A leak call, eight months on
A customer rings. There is a stain on the ceiling below their new wet room. They are sure it is your work. Your fitter is sure it is not: the tanking was done properly, the drain was fitted to the manufacturer's instructions and the pipework was tested. But everything is now under tiles, the fitter who did it has changed phones, and nobody can show what the floor looked like before it was covered.
Without that evidence, the cheapest way to find out is to lift the floor. Someone has to pay for that.
Why the photos do not exist when you need them
Most fitters take photos. The problem is that nobody specified which photos, they live on personal phones, and they are never filed against the job.
- There is no list of photos required at each stage of hidden work.
- Photos are taken on personal devices and lost when phones change or fitters leave.
- Pictures are not labelled with the job, the room or the stage.
- Tests, such as a pressure test or a flood test, are done but not recorded in a way anyone can find.
- Manufacturer guarantee requirements for tanking systems may ask for records the business does not keep.
What missing evidence costs
A leak query with no evidence tends to end in opening up finished work, either to prove your installation was right or to fix it. Guarantee claims with a tanking manufacturer may need records you do not have. And disputes that come down to one person's word against another's are slow and unpleasant for everyone.
What we build for hidden-work photos
- For each job type, your team lists the photos that matter at each stage: first fix pipework, waste and drain connections, boards fixed, primer, tape at joints and corners, tanking membrane complete, any flood or pressure test.
- The fitter's phone app prompts for those photos at the right stage and will not mark the stage complete until they are taken, or a reason is given.
- Each photo is saved to the job with the date, time, room, stage and who took it, and copied to your cloud storage such as Microsoft 365 or AWS.
- Test results are recorded on the same screen, with a photo of any gauge or reading.
- All hidden-work photos for a job can be exported as a single dated PDF for a guarantee claim or a customer query.
| Stage | Photos your team might require |
|---|---|
| First fix | Supply and waste runs before boarding |
| Boarding | Boards fixed, joints and screws visible |
| Tanking | Tape at corners and joints, membrane complete |
| Drain | Drain body and connection before tiling |
| Testing | Gauge or test set up and reading |
What must be photographed, and how tanking is done, are for your team and the product manufacturer to decide. The system makes sure it is captured every time.
What you can show afterwards
When a query comes in, you open the job and see dated photos of every hidden stage. That can settle a conversation quickly, point to where a problem is likely to be, or support a guarantee claim with the manufacturer. New fitters learn the standard your business expects because the app shows them what to capture.
Photos also help inside the business. A manager can look through the hidden-work stages of a job without driving to site, and spot a missed tape on a corner or a board fixed the wrong way while it can still be put right cheaply. That is better for everyone than finding it after the tiles are up.
Recognise this?
- Job photos live on fitters' own phones.
- You have had a leak query and could not show how the floor was done.
- There is no fixed list of photos for tanking or first fix.
- Test results are not recorded anywhere you could find them later.
- A fitter who left took the only photos of several jobs.