RTI: Photo-Gated Construction Inspections That Actually Prove the Work

The standard construction QC workflow is informal by default. Field crews call a supervisor, send a group text, or complete a paper checklist that may or may not make it back to the office. When a defect surfaces later — during a warranty claim, a code violation review, or a scope dispute — the question 'was this actually inspected?' has no reliable answer. RTI was built to give that question a provable one. The platform's central mechanism is the photo gate: checklists launched from a QR-tagged inspection point stay pending until the required photos are attached. This is not a reminder, not a best practice, not a configurable option. Paper checklists can be signed without the work being done. Software with optional photo fields can be submitted without them. RTI removes the option: the submission stays pending until the evidence exists.

The core workflow follows four steps that require no formal software training for field crews. A QR sticker is placed at the inspection point — a door frame, an HVAC unit, an electrical panel. A crew member scans it with a phone camera — no dedicated app account needed to complete a checklist — fills it in, attaches the required photos, and submits. Submissions land on a single review board where management approves or sends back with a note. When all project inspections are approved, RTI generates a turnover package: a six-section PDF — Cover sheet, Checklists, Photo evidence, Signatures, Audit statement, and Exports — ready for client sign-off through a dedicated customer portal. The platform's checklist library includes 101 guides across 9 trades — General, Roofing, Electrical, Fire Protection, Insulation, HVAC, Plumbing, Sitework, and Controls — each mapped to named published standards: NEC, NFPA 13, IMC, IPC, ACI, and others. Custom checklists can also be built from scratch with any combination of sections, items, and photo requirements. Offline mode is designed for sites where coverage is unreliable: submissions and photos queue on-device and sync automatically when connectivity returns.

If a subcontractor disputes whether an inspection took place, or whether results were altered after completion, RTI's audit trail gives you a defensible answer — not a claim, but a mathematical proof. Every inspection record stores the SHA-256 hash of the previous record; change any record and every hash after it stops matching. That break is permanent and cannot be patched after the fact. Most construction documentation software stores records in a database. RTI does too, with this addition: the chain makes any modification permanently visible, regardless of who made it or when. Photos are stored in private encrypted buckets with access links that expire after one hour — the visual evidence is as protected as the record metadata. This level of tamper-evident documentation typically lives in enterprise compliance tools. RTI brings it to general contractors and residential builders who have never had access to it at a project-appropriate price point.

RTI offers two plans — Crew at $79/month and Company at $299/month — both with per-project billing and unlimited users. The active project count during a billing period is what determines cost, not headcount. Add field crews, inspectors, subcontractors, and clients without the subscription cost changing. Finished projects remain readable and exportable forever at no additional charge — a meaningful detail for warranty periods and dispute resolution that may arrive years after project close. All records are exportable at any time and remain accessible even after cancellation. The 14-day trial requires no credit card. The checklist library is not a generic QC template set adapted from another industry. Each of the 101 guides maps to named published standards — NEC, NFPA 13, IMC, IPC, ACI — built for the inspection types those standards actually govern. A live demo is available at readytoinspect.io/demo for teams that want to walk the workflow before committing to a trial account.

RTI is most valuable for teams where inspection documentation currently relies on informal communication: group texts confirming completion, verbal sign-offs that aren't recorded, or paper checklists that exist in a filing cabinet until something goes wrong. General contractors running residential or light commercial projects, MEP subcontractors who need to document their work before the GC's final inspection, and project managers who currently compile turnover packages from shared drive photos and email threads are the immediate fit. The platform's scope is narrow by design — quality control documentation only. Scheduling, procurement, financial management, and BIM remain outside it. For teams already running a dedicated construction management suite, RTI fills the photo-gated, tamper-evident inspection gap those platforms typically don't enforce at the field level. For smaller contractors without a dedicated construction management platform, RTI functions as the documentation spine of the QC process.