- Home
- Moving
Moving in, moving out, or taking on a rental
Three timelines. Pick which one you are in and the phases fill in with what to look at, what to photograph and what to get in writing.
The timeline
None of this needs a contractor. It is the list we would work through ourselves, written down so you can do it before there is an argument about who broke what.
Phase one
Before you sign
- Run the cooling and the heating, both, whatever the season. Ten minutes each tells you more than any disclosure form.
- Find the outdoor unit and look at the data plate. Photograph it — model, serial and the year if it is printed.
- Open the filter slot. A filter that has clearly been in for a year is a fair indication of how the rest was treated.
- Look for water staining on the ceiling under the air handler and around the condensate line.
- Ask, in writing, when it was last serviced and by whom. “We do not know” is a useful answer too.
- Book the service now rather than in the last fortnight. If something needs a part, you want to find out with weeks in hand.
- Find the paperwork: any service records, the manual, the warranty. It belongs with the house.
- Photograph the equipment as it stands today, inside and out, with the date on the file.
- Check the filter size and buy a spare to leave behind. It costs almost nothing and it is remembered.
- Ask who is responsible for heating and cooling repairs, and get the answer in the lease rather than in conversation.
- Ask how a fault is reported and how quickly it is answered in summer. That question is the one that matters here.
- Run both the cooling and the heating during the viewing, whatever the season.
- Photograph the equipment, the filter slot and any staining, and send the photographs to the landlord or agent on the day you sign.
Phase two
First week in
- Change the filter and write the date on it. It is the cheapest thing you will do all year.
- Find the breaker for the indoor and outdoor units, and the disconnect switch outside. Learn them now, not at two in the morning.
- Find the condensate drain and check it runs somewhere sensible. In this climate it moves a great deal of water.
- Set the thermostat schedule for how you actually live, rather than inheriting somebody else's.
- Change the filter, so the next person opens a clean one.
- Clear the outdoor unit: grass, leaves, anything stacked against it. Two feet of clear air all round.
- Flush the condensate line if you know how, or have it done as part of the service.
- Write down where the breakers, the disconnect and the drain are, and leave the note with the manual.
- Change the filter and photograph the new one with the date. Filters are usually the tenant's job and this is your proof.
- Report anything you found at the viewing again, in writing, even if you mentioned it verbally.
- Find the breaker and the outdoor disconnect, and take a photograph of each.
- Note the thermostat model. If it is old and the bills surprise you, that is a conversation worth having early.
Phase three
First month
- Book a proper service if there is no record of one. A first visit that finds nothing is money well spent on a house you now own.
- Run each room for an afternoon and note which ones do not keep up. Airflow problems are much cheaper to fix than they sound.
- Start a file: model, serial, filter size, breaker and drain locations, and the date of every visit.
- Have the system serviced and keep the written report. Handing over a document is worth more than handing over a promise.
- Leave the file where it will be found — taped inside the utility cupboard door works better than a drawer.
- Photograph the equipment again on the day you leave, so both sides have a dated record of its condition.
- Report faults in writing, with the date, every time. A text message counts and a phone call does not.
- Do not let anybody tell you a system that will not cool in August is normal. It is not, and it is the landlord's equipment.
- Keep your filter receipts. If a repair is later blamed on neglect, that is the evidence that settles it.
- If the property is managed, copy the management company as well as the owner. One of them will act.
All three timelines
Photograph everything and date it. Almost every dispute we are asked to referee between a tenant and an owner comes down to one side having a dated photograph and the other side having a memory. We will write a plain condition report for either party — it is not taking sides, it is putting a date on a fact.
Section 4.1
What this is not
- Not legal adviceWho is responsible for what comes from your lease and from state law, not from a contractor. We will describe what we see; what you are owed is a question for a tenants' advice service or a lawyer.
- Not an inspectionA condition report from us covers the heating and cooling system. A home inspection is a different service from a different profession.
- Not a reason to skip the serviceRunning a system for ten minutes at a viewing tells you it starts. It does not tell you what the charge, the airflow or the electrical draw are doing.