Templates Guides
Plumbing Top-Out Inspection Checklist (Free PDF)
Plumbing
In this post, we share a plumbing top-out checklist for plumbing contractors and project managers to ensure that all items required during the top-out phase of a project have been completed. Below, we’ll provide a link to download the checklist for free and use it in your plumbing business.
However, keep in mind that while this checklist is a useful reference, PDF checklists have their limitations. For example:
It’s difficult to be sure they’re used for every project. If a project manager decides to skip referencing the checklist during their final inspection of top-out, they may miss a crucial detail that causes problems later.
PDFs don’t integrate with the other apps and software tools you use to run your business. You need to manually record inspection results into your project management software, CRM, or whatever system you use to keep track of job data.
The details of any issues discovered during rough-in inspections can’t be easily shared between project managers and office staff, causing delays in kicking off the next actions (e.g., checking inventory, ordering materials, notifying general contractors or homeowners of issues, etc.).
So, in addition to sharing the free top-out checklist below, we’ll also walk through how our plumbing contractor software, ServiceTitan, solves these challenges and more.
Want to see how ServiceTitan’s plumbing software can help streamline construction project management? Schedule a call for a free product tour.
Plumbing Top-Out Checklist
Click here to download our plumbing top-out checklist.
The form includes the following prompts for referencing during plumbing rough-in inspections:
Inspect all water supply lines for leaks.
Ensure all waste and vent piping is properly installed and secured.
Check for proper installation of hot water and cold water lines to fixtures.
Verify that shut-off valves are installed at all fixture locations.
Inspect for the presence and proper installation of cleanouts.
Run a water pressure test to ensure it is within acceptable limits.
Ensure that gas lines are properly sized, installed, and tested for leaks.
Check for proper installation and venting of the water heater.
Confirm that all plumbing fixtures are correctly installed and secure.
Inspect dishwasher and washing machine hookups.
Verify proper installation of sump pumps and ejector pumps, if applicable.
Check for correct installation of outdoor faucets and anti-siphon devices.
Ensure that all work complies with local plumbing codes and regulations.
Perform a final walk-through to ensure all areas are clean and free of debris, clogs, or blockages.
Once top-out inspections are done and each checklist item has been completed, project managers can contact contractors or office staff to explain their findings and ensure any necessary actions are set into motion.
Yet traditional methods of communicating these job details through phone calls, texts, and emails come with familiar frustrations and issues:
Delays in kicking off the next steps
Miscommunications between project managers and office staff
Loss of important project details
Lack of real-time information for key project stakeholders
This is where construction management software like ServiceTitan can transform operations for plumbing contractors and their crews.
In the rest of this post, we’ll walk through what it’s like to use plumbing top-out checklists in ServiceTitan, and the other features we offer for streamlining plumbing project management.
How Plumbing Top-Out Checklists Work in ServiceTitan
ServiceTitan allows plumbing businesses to create versatile, customized forms, including any type of plumbing inspection checklist needed for a job or project.
For example, contractors can build top-out checklists from scratch, or upload existing checklists, and add them to a project from the project dashboard (discussed below). That form can then be accessed via our mobile app and filled out on-site by a project manager.
Once the checklist is filled out, all of the information is automatically available to contractors, office staff, or other team members who may need to see it.
More than 10 different formats can be used for each checklist item, including text, numbers, checkboxes, dropdowns, stoplight buttons, photo and video uploads, and more. So, if a project manager discovers an issue when inspecting a vent system, for example, they can include notes, photos, and videos to document that issue.
By capturing these details in our cloud-based system, any chance of misplacing important details related to that inspection is significantly reduced.
Ensure Checklists Are Used Every Time
In form settings, business owners can select the option to require project managers or crew members to fill out certain forms for certain job phases.
For example, if top-out has been finished, project managers or lead plumbers can be required to complete your top-out inspection checklist before they’re able to move on to the next phase of that project.
This fosters accountability through automation, reducing stress on owners and executives, while ensuring SOPs are followed in the field for every job.
While having a flexible digital forms tool is an important asset for solving the challenges of paper or manual forms, this is just scratching the surface of how ServiceTitan can help plumbing contractors streamline project management.
How ServiceTitan Streamlines Plumbing Project Management
To demonstrate how our platform can assist plumbing contractors in facilitating project management, we’ll walk through some of our construction management features, including:
Project dashboard
Estimates
Purchase orders
Job costing
Progress billing
Manage Projects from the Project Overview Dashboard
When a new project is created in ServiceTitan, a project overview page is automatically generated. From this one visible location, contractors and project managers can:
View all of the basic project information (project name, job address, contact information, customer phone number, etc.).
View and log tasks for the project.
Access project financials including project job costing and expense details that update automatically throughout a project.
Initiate key actions such as generating an estimate, purchase order, application for payment, invoice, and more.
View team members involved in the project.
Access an audit trail including events, notes, and project documentation.
Build Estimates with Accurate Pricing
Project estimates allow you to build detailed construction estimates by adding all of the specific tasks, equipment, and materials that will be needed to do the work. Users have the option to draw from pre-built job estimate templates or build estimates from scratch.
Tasks, materials, and equipment can all be tagged with color-coded project labels to organize the project details and make everything easy to visualize. For example, you might apply “rough-in” and “materials” labels for:
Gas piping
Water piping (copper, PVC, PEX)
Shut-off valves
Supply lines
Waste lines
Vent pipes
Foot vents
DWV
Drain traps (s-traps, p-traps, etc.)
Backflow preventers
Nail plates
Trap arm
etc.
In addition, pricing and markups for each line item are automatically calculated based on the most up-to-date prices in your pricebook.
Once an estimate is complete, it can be printed, emailed, or exported in PDF format and sent to the client. If amendments are made to originally approved plans, estimates can be updated or additional estimates can be created as needed throughout the project.
Initiate Requisition and Purchase Orders
When an estimate is sold, all of the details you’ve set up are automatically integrated into the rest of the project management workflow. For example, you can initiate a requisition of equipment and materials right from within your sold estimate.
For example, let’s say at the beginning of a project, you want to start the process of ordering your permits and materials for the plumbing system — you can select those items right from your estimate, which will lead you through a workflow to create the purchase orders you’ll need.
In the purchase order workflow, the line items are automatically populated from your estimate. You can simply select your vendors and shipping locations for each material to complete your order details.
Then, you can save that order to create a transaction and send those purchase orders to your vendors — without ever leaving ServiceTitan.
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Automate Project Financials and Job Costing
As you progress through a job — creating purchase orders, logging labor hours, processing change orders, receiving progress payments, and so on — ServiceTitan automatically provides up-to-date project financials and job costing.
Instead of constantly needing to update a series of spreadsheets every time labor costs and material costs are incurred, this is done automatically for you in real-time, based on work that’s completed and entered into the system.
If we continue with our example from above, and you’ve made your initial purchase order of permits and materials, your project summary table is updated to reflect those expenses:
Furthermore, you can view a more detailed breakdown of your actual costs versus your budgeted costs.
This will automatically update as you accumulate expenses from materials, equipment, and labor hours. It will display your margins in dollar and percent form to help you track job costs and profitability throughout your project.
You can also access a table breaking down your expenses in further detail:
You can click on any line item and see the exact source of that expense (e.g., which technician logged those hours, or which purchase orders and vendors a given set of materials came from). This allows you to easily check your numbers and feel confident in your data sources.
When it comes time to send applications for payment and invoices at each stage of progress billing, this can also be easily accomplished from the project overview dashboard.
Automate Progress Billing and Invoicing
The initial estimate you created also informs and populates your continuation sheet in your application for payment:
No more reinventing the wheel for every asset that needs to be created throughout your project. When sending a payment application, you can easily generate one by selecting the billing period and the percent of each line item you want to bill for.
Then, you can generate a PDF payment application with the details automatically filled out, and send it off to your client for review. The detail of the continuation sheet makes for a bill that’s much easier to defend in the event of pushback from construction companies or general contractors. As a result, subcontractors can get paid faster and avoid cash flow issues.
When applications are accepted, it’s just as easy to generate an invoice for that progress payment. And, when payments come in, you can update your accounts receivable through our Viewpoint, Sage, QuickBooks, and CSV accounting integrations.
Get a Personalized Demo of ServiceTitan Construction Software
What we’ve covered above is just a sampling of the features that ServiceTitan offers for facilitating construction project management. We also offer features for time tracking, inventory management, and more.
If you’re interested in learning more about how ServiceTitan’s cloud-based platform can help you manage and grow profitability in your contracting business, schedule a call with us for a live, one-on-one walk-through of the features and functionality we’ve discussed throughout this post.
