Before the Gates Open: 10 Checks Worth Making This Week

Most site teams will already have the routine jobs covered. The more useful question this week is: what can go wrong when a building moves from six weeks of low occupancy back to full use almost overnight?

Here are ten checks worth making before pupils return.

1. Water hygiene: find the outlets that have genuinely been sitting idle

The obvious taps may have been used over the summer. The less obvious ones may not have been.

Think showers, cleaners’ sinks, external taps, spare classrooms and little-used toilets. Check the flushing regime has covered the whole system and that any summer plumbing changes have been picked up in the water records.

2. Summer works: finished is not the same as handed over

A contractor leaving site does not necessarily mean the space is ready to use.

Check that commissioning, certificates, drawings and handover information have actually arrived, but also ask what the work has changed. New equipment may need servicing, new pipework may affect the water risk assessment, and alterations may affect fire or asbestos records.

3. Fire safety: check what the summer changed

The useful check is not simply whether the alarm works.

Look at what has physically changed: furniture moves, new partitions, altered doors, storage, temporary arrangements and contractor access routes. Make sure escape routes still work as intended and that significant changes have been reflected in the fire risk assessment.

4. Asbestos: check what was disturbed

If summer work involved drilling, cutting, opening ceilings or disturbing the building fabric, the key question now is whether anything could have affected known or suspected asbestos-containing materials.

If there is any uncertainty, establish exactly where work took place before the area is reoccupied. Also make sure the asbestos register reflects anything removed, exposed or newly identified during the works.

5. Gas and heating: confirm the summer jobs actually happened

There is no need to invent a special September heating regime, but this is the moment to check that planned servicing, repairs or alterations were completed.

If boilers, kitchen systems or gas supplies were isolated or worked on during the summer, confirm they have been properly returned to service and that the relevant documentation is in place.

6. Access control: remove the summer permissions

Summer works often create temporary access arrangements that nobody remembers to reverse.

Contractor fobs, temporary PINs, spare keys and altered door settings can easily survive into term time. Check permissions are back to normal, temporary access has been removed and powered gates or barriers are operating properly.

7. Find out what is still connected to an old phone line

This one is increasingly important.

The old PSTN and ISDN network is being switched off, and schools can have more connected to it than expected: alarms, lift emergency phones, door-entry systems, CCTV and other building equipment.

September 2026 is a sensible point to identify anything still dependent on an old analogue line before the national switch-off reaches its final stages.

8. Check what expired quietly during August

Some inspection dates have an awkward habit of falling in the middle of the holidays.

Check whether anything such as lift or hoist examinations, electrical inspections or other planned servicing became due while the site was quiet. SEN hoists are an obvious example where an expired examination can become a day-one problem.

9. Test systems under real conditions, not just at the control panel

Some equipment looks perfectly healthy while nobody is using it.

Automatic doors, ventilation systems, pumps, kitchen refrigeration and similar equipment should be run before opening under conditions that resemble normal use.

Finding out on Tuesday morning that something works when idle but fails under demand is not ideal.

10. Check what six weeks of low footfall has hidden

This is where a quick external walk is still useful, but not simply to “check the grounds”.

Look for the things that are easier to miss when nobody is using the site normally: blocked drainage, overgrown sightlines, damaged fencing, gates that have barely moved, vandalism, surface damage or playground equipment that has deteriorated over the break.

The useful question

Most of these are not additional jobs. They are a different way of looking at the final few days before reopening.

Ask:

What has been unused, altered, isolated, worked on, temporarily changed or largely ignored for six weeks?

Those are the things most worth checking before the gates open.

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