Note
Photos as Site Evidence: What to Capture Before You Leave
Most site photos prove the crew showed up. They show a rooftop, a panel, a row of LED fittings. If a dispute comes up six months later about what was installed, which circuit it connects to, or what the inverter serial number is, those photos are nearly useless.
The gap between “we took site photos” and “we have photographic evidence” is what causes return trips, extended warranty arguments, and conversations nobody wants to have with a factory’s electrical engineer.
Site photos are evidence when they record what was installed, where it sits in the building, what serial numbers are on it, and what it showed during testing. Everything else is background.
What makes a photo usable six months later?
Useful evidence has four properties:
- Readable labels. Panels, inverters, luminaires, isolators, and circuit breakers all carry identifiers that matter. If the label is unreadable in the photo, the photo does not exist as evidence.
- Identifiable context. “DB panel” is not a location. “MDB, Building B, east wall, ground floor” is. Including a zone label, floor number, or reference marker makes the location clear without a separate annotation.
- Metadata timestamps. Every modern phone writes the time and date into each photo file automatically. This is free evidence of when the work was completed, and it matters when a customer’s insurance or warranty claim depends on the install date.
- Sequence for concealed work. Anything that goes behind a wall, inside a ceiling, or into a conduit needs a photo before it is covered. Once the surface is closed, there is no way to show what is behind it without opening it again.
What are the four categories every install needs?
Most installations benefit from four types of photos. Treating them as distinct categories, rather than a vague instruction to “take some pictures,” is what turns a photo habit into a usable record.
Before-install reference. One photo of each area before work begins. The purpose is not primarily to document the customer’s existing property condition, though that is a side benefit. The purpose is to have a baseline so that later questions about pre-existing configuration or damage do not become verbal arguments.
During-install, for concealed work. Conduit runs before ceiling tiles go back. Wire terminations inside a junction box before it is closed. Cable entries before sealing. This is the category easiest to skip when work is moving quickly, and the most expensive to miss.
Equipment ID shots. Every major component on this job: inverter nameplate with serial number, distribution board with breaker ratings and circuit labels, luminaire batch label if the model appears on the customer’s asset register, meter serial number. These are the photos a warranty claim lives or dies on.
Test and commissioning shots. A photo of the inverter display at first live startup. A lux reading with the meter serial visible. These do not replace a signed test report, but they are photographic confirmation that the system was working on the day of handover, alongside the written commissioning results that belong in the signed record.
What does a complete set look like for a typical install?
Take a rooftop solar install at a factory in Pathum Thani: 20 panels, a 10kW inverter, two strings, connected to the factory’s main distribution board. A complete photo set for this job would include:
- Roof layout from one corner, with the array orientation visible
- String wiring at the combiner box before covers are fitted (1 to 2 photos)
- DC isolator, closed and clearly labelled
- Inverter nameplate with serial number, readable and unobstructed
- AC connection at the main board, with the dedicated breaker and its rating visible
- Metering panel with meter serial
- Inverter display at commissioning showing live output
That is roughly 8 to 12 photos for a single-inverter system. A larger system with multiple subarrays needs proportionally more, but the categories stay the same.
For an industrial LED retrofit: add the distribution board connection point with circuit label, a lux reading at one representative point with meter serial visible, and the luminaire fixture label for any model the customer will maintain themselves.
Does the volume of photos matter?
Not in itself. A hundred photos of the same panel from the same angle are less useful than ten photos that each show something different. The practical test: could someone who was not on site reconstruct what was installed, in which zone, at what rating, and what it showed on the day, using only these photos and the job sheet? If the answer is yes, the set is complete. If the answer requires a phone call to the crew, the set has gaps.
How do you make sure the photos are findable when you need them?
Photos are evidence only when you can retrieve them. A technician’s phone holds photos from six jobs across three months. The site group chat has photos mixed with unrelated messages. Neither is a record.
A usable system ties photos to a job record at close: when the job is closed, the photos that close with it become part of the permanent site record for that installation. The job record is what you open when the customer calls eighteen months later. Filing photos to the job at close, rather than sorting them at some later point, is what separates a record from a folder full of unnamed images.
FAQ
What if the customer’s engineer is not present during commissioning?
Photos taken without the engineer present are still valid records. Send them to the customer contact the same day, noting what was captured and when. This gives the customer a timestamped record they can share with their engineer, and it starts a paper trail that does not depend on anyone’s memory.
Can photos replace a signed test report?
No. A photo of a meter reading confirms that a reading was taken. It is not a signed test report. For installations that require a formal inspection certificate, the test document is the primary record and the photos support it. In practice, both matter: the test report shows what was measured, and the photos show the physical configuration at the time.
Who should take the photos: the technician or the site supervisor?
The technician doing the work is the right person, because they are present throughout. The risk is that the same person evaluating whether to take a photo is also the person who knows the work is routine. A short category checklist reviewed by the site supervisor at close, rather than during the work itself, closes most of that gap without adding a separate role.
The structure described here requires photos to travel with the job record, not with the technician’s phone. Field Operation System’s TRACE 30 install builds job orders around photos rather than text fields: a job order cannot close without the required photos attached, and the closed job feeds the site register automatically. If that kind of close-gate structure is what you are trying to put in place, the program page describes how the 30-day install works and what it puts in place before it ends.