Answer

How long should a construction defect take to close?

As long as the due date you gave it, and not a day longer without someone hearing about it. There is no universal number: a safety item is hours, a cosmetic chip before handover is a week or two, a membrane failure waits on a trade and a drying time. What matters is that every defect carries a due date set when it is issued, that the clock is measured from when work actually started, and that the overdue ones announce themselves instead of waiting to be found. In IssuesId the due date goes on when the defect is issued, priority drives the timing, an in-progress stamp records when it was picked up, an overdue workflow rule chases it, and the Issued To report shows each trade’s open items oldest first.

ANSWERED FROM THE PRODUCT DOCS·UPDATED OCTOBER 2026
Before the tool

The number everyone asks for is the wrong number

“How long should a defect take” gets asked as if there were an industry figure. There is not one worth having. A chipped tile in a unit that hands over in ten days has a different clock from a lifted membrane that needs the plumber back, a drying period and a re-inspection. Average the two and you have a number that is wrong for both. The useful question is narrower: did this defect have a date, was the date reasonable for what it is, and did anyone find out when it passed. A register that answers yes to all three closes defects faster than any target would, because the slow ones cannot hide in it.

How it runs in IssuesId

Five steps, one date on every record

  1. 1Set the due date when you issue it, not when you notice it is late
    Issuing a defect to a trade in IssuesId emails them the job: the site and the room first, then the issue and the photos, and a link that opens the work without a login. The due date goes on at the same moment, while you are standing in front of the thing. A due date added three weeks later is a guess dressed as a plan.
  2. 2Let priority set the clock
    Priority is a field on the record, and it is what the timing hangs off. The set most builders settle on is short: a safety item today, a high-priority item inside two working days, a standard item in a week or two, and an item waiting on a product or a drying time given the date the trade actually names. The point is not the numbers. It is that two people issuing defects on the same job give the same kind of item the same kind of date.
  3. 3Measure from pick-up, not from capture
    The first time a defect leaves open, IssuesId stamps it in progress, and that stamp is never cleared or moved. So “how long did this take” has two honest answers: days since it was found, and days since someone started. The defect list filters on either, and the gap between them is where the chasing time hides.
  4. 4Make overdue loud
    An overdue workflow rule fires when a record passes its due date without progressing: notify the trade again, tell the site manager, re-flag the item. A digest rule runs on a schedule instead and sends the outstanding list on Monday morning to whoever should be uncomfortable about it. Nobody has to remember to look.
  5. 5Read ageing by trade, not by scrolling
    The Issued To report groups open defects by who they are issued to, in PDF or Excel, and can be scheduled to arrive on its own. Filter it to items past their fix-by date and you have the trade review in one page: who is on time, who is three weeks behind, and which items are the oldest.
Six days from capture, four from pick-up, one past due. All three numbers are on the record, and the Saturday escalation is why Monday happened.
Related questions

Asked alongside this one

How long should a construction defect take to close?
As long as the due date it was given when it was issued, and not a day past that without someone hearing about it. A safety item is hours, a cosmetic item before handover a week or two, an item waiting on a product or a drying time whatever date the trade names. In IssuesId the due date goes on when the defect is issued, priority drives the timing, the first move out of open stamps the record in progress so ageing is measured from pick-up, an overdue workflow rule escalates anything past its date, and the Issued To report lists each trade’s open items.
When does the clock start on a defect?
Twice. It starts once when the defect is captured, and again when work actually starts. IssuesId records both: the capture time on the record and the photo, and an in-progress timestamp set the first time the defect leaves open, which is never cleared or moved afterwards. The defect list filters on either date range, so “what got picked up this week” and “what has been sitting since March” are two different lists rather than one argument.
What happens when a defect goes overdue?
A workflow rule fires on the overdue trigger, meaning the record passed its due date without progressing, and does what you told it to: notify the trade again, escalate to the site manager or company admin, re-flag the item. A digest rule runs on a schedule instead, every Monday at seven for instance, and emails the outstanding list to the people who should see it. Every firing is logged, so “did anyone get told” has an answer.
How do you see which trade is slowest?
Run the Issued To report. It groups open defects by who they are issued to, in PDF or Excel, and a saved copy can be scheduled to arrive daily, weekly or monthly. Filter it to items past their fix-by date and the trade review is one page: who is on time, who is behind, and the oldest item on each trade’s list.
Read on

Where this answer comes from

The docs behind this answer are defects (priority, the fix-by filter and the in-progress stamp), workflow rules (the overdue trigger and digests) and reports (Issued To and scheduling). The same chasing loop applied to inspection findings is how do you track overdue inspection items across a large site?, and what the record needs to carry once the defect is closed is how do you prove a defect was fixed? For the whole lifecycle from open to verified close, read the construction defect lifecycle.

IssuesId