Writing documentation for your house • Hacker News Board

Re: Writing documentation for your house

#321

Post by graton » Fri, Dec 01, 2023, 7:02 PM UTC

abanayev wrote: post #311

graton wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When you post an affiliate link it would be nice if you stated so. This has the affiliate tag of: pmg097-20 Without any affiliate link it is: https://www.amazon.com/DYMO-Authentic-Industrial-RhinoPro-18...

Interesting - why do you say it would be nice if the posted stated that it was an affiliate link? Do you feel it takes away an option from you or reduces the link's value?

It reduces the link value to me since now the poster is financially motivated to post it. So do I trust that it really is a good product or is the poster just posting an affiliate link so that they can earn money or is it somewhere in-between.

Re: Writing documentation for your house

#322

Post by kkfx » Fri, Dec 01, 2023, 9:46 PM UTC

Since I'm in a new home, partially self made (electricity, with p.v., part of the hot water and self-consumption related automation) yes, I've thought much, but so far did not do much on that topic.

If I'll die unexpectedly or fell ill seriously my family do not know how to handle Home Assistant and many parts of the home automation, even if it's not something exceptional an average electrician really likely can't as well understand how things works because... Automation is software and most only know pre-cooked tools by some well known brands...

However even if I'll document anything a day I'm not sure who can profit from such docs, essentially nobody would keep up a homeserver for third parties, at least not at a reasonable price...

Re: Writing documentation for your house

#323

Post by jakupovic » Sun, Dec 03, 2023, 1:50 PM UTC

j45 wrote: post #255

jakupovic wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a wishlist not something that you can buy. What's available now is a mix of random open and closed source hardware and software that requires a lot of time and HA to tie it all together

I don’t disagree. With each iteration and replacement I’m discovering there’s more out there. For example instead of using a random computer or pi, installing a home assistant yellow presents to a future home owner as more of an appliance. https://www.home-assistant.io/yellow/ This is a nice gateway for non technical but “I can find someone to help me with this system”. Same goes for particular groups of hardware. Yo…

For myself HA has been the best thing since, like, forever. I personally love it, if not obvious. The hardware part is still complicated because of this pull-down stuff and just a mix of randomness as everyone is developing all kinds of things to do "stuff". HA ties it together enough to be useful and more. Just this morning I was thinking it's really cool I can try to correlate my waking with CO2/humidity levels and what happens when the furnace runs? For the curious, having furnace run helps everything

Re: Writing documentation for your house

#324

Post by t0mas88 » Mon, Dec 04, 2023, 7:31 PM UTC

nelsonic wrote: post #250

t0mas88 wrote: post #236

Many stories from people creating documentation only for it to get thrown away. Let me share an opposite one: I bought a house that was empty after divorce, both had moved out some months before. We mostly dealt with the agent, only saw one of the previous owners for a very short time at the signing meeting with the notary. Then in the house we found a "congratulations on your new place" card, a bottle of sparkling w…

Could you share a photo (with any sensitive detail obfuscated) to give us an idea of what this looks like? We are hoping to produce something similar for our house.

Not mine, but Googled one that looks the same for the electricity: https://i.pinimg.com/originals/69/f9/18/69f9183fd01faa4f31eb...

The things like L1 and J4 etc indicate which switches are connected to each light fixture (the number matches) and on which breaker (the character) they're connected.

Similar for construction, a plan for where all the walls are, which ones are load bearing and which are not etc.

Re: Writing documentation for your house

#325

Post by grepfru_it » Fri, Dec 08, 2023, 4:06 AM UTC

gooseyman wrote: post #22

grepfru_it wrote: post #14

I do this for my rental property. I have a complete guide from onboarding to offboarding tenants. Process guides for 6 month checkups, instruction guides on how to use the alarm system, changing locks and codes, dimensions of all appliance cubbies etc etc etc My wife wants nothing to do with the rental aspect but when she had to handle management for a few weeks she couldn’t stop gushing over my OneNote administrativ…

This is awesome. Have you ever considered publishing these?

Nope. This is what gives me an advantage over my neighbors. IP baby.

Re: Writing documentation for your house

#326

Post by avikalp » Wed, Dec 13, 2023, 6:29 AM UTC

RasmusMerirand wrote: post #169

avikalp wrote: post #77

Wow, I had been thinking about this for so long! I have had the same problems and was thinking of solutions on the same line. Although, even as a developer, I am not a big fan of how much time and energy we need to spend maintaining documentation. So while I build something to work towards automating documentation in software (with my effort at vibinex.com), I have also been thinking about home documentation automati…

What thoughts have you had?

One was related to smart cupboards (fitted with weight sensors and cameras) that can automatically account for every item you put in or withdraw from it.

Another one was related to furniture modifications so that it efficiently utilizes space according to the need (similar to many modular furniture concepts). One of these ideas, I have documented here: https://avikalpg.github.io/blog/articles/20210923_proj_dual_...

Simpler ideas were the same as the original post: an app for everyone in the house to keep track of inventory or chores. I was thinking more about chores because someone might have done a chore I am unaware of - so I might either make duplicate efforts or procrastinate. But this is not a great idea because 70% of this can be solved using a WhatsApp group and asking everyone to update it whenever they pick or complete any chore.