Our House Print

The first hour, in order

The van has gone, the door is shut, and everything you need is in one of forty boxes. This is the hour that makes the rest of the day work - and it prints as one page for the kitchen counter.

Before you sit down

  • Find the stopcock and turn it once, so you know it moves before you need it in a hurry.
  • Find the fuse box (consumer unit); flip each label you can't read into readable ones with a pen tonight.
  • Find the water meter, the electricity meter and the gas meter. Photograph all three readings on your phone, timestamped.
  • Locate the boiler and its pressure gauge; note the pressure in the same photo set.

Make the house habitable

  • Open every window for ten minutes; the house has been shut for weeks and it will smell like it.
  • Find the kettle box first. It was packed last on purpose.
  • Unpack the bathroom box: loo roll, soap, towels, toothbrushes. Nothing else in the house matters until this box is open.
  • Make the beds before anything else is unpacked; midnight-you does not want to search.
  • Plug in one phone charger and leave it in one place. Everyone in the family uses that place.

Secure and sanity-check

  • Walk the outside of the house once: which doors and windows lock, which shed or gate needs a key you have not been given.
  • Test the smoke alarms; if one is silent or missing, that is tonight's job.
  • Find the fuse for the doorbell, the meter cupboard key and any alarm codes the sellers left behind.

People and paperwork

A bowl on a hall table holding several sets of house keys.
Every key in one bowl; the spare set can be found tomorrow.
  • Photograph the meter readings into the folder you'll send to the utilities - the same photos from the top of this list.
  • Say hello to the nearest neighbour before the day ends; they know which bin day it is and where the takeaway is.
  • Put the keys you were given in one bowl. Every key. The second set can be found tomorrow.
  • For the full list of who needs your new address and when, follow the move.

Print this page and it comes out as one sheet of boxes - the section headings, the ticks, nothing else. When the first hour is over and the house is yours, a print of the house itself is the way it becomes somewhere you live rather than somewhere you stopped.

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Written by Craig Fearn, Our House Print. Last updated .

A few practical answers

Why read the meters before anything else?
The readings at handover are the line between the previous occupier’s bills and yours. Photograph them with a timestamp on the first day and every bill after this one starts from a number you can prove.
What should I pack so the first hour works?
The kettle box, the bathroom box and the bedding were packed last for exactly this hour. This checklist assumes they came off the van first - which they will have done if the movers followed your labels.
How is this different from a moving-house checklist?
A moving checklist covers the weeks before: bookings, notifications, packing. This is the first hour after the van leaves. The longer list of who to tell is on the-move page, and this one points there rather than repeating it.

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