5 min read
How to inventory your house in one afternoon
A phone, a private folder, and one slow room-by-room video are enough to build a home inventory before you need one — not a spreadsheet project.
Read guidePreparedness & insurance
Safety & Protection
Fire, weather, household safety, emergency planning, and plain-language insurance guidance.
Start here
Photograph each room for inventory
Locate water and gas shutoffs
Check extinguishers and escape plans
Review emergency contacts
17 published guides
Latest in Safety & Protection
10 min read
Build a smoke and carbon monoxide alarm plan that fits your home
Placement, power, replacement dates, and an escape plan matter more than having a device somewhere in a drawer.
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9 min read
Portable generator safety: the 20-foot rule and a pre-outage plan
Place a portable generator outdoors at least 20 feet from homes and buildings, point exhaust away from openings, and plan loads and connections before the power fails.
Read guide10 min read
What to document after a water loss—before cleanup erases the story
Photos, a timeline, safety notes, and a careful insurer call can keep a water-loss claim and repair decision from turning into guesswork.
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10 min read
Make a home fire escape plan people can actually use
Map two ways out where possible, pick a meeting place, and practice the plan before smoke or panic changes every decision.
Read guide9 min read
Know when a fire extinguisher is useful—and when to leave
An extinguisher is for a small, contained fire with a clear escape route. It is never a reason to delay getting people outside.
Read guide11 min read
Build a severe-weather plan around your home’s real records
A useful weather plan connects alerts, safe locations, shutoffs, insurance contacts, photos, and the documents you will need after an event.
Read guide10 min read
Find, label, and test your home’s water shutoff before a leak
A simple water-shutoff map can reduce damage during a plumbing emergency—provided every valve is identified without forcing it.
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10 min read
Build a useful home electrical labeling plan without opening the panel
Accurate labels make an outage or repair safer, but panel interiors, service equipment, and uncertain circuits are professional territory.
Read guide18 min read
Build a defensible-space wildfire yard plan from the house outward
Map the first five feet, the rest of the near-home zone, and the outer yard against local rules before clearing vegetation, moving storage, or hiring tree work.
Read guide17 min read
The annual home insurance inventory refresh: update the record you already have
Use a once-a-year change audit to remove disposed items, add purchases and gifts, renew room photos, match proof of value, test backups, and prepare precise questions for your insurance review.
Read guide8 min read
Run a smart-home outage drill before the router, hub, or power fails
Test one failure at a time, preserve physical control, record what stays local, and leave with a recovery order instead of a pile of reset devices.
Read guide9 min read
A quarterly smart-home privacy audit for cameras, microphones, accounts, and the network
Review who can see and hear the home, what gets stored, which integrations still connect, and whether the router and devices can still be secured and updated.
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8 min read
Video doorbell missed motion events? Separate capture failure from notification failure
Check event history before touching zones or sensitivity. A saved clip with no phone alert is a notification problem; no event at all points back toward capture.
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9 min read
How to test an installed smart water leak sensor without creating a damaging leak
Prove the local alarm, phone alert, remote household alert, placement, power, network path, and paired shutoff with a controlled manufacturer-approved test.
Read guide8 min read
Smart lights turn on after a power outage? Audit recovery one bulb at a time
Power-restore behavior belongs to each device, while app control depends on the network or hub recovering too. Inventory both paths before changing settings or resetting bulbs.
Read guide9 min read
Garage door maintenance: a safety check that stops before the springs
Test the automatic safety features, inspect what you can see from the floor, and leave springs, cables, bottom brackets, balance hardware, and force settings to a trained technician.
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