Home Manual

Introduction

This repository contains advice and templates for documenting your home in a Home Manual, for yourself as well as any other users of your home.

My goal is to encourage you to document important information about living in your home, for day-to-day purposes as well as when emergencies occur.

This repository contains templates outlining the recommended information to include in your Home Manual.

Two template variations are provided:

1. Template in mdbook format
2. Template in docx format

Luke Mewburn, Luke@Mewburn.net. 08 April 2026.

Template in mdbook format

Overview

See the template/SUMMARY.md file.

This is a template based on my current practice (as of April 2026). The manual is a git repository containing a tree of directories in (GitHub compatible) Markdown format, including the link and anchor slug format.

This template Home Manual is in mdbook format.

Setup - repository

To setup your Home Manual from this template:

Clone this repository using git, either as a copy from my upstream at https://github.com/lukem/home-manual or from your own git fork.

Determine your own name (that's not template), for example HomeManual.

Copy template directory to your new name, and commit to the repository:

cp -R template HomeManual
git add HomeManual
git commit

Update book.toml:

1. Use your new directory instead of template. In the [book] section, change src = "template" to src = "HomeManual".
2. Change the book title and authors appropriately.

Setup - required tools

The following tools should be installed:

• mdbook
• mdbook-lint
• mdbook-pandoc
• pandoc, and any dependencies pandoc requires.

For example, on macOS using Rust's rust and cargo and Homebrew on macOS:

cargo install mdbook mdbook-lint mdbook-numbering mdbook-pandoc
brew install pandoc librsvg python homebrew/cask/basictex

Generating docx, HTML, and PDF

To render locally into a web browser, use

mdbook serve --open .

To generate a Microsoft Word .docx in pandoc/docx/HomeManual.docx and a PDF in .book/pandoc/pdf/HomeManual.pdf, use:

mdbook build

Template in docx format

A template in Microsoft Word .docx format is available as the file template.docx.

General advice

• Keep the Home Manual up to date.
• Documentation:
  • Server provider information:
    • Contact information.
    • Account and/or customer numbers.
    • Plan details (if relevant).
    • Password manager entry.
  • Device information:
    • Description, model, location, serial number, purchase date, warranty, expiry date, supplier, installer (if separate to supplier).
  • Don't store sensitive information such as passwords - use a password manager. A reference to the relevant entry in the password manager entry is sensible.
• Diagrams:
  • These don't need to be architectural, construction, or engineering grade. The important point is to contain information useful to lay-people. My diagrams are specifically "not to scale".
  • Maintain layers (if your diagram software supports layers) for:
    • External property plan.
    • Internal home plan.
    • Services: electricity, garden, IoT, lights, network, water/sewer, (etc.)
  • Consider draw.io, saving the .draw.io files alongside the exported .png files.
• Software:
  • Use software and tools that are useable and maintainable by your household. I've migrated to using an mdbook setup with the repository hosted in GitHub.
  • Export to PDF and store in well-known locations.
  • Print the manual and store in a well-known location. Even just the first few pages with emergency and critical information can be helpful.

Password managers

Use a good password manager for your personal passwords and information.

Setup a "Shared family" section (shared with your family) with entries including:

• Household services (energy, internet, water).
• Insurance documents (home, car).
• Wifi passwords.

We currently use 1Password, but other password managers such as Bitwarden are also well regarded.

Motivation

Over recent years a couple of friends have unexpectedly lost their partners. Aside from their grief, important knowledge about how their home operated was lost or hard to find.

My beloved wife Inger (AKA Thesis Whisperer) and I discussed me writing a "Home Manual" documenting important and useful information about our home, because most of the information was either in my head or spread across years of email messages in my personal mail account.

I wrote the initial version of our Home Manual over the summer break of December 2022 - January 2023. The manual has since been converted to mdbook, and it's currently 52 pages of documentation and diagrams.