Every home has a handful of controls that matter enormously the moment something goes wrong, and are otherwise easy to ignore -- the main water shutoff, an emergency valve, a control you may never touch except in a crisis. Knowing where they are and how they work before you need them is one of the highest-value things a new homeowner can do.
The guides here focus on finding, verifying, and documenting these homeowner-controlled tools and systems, using official utility and safety guidance so the instructions match what actually applies to your home rather than a generic national rule.
Every guide in this section follows the same approach:
Find your homeowner-controlled main water shutoff valve before an emergency, verify it works with a simple faucet test, label it, and learn your local utility's rules for the separate meter-side valve.
Pressure and flow aren't the same thing -- before assuming your house has a pressure problem, compare several fixtures (hot vs. cold, one faucet vs. whole house), and if you want an actual number, use an inexpensive household pressure gauge and compare it with what your water utility says is normal for your address, since ranges like Portland's 40-80 psi describe one local system, not a universal target.
Plug a small lamp into the GFCI receptacle, turn it on, press TEST (the lamp should go out), then press RESET (the lamp should come back on) -- do this monthly, and if the lamp doesn't go out on TEST or doesn't come back on after RESET, stop relying on that outlet for protection and call a qualified electrician instead of opening the receptacle yourself.
A sewer cleanout is a capped access point into your private sewer lateral, and its location isn't universal -- start with home records and the likely path between the house and the public sewer connection, use official guidance from your jurisdiction to narrow the search, and if you can't find or confirm it, hire a licensed plumber or sewer contractor to scope and locate the line; never open a cleanout during an active backup, and always confirm what system a mystery pipe actually serves before touching it.
Find your meter, record the cumulative kWh reading and the time, take a second reading later, and subtract the earlier reading from the later one to estimate electricity used over that interval; use your utility's online portal for more detailed data, and never open the meter enclosure, break a utility seal, or attempt any wiring or calibration work yourself.