“Houses Ought to Have
An Owner Manual”
5 September 2005
If you buy a new car or refrigerator or a CD player or just about anything at all, you get an owner’s manual with it. But, buy a house and what do you get, nothing or maybe if you are lucky, a pile of papers, which are related to various appliances or other electrical or mechanical devices in your home. But where, for example, is the house water cutoff value or sewer cleanout? And I have never ever seen a house where the circuit breaker panel is actually marked correctly so that when you turn off breaker 1 or 5 or 20, what it is supposed to be controlling actually is turned off!
Houses
ought to come with owner manuals.
Inside the manual should be a floor plan map of all floors of the house
with all electric switches defined and which circuit breaker controls each
switch. Additionally, there should be a
floor plan map, which shows all wall outlets and what circuit breaker controls
each outlet or room. A floor plan map
is ever so much better than trying to search through the circuit breaker panel
listing looking for a specific room or part of one room.
Other
items, which should be in a house owner manual include:
-
Master
water cut off value location.
-
Sewer
cleanout location.
-
Location
of where water, natural gas, telephone and elecctricity enter the house.
-
Brand
and exact color of all paints used on walls, wood trim, anywhere.
-
Manufacturer
and specifications of all windows and doors.
-
Manufacturer,
model number and serial number of all appliances in the house.
-
Make,
model, serial number and tonnage of all air conditioner units.
-
Make,
model, serial number and BTU of furnace or heating system.
-
Make,
model of any baseboard heating elements.
-
Make
and model of all recessed lighting fixtures.
-
Make,
model and serial number of garage door opener.
-
Make
and model of all installed thermostats.
-
Make
and model of all installed shower doors.
-
Make
of all toilets.
-
Manufacturer
and model of all installed cabinets.
-
Make,
model and all applicable codes of any installed security system.
-
Identification
of rooms which have carpet as to whether or not there is hardware flooring
underneath the carpet.
-
Maintenance
schedules for heating and air conditioning units.
-
Size
of gutters on house.
-
Make
and color of all siding.
-
Make
and color of any synthetic materials used in decks or other exterior
structures.
-
Make
and color of roof singles.
-
Make
and model of any intercom system installed (master as well as each room
installed unit.)
-
If
installed drainage management system, drawing or diagram of buried pipes.
Of
course other things could be easily included in an owner’s manual for a home
but he point being is that at sometime on the future, you or the next owner is
going to need to know some of the information above to either do repairs or
have repairs done.