5 tips for the home demo
What is a home demonstration or handover?
A home demonstration or handover is when you buy a new build and the home builder shows you how the appliances and facilities work in your new home.
I stumbled across a DVD guide for my sister's new build when I was decluttering and thought the contents would be a useful starting point when thinking of questions to ask at a home demo.
The DVD guide covered a variety of topics, which included:
- How to use the front door lock
- How to use the video door entry phone
- Location of the water isolating valve and how to switch off your water supply
- Information about the consumer unit and in an emergency, how to switch off the electricity to your home
- TV, satellite and HDMI connection points
- Location of isolation switches for appliances
- How the ventilation works
- How to open the windows
- How the heating and hot water works
- How to use the heating controller
- How to replace the spotlights
- Kitchen extractor fan cleaning
- Location of the meters
There didn’t seem to be many articles online about tips for home demos so I asked my sister and on Instagram for tips following other people's experience at a home demo.
We bought our property in the first lockdown and so sadly we weren’t able to have a home demonstration. Since moving in, we have realised there are things where it would have been helpful to know or ask at a home demo so have included that below too!
It's also worth checking with your developer when the home demo takes place. Ours would have been at the time of collecting the keys but I also saw online that some developers have the home demo before completion.
Tips:
1. Record the home demo as it’s helpful to have the videos to go back to.
My sister said she was so excited about getting the keys that it was hard to remember all the things they showed her at the home demo! Luckily, she had the DVD!
When I asked to see what tips others had on Instagram, @myfirsttimeflat mentioned their home demo was online and the developer had sent across videos which she found helpful as she can rewatch them.
2. If you see any issues, take a photo and email the developer so it can be rectified.
From our experience, rectifying issues has been long and slow process so flagging the issues the sooner the better!
We finally had our defects inspection to establish which issues will be fixed and a question that came up several times was whether the issues were raised at the handover and if so, would be fixed. We had to explain that because of the lockdown, there wasn’t a handover but we had raised these issues shortly after receiving the keys. Now we are still waiting to see if these issues will be rectified.
This is just our experience and therefore snagging processes and policies might be different for your developer so do check with them!
3. Bring a tape measure.
Great tip from @fj_homes.x. This way you can start ordering furniture and blinds!
4. Have a list of questions that you definitely want to cover at the home demo
Some questions might get covered in the home demo but it helps to have a list to make sure a question isn’t forgotten and to help focus. The list of topics from the DVD are a good starting point!
After our gas leak, we realised the importance of knowing how to shut off the gas, water and electricity to the home in case of emergencies.
As we didn’t have a home demo, we didn’t actually know where to switch off the gas, what the gas stopcock looks like and most importantly, how to switch it off.
The first weekend after we collected the keys, we tested all the appliances and were baffled by why there was no water going to the washing machine. We weren’t really sure what to do. Dad ended up explaining to us that there was a valve in the closed position so no water was going to our washing machine!
I also didn’t realise until months later that we can take off the oven door and the shelf supports inside for easy cleaning and that there is a way to open the windows even wider! We couldn't open the windows in our winter garden for weeks because there were no instructions included in the information pack.
It also wasn’t until the defects inspection that we had an answer to why one radiator in the property didn’t have a thermostat.
5. Ask for tips on how to look after your new home
They may have tips which aren't in the instruction manuals or it might be easier to show you in the home rather than reading instructions. For example, how to let your home dry out correctly, how to look after the windows or how to bleed the radiators.
Hope this was useful! I also have blog posts on 5 top tips for dealing with defects and snags and useful online resources that I found for completion day which might be helpful!
If you want to know more about what to expect, I came across some useful YouTube videos from developers such as Charles Church and Taylor Wimpey.
Charles Church The importance of your New Home Demonstration
It says that the demo takes place around 14 days before completion and takes around an hour and a half.
Taylor Wimpey Home Demonstration
Other posts that might be of interest:
What to look for at a new build home demo? Sharing tips from other new build homeowners!
"It's a new build so there'll be minimal issues" I was wrong.
Using a professional snagging company
Useful resources for completion day
Installing curtains should be easy right? Not for us!
Our pregnancy experience - one of an anxious mama
Our BABYZEN YOYO2 pushchair review
Jess
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