a follow-up, and the daily summary lists the open ones. |
| Order | Any order for a superintendent who plans around the day's work. In order where the sequence matters, such as ending a walk at a shut-off. |
| Expected | Weekdays, once in a set window. Add a weekend only if someone is on site. |
What it does not do
Each stop takes one answer and not a form of items. What is wrong goes in words and a picture. If a regulator or an insurer requires a form, keep that form. This is a record of the walk and not a replacement for it.
It does not order repairs or book contractors. A follow-up keeps the problem in view until someone marks it done.
It does not plan who walks the building, or when. It tells you what the round expected and what happened, and it has no staff roster.
It does not inspect anything. It shows that a person reached a place at a time and what they reported. A walk that reports All clear at the roof hatch means someone stood there and said so, and nothing more than that.
Questions
Is this a checklist form?
No. A walk is a sequence of stops, each stop is one code with one answer, and that is the list without the form. If you need ten items ticked at one stop, add a note or print them beside the code.
Can the walk follow any order?
Yes. Leave the order free and the walker picks the route. Set an order, and a place visited early is flagged.
What happens when something is wrong?
At a checkpoint, the walker taps Issue, writes what they found and adds a picture. A follow-up stays open until you mark it done or the next All clear at that stop closes it, and the daily summary lists it while it is open.
Can one point be part of two walks?
Yes. A point can be a stop on several rounds, and its own history keeps every visit. The boiler room can sit on the daily walk and on the monthly safety walk.
Is a walk expected at weekends?
Only on the days you tick. Saturday and Sunday stay quiet unless you add them, so nobody gets a missed-walk notice for a day off.
Who can walk, and do they need an account?
Anyone you allow. They confirm an email once with a 6-digit code and the phone is remembered. A relief superintendent or a board member pays nothing and installs nothing.
Start with one free code
No credit card. Workers never pay and never install an app. Pricing is per code, in US dollars, with unlimited workers.