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Writing documentation for your house

luke.hsiao.dev

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Re: Writing documentation for your house

#211

Post by somehnguy »

efitz wrote: post #17

For my last house, I had spent years on smart home automation, I had a binder that contained clear instructions I wrote for everything, and receipts for every upgrade I ever made on the home, warranty docs, QR codes to download smart home apps to control the devices, plot maps, floor plans, a 1-page list of repairmen for everything- you name it. I made short YouTube videos for everything like turning the water on/off…

I love the idea, but yeah that outcome was predictable. Home automation is very much still in the hobby stage and most people simply don't care about it.

I own my home & am into automation - but I don't plan on living in this house forever. As such I try to only install things that can be easily reversed when I move out, e.g wireless instead of hardwired smart switches - devices that piggyback on 'normal' home things. Otherwise I'm just giving the next owners thousands of dollars of things they don't want & unnecessary headaches.

Re: Writing documentation for your house

#212

Post by walteweiss »

darkwater wrote: post #146
AtlasBarfed wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, smart homes absolutely suck. Especially about four or five years removed, or, in this case, an owner change. This is like writing code vs figuring out someone else's code. Those are totally different things, and code is a bunch of readily accessible text files. Smart homes? Some device in the attic, some device in the basement, some wiring that goes who knows where, where does all this info go? What was t…

I have a (mostly) DYI smart-home, I mean, DYI as in "a Frankenstein of vendors and devices glued together by Zigbee, MQTT and Home Assistant", with some hard-deps on it in a couple of rooms and that gave me some bad nights when thinking about "what if I sell the home one day?" but reading the threads here I feel reassured: they will probably just rip it away and put some low-tech solution and call it a day.

Is it possible to rip off the devices and use it at your new location?

Re: Writing documentation for your house

#213

Post by incomingpain »

When I bought my house recently. I documented everything! I had everything in this blog! It was great, found an open source app to organize it. Very wiki-like.

I was so impressed with my accomplishment. Then I'm not sure what happened. The database wouldn't open anymore. None of my backups would work neither. Super confusing. 100% sure those backups ought to open but super wierd.

Worse yet, it should have been plain text disk storage... it wasnt anymore? There isn't any encryption or passwords for this simple app.

My tip: Make sure you use an app your familiar with.

Re: Writing documentation for your house

#214

Post by walteweiss »

chezball wrote: post #25

So, i sold a house i had in north Seattle after a divorce in 2018. We had bought it in 04, i was working at Microsoft at the time. We raised our son there. I even built a 8’x8’x8’ brick oven for baking pizza and bread (plans from Ovencrafters). I rented an excavator for a week and dug around the entire house and put in 12’ deep footing drains, with clean-out pipes every 20’ down the 100’ to the road. A new 2” pex wat…

What a wonderful story! We need to start a community of guys who documents their Jose’ houses. I am in the process of documenting mine, it is so very helpful for everything I ever do around it! Before this very post I never thought someone else could do that.

Re: Writing documentation for your house

#215

Post by tivert »

ozim wrote: post #192
philjohn wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is and it isn't. It's definitely on the "you don't need it" side of the scale, but if done thoughtfully it can make everyday life just a bit easier. Some of my favourite automations: 1. Whenever someone arrives home and it's started to get dark outside, automatically turn the hallway lights on if they're off 2. When turning off the TV in the lounge, and it's dark outside, and the lights are dimmed, bring them up t…

Talking about preferences I hate motion sensor lights I usually rather to walk in dark and get my eyes used to darkness. I still turn on lights when I get to bathroom or I get a glass of water in the end but somehow it feels better if I turn it on at the destination. Other thing is I hade all kinds of status LEDs - it is just insane with the bright ones. I know it is nice for quick troubleshooting during the day to k…

> Talking about preferences I hate motion sensor lights I usually rather to walk in dark and get my eyes used to darkness. I still turn on lights when I get to bathroom or I get a glass of water in the end but somehow it feels better if I turn it on at the destination.

I agree, it'd be super annoying if it turned the lights on full power. I had a motion sensor light in my old apartment. It was part of a Hue system and it would turn on a single bulb in the hall or bathroom (can't remember which) to the very lowest dimness level if someone was walking to the bathroom at night.

Re: Writing documentation for your house

#216

Post by tivert »

bowmessage wrote: post #124
Wistar wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A few years ago, I wrote the following comment in another thread here on HN. It is germane to this thread: Back in the early 90s — on a recommendation from a realtor who was a close friend of my brother's — I hired an inspector who was close to retirement. He worked with his wife who served as his assistant tasked with, in essence, taking dictation of her husband's near constant commentary as he conducted an incredib…

Sounds like you found a good one. Though I wonder why they didn’t recommend preventative maintenance on the water heater- if it was electric, why not replace the sacrificial anode?

> Though I wonder why they didn’t recommend preventative maintenance on the water heater- if it was electric, why not replace the sacrificial anode?

I tried to do that on my old water heater, and it's probably good I gave up. I couldn't get that nut to budge (even after buying some pipe to make a long breaker bar), and I think there's was a good chance I might have wreaked it if I did.

The thing was small, and we eventually just replaced it with a larger one that has the benefit of being new with a much more reliable control unit.

Re: Writing documentation for your house

#217

Post by walteweiss »

splitbrain wrote: post #161

As a first time home owner I fully agree. I set up a wiki and document everything. It's roughly organized by room. General Utilities have their own pages. Drawings, Photos, Invoices all get uploaded there. My wife writes down where which plants got planted in the garden and how they need to maintained. My hope is that this not only helps us when trying to remember where we put those cables or when an inspection is du…

Honestly, I thought I’m the only one who does that up until today!

Re: Writing documentation for your house

#218

Post by zie »

I start a fossil project for every house I work on (fossil-scm.org) I tend to use the Wiki function and set it up at some website somewhere, so I can refer to it while @ hardware stores, etc.

I always hand a copy off to whoever ends up owning the house, I doubt they ever use it, but it's handy while I am doing it to keep track of stuff. I do it for me. If it's useful for others, that's for them to determine.

Re: Writing documentation for your house

#219

Post by zie »

justinlloyd wrote: post #7

I 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…

I do this in a Fossil(fossil-scm.org) repository. I just take pictures and make PDF's of the manuals I get on paper.

It's awesome.

Re: Writing documentation for your house

#220

Post by MarkusWandel »

One thing that won't work is the "what exactly is the paint" thing. Even if the paint is still made, and the colour code is still valid... the paint won't match it. Paint fades over time. So you might as well just take a chip of it to the paint store for matching, and resign yourself to having to repaint one "surface" (to the nearest corners).

As for hidden "time capsules" - I actually left one of those as a kid in a house that was being built at the time. About 45 years later, with me long moved to another continent, that wall was being modified and they found the note behind the paneling and sent me a photo of it. I hadn't remembered leaving it there.

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