Building condition inspection. A printable building condition inspection — a structured walk of the fabric, the plant and the shared areas, recording what is deteriorating before it becomes a work order.
This is the paper version. FacilityOptix does the same job on a phone, with the record filed against the building and the asset automatically.
What is on the sheet
- Building, areas covered, inspector and date
- External fabric: roof, rainwater goods, walls, windows, doors and external areas
- Internal fabric: floors, ceilings, walls, doors, glazing and finishes
- Plant areas, risers, roof plant and anything behind a locked door that nobody opens
- Shared areas, escape routes, signage, lighting and anything that overlaps the fire risk assessment
- Findings with a condition grade, an owner and a date, and a note of what was raised as a work order
Why this record matters
A condition inspection is the control that catches deterioration while it is still cheap. Reactive maintenance deals with what has already failed; the walk finds the blocked gutter two winters before the damp reaches a ceiling, which is a different kind of spend.
The areas behind locked doors are the ones that earn the inspection. Risers, roof plant, basements and service voids are not on anybody's route and do not get reported by occupants, so they deteriorate unobserved until something downstream fails — and they are the first place a new facilities manager should be taken.
Grading condition rather than recording defects is what makes successive inspections comparable. 'Fair, deteriorating' recorded three times running is a budget case; three separate lists of observations is three separate lists.
The overlap with the fire risk assessment is noted rather than absorbed. A blocked escape route found on this walk is a fire safety matter and belongs in that record too, and an inspection that quietly swallows it has moved a finding somewhere the responsible person does not look.
Use it with
- Asset register templateA printable asset register — what you have, where it is, what state it is in, what it is worth to you if it fails and what maintenance regime it sits under.
- Work order formA printable work order — what was reported, what was actually found, what was done, what it needs next and the sign-off that closes it.
- Statutory compliance checklistA printable checklist of the statutory obligations attaching to a building — what applies, who holds it, when it was last satisfied and where the evidence is.
- PPM schedule templateA printable planned preventive maintenance schedule — what is attended, when it is next due, who does it and what evidence comes back.
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Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0. General guidance, not legal advice. Checked October 2026.