Protecting Completed Construction Work

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Would you like your hard work damaged by others? Would you like to redo your work because someone was careless and messed it up? Of course not! Yet, frequently completed work is damaged on construction projects. This results in additional work to repair the damage, which causes added costs, resources being diverted from other tasks, delays, and sometimes, even the client getting a product that’s flawed or has an imperfection, which results in problems later.

Protecting completed work starts by instilling in your construction team, subcontractors and others working on the construction project, that it’s essential to take care of completed work. This can be discussed in inductions, team talks and briefings. It’s essential to speak out when careless workers are noticed. Everyone must respect the work of others.

Of course it’s impossible to protect everything, but where possible surfaces that can easily be scratched or damaged should be covered by timber, cardboard and other materials. Some products arrive in plastic wrappings or are already taped, and these wrappings can be left in place where possible until the section is ready for handover.

​Fresh work that can easily be damaged, like newly painted surfaced, recently laid tiles and products that haven’t gained full strength, should be cordoned off.

Set the standards from the start of the construction project. If people take care from the beginning, not just dropping stuff on the ground, bashing items, etc, then it’s instilled in their behaviour so they’re less likely to damage sensitive finishes later in the project. 

​Other Useful articles:
​How important is quality on your project
Repairing defective work on your construction project
How we can improve quality in construction

​This article is an extract from the book 'The Successful Construction Supervisor and Foreman'.
​© 2021 This article is not to be reproduced for commercial purposes without written permission from the author.

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