What does this form do? DA Form 4178 is titled FACILITIES ENGINEERING OPERATING LOG (SEWAGE-SUPPLEMENTARY), and its job is to facilities engineering operating log (sewage-supplementary). Anyone sent to find "the 4178" is being sent here. Everything below expands on that one function.
Am I looking at the right edition? The copy here carries the date 10/01/1973 and the status ACTIVE. Forms in the DA series are identified by edition date rather than by revision number, so that date is what you compare against.
Who is responsible for this document? G-9 maintains it, and AR 420-1 prescribes when it is used and where it goes. Completion falls to the person the entries describe or to the administrative staff holding the file. As for effort: unknown page(s), roughly unknown fields.
Download the form
What can I download here? The formats available are none published here. Each one reproduces the identical official layout. What separates them is the method of entry, nothing on the page itself.
What is the difference between fillable and printable? A fillable pdf has live fields that accept typing and can be saved with your entries in place. A printable pdf is the same blank page with no live fields, meant to come out of a printer and be completed with a pen. Both print identically once filled.
Do I need special software? Not for reading — a pdf opens in the browser you already have. For filling, install a full pdf reader rather than trusting the in-browser viewer, which sometimes displays fields it cannot save. Type into one field, save, reopen and confirm the text survived.
Does the download cost anything? No. There is no charge, no account and no email address to surrender, and the file you receive is the published document with nothing added to it.
What goes in first? The heading block — your name exactly as official records show it, then identification number, then organisation, then the date you prepared the form. Is the order important? It is, because those four entries become the index for the finished record, and an error there is the one mistake that hides the document from everyone looking for it.
How do you move through the fields? By tab, not by mouse. The tab order was fixed when the form was built and generally follows the reading order of the page, so following it is the simplest way to avoid skipping a box. What about check boxes? Click them. If a group is exclusive, your new selection clears the old one — that is the design, not a malfunction.
Why does my text vanish when I print? Because one-line fields have no wrap, and anything past the field width is truncated on paper even though the screen shows all of it. Where should the overflow go? Into remarks, or onto a continuation. What about entries that do not apply? Enter the mark meaning "none". Blank space is ambiguous; a reviewer cannot tell an omission from a considered nil.
Where does the signature belong in the sequence? At the very end, by hand or by an accepted electronic means. An unsigned form is a draft regardless of how full it is. Are countersignatures needed? Where the form provides for them — reviewing official, approving authority, witness — taken in printed order and dated on the day applied. What should you check before releasing it? Empty mandatory fields, digit transposition in identification numbers, day-month inversion in dates, and residue from an old copy used in place of a blank one.
What is the Privacy Act statement on the page? A notice appearing wherever personal information is collected, setting out the authority for the collection, the purpose, the routine uses, and whether your disclosure is mandatory or voluntary. When should you read it? At the point you reach it, before entering the details it covers. And afterwards? Your completed copy holds personal data and is stored and transmitted under the rules that apply to such records.
Where do you send it? To the destination the prescribing directive names, which may be a specific office, the unit administrative channel, or the individual's file. Is a copy worth keeping? Always, and taken before submission. How long does the receiving office keep it? For the period the records schedule for the series prescribes, regardless of local custom.
What if this form is not the only one you need? Search by series and number. Within the DA series, forms under the same proponent or the same prescribing directive tend to be required as a set, and anything named on the face of one normally accompanies it. Are continuations part of that? They are, along with covers and transmittals, and all of them are collected in advance rather than after a query.
When is an edition replaced? When the proponent revises the form and publishes a new edition date. What should you do with a copy kept on your own machine? Check its date against the edition in force before reusing it. Does the change reach backwards? It does not; work already completed on an earlier edition remains valid as filed.
Is this an official Department of the Army site? No. It is an independent site distributing reproductions of published Department of the Army documents for download, with no authority to issue forms. Does it guarantee acceptance of anything you submit? It does not, and nothing on the page is legal advice. Who should you ask instead? G-9 or your servicing administrative office, whenever an entry, a requirement or your eligibility is in doubt.
Questions and answers
- What is DA Form 4178?
- FACILITIES ENGINEERING OPERATING LOG (SEWAGE-SUPPLEMENTARY)
- Which edition is current?
- 10/01/1973
- Who is responsible for this form?
- G-9
- In which formats can it be downloaded?
- No file published here