know.

CookbookHome and familyNo. 31

A house manualsystems, warranties and the maintenance calendar

Recipe No. 31Home and family

For
The owner of a 1964 ranch house who is tired of finding the water shut-off with a torch at two in the morning
You bring
A torch, your phone’s camera, the folder of manuals and receipts the last owners left, the AI assistant you already use, and a Saturday in the basement
You get
A document per system with every appliance’s model, serial number, warranty and service history, a maintenance calendar with its sources, and a link for the house-sitter
Time
A Saturday to walk the house, an evening to check what your assistant builds, then a line after every repair
Works in
know.sh on the web · your AI assistant, through MCP
Keep it
Private while you work; share one document by a read-only link when it is ready.

A house built in 1964 has had sixty years of owners, each of whom fixed something and told no one. The main water valve is behind the laundry sink, the gas shut-off is on the far side of the furnace, and the breaker labelled “kitchen” also runs the bathroom. You find these things out in an emergency, which is the worst time.

This recipe writes the manual down, one document per system: plumbing, electrical, heating and cooling, roof and gutters, appliances. Each thing that can fail gets a finding with its model and serial numbers, warranty terms, service history and where its shut-off is. Your assistant builds the pages from your photos of the rating plates and researches a maintenance schedule from manufacturers’ manuals and extension-service guides; you check it all and turn the schedule into a calendar. A separate document, Minding the house, goes to the house-sitter as a link, with the sensitive findings left out.

The manuals, receipts and photos stay in the folder and on your phone. Door, alarm and garage codes stay out of know.sh altogether.

What you will use

Shelf
A shelf named after the house, 12 Linden Court, with the year it was built and what has been replaced.
Research document
One document per system, plus a Maintenance calendar and a Minding the house document for sitters and tenants.
Finding
A finding per appliance, fixture or shut-off; the shut-offs marked Key; known weak spots filed as Risk.
Your AI assistant
Reads your photos of the rating plates, builds a finding per appliance, and researches a maintenance schedule with its sources.
The editor
Where you check every model and serial number against the photo and write the shut-offs in your own words.
Look up
At two in the morning, ⌘K and “shut-off” finds the right page before the water reaches the carpet.
Revisions
Each finding’s history is its service record: what the plumber changed and when.
Public link
A link to Minding the house for a sitter or tenant, with a password, an expiry and private findings left out.

Method

  1. 1

    Walk the house and photograph every plate

    Start in the basement with a torch and your phone. For each system, find every box with a label on it: the furnace, the water heater, the electrical panel, the sump pump, the air conditioner outside. Photograph each rating plate, then the warranty cards and receipts in the folder.

    Give the photos to whichever assistant you use, in the assistant itself, since know.sh has no upload. Ask it to build a shelf named after the house, a document per system, Plumbing, Electrical, Heating and cooling, Roof and gutters, Appliances, and a finding per appliance titled by what it is and when it went in: “Water heater — 40-gallon gas, installed 2021”.

  2. 2

    Check every appliance in the editor

    Ask for the same five headings in every finding, then check them yourself:

    • Where it is, and how to reach it.
    • Model and serial, read from the plate.
    • Warranty: what it covers, until when, whether it needed registering, and where the paperwork is.
    • Service history, one dated line per visit.
    • Manual, the manufacturer’s page for the model as a source link.

    Open each document and press Edit. A worn plate is easy to misread, so compare every model and serial number with the photo. In each overview, say what is original to 1964 and what has been replaced.

  3. 3

    Find the shut-offs before you need them

    Give every shut-off its own finding, marked Key and titled the same way, “Shut-off — water main”, so that Look up finds them all with one word. Cover the water main, the valves under each sink and toilet, the gas valves at the furnace and the water heater, and the main breaker. Describe each as you would to a stranger: “Brass gate valve on the north wall behind the laundry sink. Turn clockwise; it is stiff.”

    Test the water valves while you are there. Write down which breaker does what, as a list, and find out which labels lie. Highlight the line that matters most in each, so it is easy to spot when you open the finding.

  4. 4

    Ask your assistant to research the maintenance schedule

    Ask your assistant to research a maintenance schedule for your actual systems and climate on the web, and file it as a new document on the shelf, a finding per system, each interval with its source links. Ask for the manufacturers’ manuals first and a state extension service, such as the University of Minnesota’s, second. This needs an assistant with web search; Claude and ChatGPT have it, and many local set-ups do not.

    Read it as a first draft. Open the sources, and where a blog disagrees with the manufacturer’s manual for your model, the manual wins. A general schedule does not know your furnace.

  5. 5

    Turn it into a calendar

    Make a Maintenance calendar document with a finding per season: Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter. Each line is a task and the finding it belongs to: “Test the sump pump by filling the pit (Plumbing, 5)”. Ask your assistant to write the links, so each task opens the appliance it is about.

    know.sh sends no reminders. Put the four seasonal dates in your phone’s calendar with a link to the right finding, and on the day, work down the list on the iOS app, which is in TestFlight beta, standing in the basement.

  6. 6

    Add a line after every repair

    When the plumber or the furnace technician leaves, add a dated line under Service history: who came, what they found, what they replaced, and the cost if you want it. The invoice goes in the folder.

    Every finding keeps its own Revisions, so you can see when each line was added. When you sell the house, the service history is the most convincing thing you can show a buyer.

  7. 7

    Make the sitter’s link

    Make a document called Minding the house: the shut-offs, the furnace’s quirks, the sump pump alarm, bins and snow, and who to call. Press Share, add a password, and set the expiry for the day after you get home. Copy the link when it appears; it is shown only once.

    Leave out the findings a sitter does not need, such as your travel dates or the note about the spare key, from each finding’s page. A document has one link at a time, so a tenant next spring means replacing it, and a replaced link resets its exclusions: set them again.

Specimen

12 Linden CourtNo. 3

Heating and coolingthe furnace, the air conditioner and the thermostat

7 findings, 2,180 words, about 9 minutes, filed 12 July, revised 20 September, 2 highlights.

The house has had forced-air gas heat since 1964. The ductwork is original; the furnace is the third, and the first with central air. The Birchwood Heating sticker on the furnace door has the service phone number.

Filter size is 16 × 25 × 1. Spares live on the shelf above the dryer.

Findings

  1. 1Shut-off — gas, at the furnaceObservation, keyYellow-handled valve on the black pipe to the right of the furnace. Handle across the pipe is off. If you smell gas, leave the house and call the gas company from outside.
  2. 2Furnace — Northway 80 per cent gas, installed October 2016Evidence, keyModel NG80-090; serial on the plate inside the lower door. Parts warranty 10 years with registration, to October 2026; registered, confirmation in the folder.
  3. 3Air conditioner — Northway 2.5-ton, installed with the furnaceEvidenceCondenser on the east side. The disconnect box beside it must be on for the AC to run.
  4. 4Service historyEvidenceTune-up by Birchwood Heating each October since 2016. The 2023 visit replaced the flame sensor.
  5. 5The humidifier padQuestionThe manual says change it every season. We have not found which pad fits, and the part number on the old one has worn off.
  6. 6Original ductwork and the back bedroomRiskThe back bedroom is 4°F (2°C) colder than the hall in January. A duct in the crawl space may have come apart.

and 1 more findings

One system as a document: the shut-off first and highlighted, then each appliance with its model, warranty and history, and the open problems filed as Question and Risk.

  1. You

    Search the web for a maintenance schedule for the systems on my 12 Linden Court shelf: gas furnace, central air, gas water heater, sump pump, asphalt roof. Manufacturers’ manuals first, University of Minnesota Extension second. File it as a new document, one finding per system, with sources.

  2. Claude

    I read the five system documents, then searched the web for each model’s manual and for the Extension’s home maintenance pages.

  3. research_createCreated Maintenance schedule — what the manuals say on 12 Linden Court, No. 8
  4. finding_addAdded “Water heater: draining and the anode rod”, 1 — sources: the maker’s owner’s manual, extension.umn.edu
  5. finding_addAdded “Sump pump: testing before the spring thaw”, 2 — sources: the pump maker’s manual, extension.umn.edu
  6. finding_addAdded “Furnace: filter and yearly service”, 3 — source: a general guide from the maker; no manual found for model NG80-090
  7. finding_addAdded “Air conditioner: the condenser and its clearance”, 4 — sources: the maker’s owner’s manual, extension.umn.edu
  8. finding_addAdded “Roof and gutters: cleaning and inspection”, 5 — source: a roofing trade association page

  9. Claude

    Five findings filed. I could not find the manual for your furnace’s model, so finding 3 relies on the maker’s general guide and says so. The roof intervals come from a roofing trade page rather than the shingle maker; check both before you use them.

The maintenance schedule researched and filed by the reader’s own assistant, with every source named and the gaps it could not fill said plainly.

Minding the houseshut-offs, quirks and who to call

Shared from a library on know. 7 findings.

Thank you for looking after the house. If anything goes wrong, the order is water, gas, power: each has its own page below, with where the switch or valve is and what to do.

For anything you cannot fix in five minutes, call Dave at Linden Plumbing or the neighbours at number 14. Everything else can wait for us.

Findings

  1. 1Water: the main shut-off behind the laundry sinkObservation, high importance
  2. 2Gas: if you smell it, leave firstRisk, high importance
  3. 3Power: the breaker panel and the two that tripObservation, high importance
  4. 4Heat: the thermostat, and the furnace switch at the top of the stairsObservation, medium importance
  5. 5The sump pump and the alarm it makesObservation, medium importance
  6. 6Bins, recycling and the snowObservation, low importance
  7. 7Who to call, and in what orderObservation, high importance

Set with know.

The sitter’s link: the shut-offs and who to call, with the travel dates and the note about the spare key left out.

Prompts to try

  1. Your assistant, connected to know.sh (Claude, ChatGPT or a local model)

    Search the web for a maintenance schedule for a 1964 ranch house in Minnesota with a gas forced-air furnace, central air, a 40-gallon gas water heater, a sump pump and an asphalt-shingle roof. One finding per system, each task with how often and its source. Prefer the manufacturers’ manuals and University of Minnesota Extension, and say where sources disagree. File it in know.sh as a new document on my *12 Linden Court* shelf.

  2. Your assistant, connected to know.sh (Claude, ChatGPT or a local model)

    Using know.sh, read every finding on my *12 Linden Court* shelf and list each warranty: what it covers, when it ends, whether it needed registering, and where the paperwork is. Put them in order of end date in a new finding called “Warranties by end date”, and name any finding that mentions a warranty but gives no end date.

  3. Your assistant, connected to know.sh (Claude, ChatGPT or a local model)

    Using know.sh, read the *Minding the house* document on my *12 Linden Court* shelf and tell me every line that would help a stranger get in or know when the house is empty: codes, where keys are, travel dates, the alarm. Give the finding number for each. Do not change anything.

Variations

  • Selling the house? Share each system document with the private findings left out, and give the buyer the links at closing. The service history is the part they will read.
  • For a rental, keep a For tenants document instead of Minding the house: appliances, bins, and whom to call for repairs, with the link replaced at each change of tenant.
  • Planning a renovation? Keep the decisions and the bids in a build book, and link each decision to the system finding it changes.
  • Add the yard: a garden journal for the beds, and a finding in Plumbing for the irrigation valves and when they drain for winter.

Where it falls short

  • know.sh holds words, not photos. Your assistant can read a photo you give it, but the rating plates, the panel and the valve stay in your phone’s albums; name the album in each finding.
  • Web research needs an assistant with web search, and a local model through Ollama calls know.sh’s tools less reliably; check what any assistant files, and use Revisions to undo it.
  • know.sh sends no reminders. The maintenance calendar is only as good as the dates you put in your own calendar.
  • A document has one link at a time, so a sitter and a tenant cannot hold different versions of the same document at once.

A note on codes, keys and an old house

Indexed under

House manualsShut-offsWarrantiesMaintenance schedulesService historyHouse-sittersLead paint

See also