Field Notes and the Pre-Survey Questionnaire

The engine reads your field notes as an engineer's notes, not as a form. Write them the way you already do; a few habits make the draft markedly better.

What good notes look like

• By system, in walkthrough order, with a heading or a line break per system. The engine maps them to E2018's ten systems either way, but headings remove ambiguity.
• Located and quantified where you can. "Alligator cracking, drive aisle by dumpster, about 1,800 SF" produces a costed line; "some cracking in the lot" produces an engineer-to-provide line.
• Conditions and your rating. "Roof: fair; ponding NW quadrant ~200 SF with algae; seams open at two locations by RTU-3 curb; drain strainer missing SW." Each clause becomes an observation or a deficiency.
• Your opinion of remaining life where you have one. "RTU-4/5: 2009 nameplate, surface rust, RUL 2 years" sets the reserve line's RUL to your opinion rather than the table arithmetic, and the report says so.
• What you could not see and why. "Suites 102, 104, 201, 203 not accessed, tenants declined; canopy roof not walked, no safe access." These become the limiting conditions and the areas-not-accessed list.
• What the POC told you. "PM says catch basin always puddles after rain." Reported statements are attributed to the point of contact in the report.
• Documents not provided. One line each.

Do not write the report in the notes; that is the engine's job. Facts, locations, quantities, ratings, opinions and attributions are what it needs.

The questionnaire link

The job page shows a pre-survey questionnaire link. Send it to the property manager or owner's representative; it needs no sign-in. Their answers (system ages, repairs, warranties, pending work, violations, litigation, hazardous-materials surveys, accessibility complaints, flooding, tenant equipment) arrive on the job as reported information and are used the same way as your notes. You can also paste an emailed questionnaire into the questionnaire box yourself.

How attribution works

Every statement in the draft carries a source: observed (your notes and photographs), reported (the questionnaire and your notes of what the POC said), documented (extracted from a document) or not provided. The engine is instructed never to fill a gap with an assumption; if the roof's installation year is not in the notes, the questionnaire or a document, the reserve line says the year was not established and the RUL is an assumption for the engineer to confirm. This is E2018-24's disclosure-of-source rule applied mechanically, and it is why the notes should say where each fact came from.