Christmas Shutdown Site Security Checklist (Free Download)

Your last day is a Friday in December. The gate gets chained and nobody is back until January. A Christmas shutdown checklist for a construction site works backwards from that Friday, because most of what protects the job gets done in the weeks before it.

This one is split by timing: four weeks out, the last week on site, lock-up day, during the break, and the first day back. Grab the full PDF at the bottom.

The Christmas shutdown checklist at a glance

Five stages, five different jobs. Most teams do lock-up day well and leave the booking too late, and booking decides whether a camera is there at all.

Four weeks out: walk the site and lock in cover

Start in the first half of November. Walk the job with your last day in mind and list what is staying behind: plant, containers, a generator, materials that landed for January. Mark the blind spots, the back fence nobody drives past and the laydown behind the shed.

Then get a quote. Siteguard's solar camera towers come in four configurations. A Single Cam covers one gate or container at 4K 8MP with a 95° field of view. A Twin Cam gives 180° front and rear coverage with siren, strobe and battery backup. A Pan & Zoom 360° Cam suits open ground, with up to 1km zoom. Our guide to Christmas break security camera hire covers what a shutdown hire includes.

Book while install slots are open. A quote sitting unapproved on 10 December is not cover.

The last week: install, test and strip it back

Install on the Monday of your last week, not the Friday. Four days with the crew on site is enough to re-aim a camera pointing at a hoarding, redraw a detection zone around parked plant, and confirm alerts land.

The same week, make the site less worth visiting. Take tools home. Hold back high-value deliveries such as hot water units and appliances until they can be installed in January. Record serial numbers, lock cabs and fuel caps, and park plant inside the fence line.

Anything left out needs somewhere to go. A Shark Cage is the lockable, vandal-resistant steel casing on the tower itself, so tools sit inside the structure that is watching them. For the shed, our post on site shed break-ins covers hardening the door.

Lock-up day: the final walk

Lock-up day is not just the gate. SafeWork NSW's site security checklist covers securing the perimeter fence, signage with an after-hours contact number, switching off site power, blocking access to upper floors, scaffolding and ladders, covering voids and trenches, capping reinforcement bars and emptying water drums. Run it as a walk, not a memory test, and photograph as you go.

Switching off site power is the step that catches people out. Anything on the temporary board stops with it, including wired lighting and mains cameras. Solar units keep running, which is why a shutdown hire is usually solar. Finish by checking the camera view on your phone from outside the fence.

During the break: who answers the alarm at 2am

Fewest tick boxes, most at stake. A camera that records gives you footage in January. A camera that sends alerts gives someone a notification, which only helps if that person picks up on Boxing Day.

With control room monitoring, an Australian-based operator verifies every alarm, issues audio warnings and triggers the siren, and escalates to the authorities when required. That runs 24/7, weekends and public holidays included. This year Christmas Day is Friday 25 December, with Boxing Day on the Saturday and a substitute holiday on the Monday in most states.

Either way, write the contact roster before the gates close. Name who gets called first, who backs them up, and who can authorise sending someone to site. Our post on Christmas shutdown 2026 dates has the state-by-state detail.

First day back: walk before anyone works

Walk it before the first trade starts. Check the fence line, gates, containers, shed, plant and fuel against your November list. Look for attempted entry as well as missing gear. A cut mesh panel tells you the site was found, even if nothing went.

Then review the break in Siteguard Foreman. Event records give you the time and entry point, which is what an insurer and the police ask for first. Report losses the same day and get an event number. See protecting plant and machinery over the shutdown and what Australian sites lose over the break.

Off-hire last. The final nights carry the same risk as the first, so keep the unit on site until after your first day back.

Get the full Christmas shutdown checklist (PDF)

The printable version has all five stages as tick boxes, with the lock-up walk on its own page so a supervisor can carry it round the boundary.

Gate already chained? The guide to securing your site over the Christmas shutdown covers the plan behind the list, and the last-day lock-up walk is worth doing late.

Frequently asked questions