A Project Construction Diary is considered the official record of the daily events pertaining to a given project. A Diary must be maintained for every project. The Project Construction Diary must contain a complete record of the Project, starting with the first chargeable day, even if the Contractor begins operations at a later date, and continuing through
the date when all field operations are complete, including final inspection and completion of all punch list work.

The Diary should be concise and complete. Entries should be made daily, and the Diary should always be current. The daily proceedings should not be too long or too brief, but all important information and oral and written instructions related to the Contract should be permanently recorded in ink (not pencil). Whenever separate records of daily events are compiled elsewhere by individual Inspectors, the pertinent information should be transferred into the official Project
Construction Diary.

The Diary must be factual; it should not contain information “as-remembered” unless it is so noted. “As-remembered” information should be the exception, not the rule.

The Contents of the Diary should include (but not limited to):

  • Weather Information – Print a daily weather report for your project, trying to pull archived weather reports a year or two or three later can become cumbersome.
  • The nature and location of all work; notate any unforeseen conditions and any time constraint issues.
  • Personnel and equipment on-site
  • Materials received or approved
  • Oral and written instructions or approvals given to the Contractor
  • Milestone dates, such as traffic pattern shifts or partial opening of the Project
  • Visitations to the Project site by Inspectors, Owners, Architects/Engineers, etc.
  • Important Contract dates such as the Award date and the first day of Work
  • Record telephone calls made or received, and a substantial outline of the nature of such calls, including any statements, commitments made during the call, and identify the parties calling. “Record of Conversation”.

The format of the Construction Diary is just as important: Some suggestions of format are:

  • Use a hardcover stitch-binding field book such as used a “Record Book”
  • Pages should be consecutively numbered in ink, and no numbers should be skipped.
  • No erasures, white out should be made. In case of error, simply cross out the incorrect error and date it.
  • No pages should be torn out of the book at any time. If a page is to be voided, place a large X through the page and mark void.
  • Every day should be reported and every calendar date should be accounted for. If there is a no work performed on any given day, the date should be entered on the page followed by “No Work” or something similar. You should still notate and run a weather report for “No Work” days, as it may have later bearing on why no work was performed in a case involving liquidated damages.
  • It is very important to enter all information each day as it occurs or you may not remember the next day something that was important to document.

These are some of the important items to be notated in the Project Diary.

In conclusion, the Project Construction Diary is the single most important document prepared by the contractor.