Home owners instruction manual
I can be useful to collect together basic information about your home and how it works, how to look after it, and where you will find important information about services and construction. This can be particularly useful if you need to document and pass on this information to a future occupant, or if you are the primary custodian of the information and might need to pass it to other family members who may survive you!
What to keep and where
Keeping manuals for appliances, along with your own notes can be very helpful. Taking and keeping photographs (probably digitally these days) and including them can also help explain things far more easily. If you get stuck into a large DIY project, then keep the plans, notes, receipts, and photos of work in progress, they can be very useful later - sometimes even to yourself!
This all needs to be kept in an accessible form, that is easy to find. A printed copy, and perhaps electronic ones as well.
Categories of information
Here are some suggested entries for the home owners manual:
Water
- Where to find stopcocks
- Where drains run
- What storage tanks there are, and how to access them
- Details of water filters
- Details or water softeners
Plumbing
- Where are the main drains?
- Manhole covers?
- Is there mains drainage?
- Who owns sewers?
- Are services shared with any neighbours?
- Which drains are foul drains and which are surface water only
Gas
- Is there a gas service?
- Which appliances and where
- Where is the gas meter and the main shut off valve
Electricity
- Where is the main switch
- Where are the consumer unit(s), and what circuits they feed
- The earthing system used
- Any known faults
- Which circuits serve which areas / appliances
- How smoke alarms are powered
- Details of feeds to outbuildings
Heating
- What type of heating system(s) are fitted
- Where is the boiler?
- Where is it powered from, ho do you isolate it?
- What heating zones are there?
- What type of zoning?
- Where are the thermostats?
- How are they powered?
- How to program the timer
- Is it a vented or sealed system? If vented, where is the header tank?
Hot water
- How is hot water produced?
- Is there a cylinder?
- How is it heated?
- Is there a backup heater?
TV & Radio Aerials / Satellite dish
- Is there a main aerial or dish?
- Where are the TV points?
- How are they fed?
- Location or amplifiers / splitters / multi switch?
- What reception area are you in?
- Which transmitter?
Telephone / Broadband
- Landline(s) installed?
- Where are the phone points?
- Where is the master socket?
- What broadband services are available in the area?
- What is the expected broadband performance?
Security
- What keys work which locks?
- Is there a security system? If so, how to configure and use it?
Fences, hedges etc
- which fences, hedges walls etc are your responsibility?
- what if any maintenance do they need?
- who fitted/built (if not DIY)?
Trees
- any trees need routine attention?
- if so roughly how often?
- any recommended firms who have dealt with them?