Owner’s Manual

The operating manual for your house

Every house has an operating manual. Nobody ever wrote yours down. The only people who know how the place works are the contractors who bill you for knowing.

Three things it keeps

The facts

Filter sizes. Paint colors and finishes, by room, with the code off the can. Where the water shutoff is. Which breaker does what. Appliance models, serial numbers, and warranty dates.

The intervals

Filters, detector batteries, the water heater flush, gutters, HVAC service, the dryer vent, the chimney, the sump pump. The interesting part is not the list — it is knowing when each one last happened.

The history

What was done, when, by whom, and what it cost. This is dead weight for four years and then worth something twice: at resale, and at the warranty claim.

What it is not

It is not a marketplace and it will never sell your address to a contractor. It is not a home budget, a mortgage tracker, an insurance binder, or a property value forecast. Those get bolted on to justify a subscription, and this is not a subscription.