Site diary template. A printable daily site diary — who was on site, what was done, what was delivered, what stopped work and anything that will be argued about later.

A site diary is a commercial document that happens to be useful for safety. Its real value shows up eighteen months later, when somebody argues about who caused a delay, and the only contemporaneous record of the three days it rained and the crane that did not turn up is a notebook in a drawer.

Weather is first because it is the entry most often skipped and most often needed. 'It was too wet to pour' is an assertion; a diary with the conditions written down every day, including the dry ones, is evidence — and it is only evidence because the dry days are in it too.

Delays, instructions and variations are grouped together because that is the cluster that becomes a claim. A verbal instruction from the client's representative, written in the diary the same afternoon, is worth more than a recollection and costs nothing at the time.

The signature and the date are what make it contemporaneous, which is the whole basis of its value. A diary written up at the end of the month is a reconstruction, and everybody on the other side of a dispute knows how to tell the difference.