Writing documentation for your house
luke.hsiao.dev
Writing documentation for your house
1–10 of 326 posts
Re: Writing documentation for your house
#2The idea of writing technical documentation for your home seems like excellent advise. I think many people do this in an informal manner. I'm not sure a full blown mkdoc setup is necessary -- of having your "home repair/maintenance" notes in their own subfolder of an Obsidian vault or git repository might be sufficient. In my own experience, having quick access to this info has made troubleshooting easier a number of times recently during some repairs and renovations.
Re: Writing documentation for your house
#3I've been attempting to do something like this, but realized quite quickly many things need a video. e.g. Writing out how to change the furnace filter just made no sense (the layout of the furnace makes it really tricky) but a 1 minute video just did the trick.
I like the structure laid out here, gives me a good idea on how to start on something that would work for me.
Re: Writing documentation for your house
#4I've been attempting to do something like this, but realized quite quickly many things need a video. e.g. Writing out how to change the furnace filter just made no sense (the layout of the furnace makes it really tricky) but a 1 minute video just did the trick. I like the structure laid out here, gives me a good idea on how to start on something that would work for me.
It's the sort of thing I imagine products like the Meta Ray Ban glasses might be good for. Any time you start doing one of those annoying complex maintenance tasks that you forget how to do every time (the other night for me it was dismantling the toilet cistern since it blocks once every couple of years ...), you just click the glasses on and next time you can watch back what you did the first time.
Re: Writing documentation for your house
#5I have a gmail account that I cc stuff to - receipts for any major chattels or work, engineering reports, wall cavities before lining (showing cable runs and nog spacing etc).
Probably not as usable as this system, but pretty low effort and able to be passed on to the next owner easily if/when we move
Re: Writing documentation for your house
#6I have a gmail account that I cc stuff to - receipts for any major chattels or work, engineering reports, wall cavities before lining (showing cable runs and nog spacing etc). Probably not as usable as this system, but pretty low effort and able to be passed on to the next owner easily if/when we move
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Re: Writing documentation for your house
#7I own an RV. The RV came with two thick manuals, one for the RV chassis, and one for all of the appliances that were factory installed. I am not the first owner of the RV. My brother, a meticulous military man kept the documentation for every appliance and gadget he installed in that RV.
And since I took ownership of it, and have I been ever grateful that he documented it, I have done the same too, for the WiFi, for the networking, for the tool shed, for sit-to-stand desks, for the oven, for the plubming, and so forth.
And I've applied the same rigorous principle to the house now as well for about the past three years. I kept documentation prior, but nothing so deep until the RV came along.
Two thick ring binders, one for the house "chassis" and one for the appliances in the house.
Instructions on how to reset the internet, instructions on how to "reboot" the water heater, instructions on how to change the AC filters, the model numbers required for the filters, and why there is no "air return" vents on the AC for the next owner, and also as a reminder to myself. Documentation on the maintenance of having the black water lines replaced after one of them collapsed, how to access the clean out hatch on the black water lines. Where wires in the walls are run too. The circuit breakers are each carefully labelled too. It gets written up in OneNote so it is searchable, and then it gets put in to the three-ring binder, with sections for each area, e.g. garage, master bedroom, kitchen, etc. And lots of paint codes for each individual wall.
It doesn't take long if you do it step-by-step rather than try to boil the ocean all at once, and you will be grateful you did it for years to come. And your home, unlike the software developed by your team, doesn't tend to change all that fast.
Re: Writing documentation for your house
#8The idea of writing technical documentation for your home seems like excellent advise. I think many people do this in an informal manner. I'm not sure a full blown mkdoc setup is necessary -- of having your "home repair/maintenance" notes in their own subfolder of an Obsidian vault or git repository might be sufficient. In my own experience, having quick access to this info has made troubleshooting easier a number of…
Seems like the perfect territory for a wiki. "Appliances/Furnace/Yearly Maintenance"
Re: Writing documentation for your house
#9The house we live in now came with a paper version of this from the original owner/builder (along with almost a "dream" book section of where they got some of the ideas from). It was super helpful to have blueprints and things like paint codes, although the last owner had changed a couple rooms and didn't update it. The last owner did add some details on some plants they put in, which has been really valuable as well. My favorite part has been having receipts for lots of little custom things they added.
Re: Writing documentation for your house
#10This is great advice. I have a ton of documents with the home I bought, but I can't seem to find when the roof was replaced. It took me months to discover I had a sprinkler system and I was amazed when I figured out how to use it. Something like this would be very convenient.