14 Things You Absolutely Must Know About Your House

There are about 85 million single-family homes in the United States, which is a lot of houses. If you own one of them, then you already know what you don’t know—from real estate terms to the actual cost of owning the place. Buying and maintaining a house is a life-long learning process.

But no matter how long you’ve owned your home, there are probably aspects of it that you have no clue about. This can be a problem because you’re relying on this structure to protect you and your family from the elements, to be a valuable asset in your financial portfolio, and to be an attractive place you can be proud to show off to friends and family. In order for that to happen, you need to know some fundamental details about your house. If you don’t know these things, find them out ASAP.

Shutoffs

Your house runs on a few basic resources—water, electricity, and possibly natural gas. Unless you’re totally off the grid with solar power and localized supplies like propane tanks, these resources are piped into your home from outside under consistent pressure. If something goes wrong (e.g., a water pipe bursts, or a pilot light goes out and gas leaks) you need to know how to shut things off—which means you need to know the location of the following:

• The water shutoff: The main valve that controls the flow of water into your house. It will usually be located outside, but if it’s inside (mine is), it’ll be near the perimeter, and possibly in your basement. Know where it is and how to turn it off.

• Localized valves. Your sinks, outdoor spigots, and toilets will also have shutoff valves. Knowing where your toilet shutoff is located can be a real lifesaver when it starts to overflow.

• The gas shut off. Similarly, if you have natural gas piped into your home, know where the shutoff valve is. If you ever smell gas and can’t figure out its source, this could literally save your house—and your life.

• Appliance shutoffs. Your gas-powered appliances like an oven or a dryer will also have specific shutoffs, usually located in the rear where the hookups are. Know how to access them in case you need to turn them off.

• Electric panel. Know where your home’s electric panel is located, and familiarize yourself with the circuits and the main in case you need to cut the power to an area of the home—or the whole house.

If you smell gas, you should exit your home and call the authorities even if you turn off the main supply. And never touch an electrical panel that’s sparking or smoking.

Circuits

Speaking of your electrical panel, you should know more than just it’s location. Map out which circuits control what in your house by turning them off one by one and checking to see what they’re connected to. Don’t just trust any labeling that’s already in there—these are often not updated properly after renovations and repairs. Having each breaker labeled clearly will save you time and trouble if you need to kill the juice to something that’s malfunctioning.

Location of meters

You should know where your water, gas, and electric meters are—and how to read them. If you still have in-person meter readers from your utility company, it’s helpful to know how to guide them to the meters, and being able to read and interpret them will let you audit your utility bills. Doing this once a year will spot any discrepancies that could indicate a billing error, utility theft, or a slow leak.

An evacuation route

If something terrible were to happen unexpectedly, how would you get out of the house? If the front door was blocked somehow, is there an alternate route out? If you’re trapped on an upper floor, how would you escape? Those kinds of emergencies don’t happen often, thank goodness, but now is the time to plan for them. Think about what you would do in a variety of scenarios, so you have a way out even if the obvious exits are blocked.

Dryer type

If your home had a washer and dryer when you moved in, find out what kind of dryer you have. This might sound obvious, but many people don’t realize that there are gas- and electric-powered dryers. If your gas-powered dryer dies and you order an electric one to replace it, you’ve got a huge headache instead of a solution.

Type of insulation

A good question to ask the builder, previous owners, or home inspector is the type of insulation in the walls and attic space. In older homes that haven’t been significantly renovated, this could be asbestos-based insulation, which isn’t a problem unless you try to remove it. But even if your insulation is more modern, knowing the kind and how long it’s been in there is a good thing. First, it might not be the best insulation in the world, so you might want to upgrade it. And second, insulation doesn’t last forever, so knowing how old it is will be helpful as you plan future maintenance and budgets.

Property lines

You (probably) didn’t just buy a structure, you bought property. That probably includes some outdoor space around your home—your lot. The problem with property lots is that they look very clear and obvious on a map, but aren’t so easy to figure out when you’re literally standing on them. This can lead to incursions from neighbors when their fencing strays onto your property, or assumptions about who owns what or whether your neighbors have an easement or a right of access that includes your property. Finding out your exact property lines is, in other words, a very good idea.

Water quality

Clean, potable water being piped into our homes is an incredible luxury by historical standards—but not all local water supplies are the same. Your local water utility probably has testing results available, but it’s not a bad idea to test your tap water yourself to see what you’re dealing with—and whether you’re comfortable drinking it, or if you need to look into filters.

It’s also useful to find out if you have hard water—water with a high mineral content—as it can be damaging to your appliances and other aspects of your house (and isn’t the best water for showering and cleaning, either). You can soften your hard water pretty effectively—but only if you know about it in the first place.

Lead pipes

If your house was built some time before 1988, it might still have lead water pipes—which means lead might be leeching into your drinking water, potentially making you sick. You should check to see if your pipes are lead, and if you get a positive result, you should contact your local government and water utility to arrange a replacement.

Underneath

Do you know what’s under your house? If you have a full basement, the answer is probably yes. Crawl spaces—especially very shallow ones—can be overlooked, however. They usually contain a lot of vital stuff like water lines, gas lines, and electrical wiring, and can be a source of pest infiltration, air pollution, and bad vibes in general.

It’s not unheard of for homeowners to eliminate crawl space access panels in their homes, or for crawl spaces to simply have no convenient access point—but it’s vital that you be able to access your crawl space for a variety of reasons. You will someday need to access those pipes and wires, after all, and you need to be able to monitor the foundation, humidity levels (and potential mold growth), rodent and pest populations, and potential water issues. When it comes to what’s under your house, ignorance is definitely not bliss.

Sewer or septic

When you flush your toilet or wash your dishes, where does that grey and black water go? The answer will inform your maintenance decisions, as plumbing that hooks into a municipal sewer line needs different maintenance than pipes that lead to a septic tank on your property. If you’re on a sewer line, having it inspected for clogs or infiltrating roots every year can save you a lot of trouble, while septic tanks need to be pumped out regularly, and chemical drain cleaners need to be avoided.

Your filter schedules

A lot of things in your house have filters (including, possibly, the house itself). These filters all need to be replaced periodically, but each appliance or piece of infrastructure will have its own schedule and specific type of filter. Make sure you know what filters you need and how often it’s recommended they be replaced. Just because something appears to be running just fine doesn’t mean the filter doesn’t need replacing.

Materials

Do you know what kind of flooring you’re walking on? What kind of countertop you’re cooking on? Different materials have different maintenance and cleaning needs. Using the wrong cleaning products—like bleach when you’re cleaning natural stone—can do real damage to the materials, and leave you with ruined stuff and a looming renovation bill. It can be challenging for non-experts to tell the difference between stuff like laminate and hardwood flooring, after all, so you can’t just assume you know what you’re dealing with. If at all possible, it’s best to find out exactly what’s there and what the manufacturer recommends in terms of maintenance, cleaning, and repair.

Access

You own the house—all of it. You should be able to access every bit of it. You might not want to go into the crawl space or up onto the roof, but you should be able to get into those places. If there is any place you can’t get to, it might also be a place a contractor can’t get to, which could be disastrous in case of an emergency repair. And you should be able to inspect your house regularly as a proactive practice to anticipate problems before they become emergencies. Taking some time to make sure you at least know how you can access each part of your home is an essential piece of maintenance planning for what’s probably the largest asset you own.

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