A five-minute walkaround catches the cracked hose before it becomes a $12,000 hydraulic failure at 2 pm. This pre-operation checklist covers dozers, excavators, loaders, graders, and compactors with 22 inspection line items, machine-hour tracking, and a deficiency log with corrective-action follow-through.
Or skip the spreadsheet
Gradelog tracks every machine — hours, utilization, issues, and calibration records — tied to the jobs it worked. No more clipboard archaeology.
OSHA 1926.601 and 1926.602 require vehicles and earthmoving equipment to be checked at the beginning of each shift to ensure safe operating condition, and MSHA has parallel requirements on mine sites. Beyond compliance, documented inspections are your defense when a rental house claims you returned a machine damaged.
Cover fluids (engine oil, hydraulic, coolant), leaks, tracks or tires, cutting edges and GET, pins and bushings, hoses, belts, ROPS/FOPS structure, seatbelt, glass and mirrors, lights, backup alarm, horn, fire extinguisher, and steps and handholds. In the cab, check gauges, brakes, steering, and controls before putting the machine to work.
The deficiency gets written down, reported to a named person, and triaged: safety-critical defects (brakes, steering, structural cracks, dead backup alarm) take the machine out of service immediately; non-critical items get scheduled for repair and tracked to closure. An inspection program without corrective-action follow-through is just paperwork.
Hour readings recorded daily give you accurate utilization for job costing, trigger preventive-maintenance intervals on time, and catch idle-heavy machines that should be moved or returned to the rental house. They also verify rental invoices — machines are routinely billed for more hours than they actually ran.