5 reasons to use the NHBC Home User Guide (HUG)
Hope you all had a lovely Christmas break and a happy new year!
I had a detailed look at the HUG over Christmas and found that there are a lot of useful resources on the portal! Before we get into the five reasons, let’s cover who the HUG is for and what it actually is.
Who gets a HUG?
According to the NHBC website, every new home in the UK with a NHBC Buildmark warranty and insurance policy can have a HUG.
Did you know? The NHBC Buildmark product covers 70-80% of new homes built in the UK! (Source: NHBC website)
What is the HUG?
It is a free online portal that includes the information on the NHBC warranty and guidance for homeowners. It is also a secure portal where you can store your property documents.
Five reasons why I think it is helpful to use the portal
1. There’s a detailed moving checklist
There is a handy moving checklist which lists tasks to do from 2 months before the move and it covers after the move too! I really wish we had this when we moved but we didn’t find out about the HUG until a month after we completed!
You can find it under the Moving section > Checklist.
2. Easy to understand guides
The portal includes guides to help you understand the technologies in your home, such as heating controls and ventilation systems.
The guides are organised really clearly, with sections for:
- What the technology does?
- What are the benefits?
- How to use it?
- How to look after it?
I was curious to understand how our mechanical ventilation with heat recovery (MVHR) system works and was looking for tips on how to look after it so I found the guide useful.
I didn’t know the filters needed cleaning every 6 months! Does anyone else also feel like the list of cleaning tasks just keeps getting longer and longer?! At this rate, I need a cleaning calendar to keep up!
Source: NHBC HUG
Where to find the guides?
Under the Help & Advice section > Technologies
Don’t forget to take a look at the Home Safety section. If we had read the Gas Safety section, we probably wouldn’t have been as stressed when we found the gas leak in our home. Read more about our stressful experience in this post.
There is also a section on the portal with a brief description of how the gas, electricity and water works. There’s information on electricity cables and smart meters too. You can find it under the My home section > Utilities.
3. You can download your NHBC certificate and policy booklet from the HUG
See my other blog post for how to download it in three easy steps!
4. There is a section explaining the different stages of buying a new home.
This is great if you want to know what to expect in terms of next steps after reserving your home. I remember asking the solicitor to explain the different stages so it would have been useful to have access to this earlier on in the process.
It would be great if NHBC could make this available to all on their website so you don’t have to wait until you have access to the HUG.
- Reserving your home
- Applying for a mortgage
- Legal matters
- The build
- Exchange of contracts
- Nearing completion
- Demonstration or familiarisation visit
- Moving in
You can find the information under the Moving section!
5. Hints and tips for settling in
Have you ever seen the white marks/patches on brick walls of some new build homes and wondered what they are? It turns out there’s a term for it - efflorescence. It’s explained in the HUG.
There are also tips for how to reduce condensation in the home and on the drying out process.
This is under the Help & Advice section > Settling In.
Other useful information on HUG
There are other useful resources that I found, however I didn’t put them in the five reasons as there were some broken links or the videos are no longer available which is a shame!
For example, under the My Home section > Local area, it has the following information for the local council:
- Address
- Out-of-hours emergencies phone number
- Website link
- Refuse collection link
- Council tax link
The refuse collection link didn’t work otherwise I would have put this in the top 5 reasons. I think it is a great idea to have this information. If it included the developer contact details for defects, that would be really useful too!
There were some How to Guides on the HUG, see below:
- How to bleed a radiator
I expect we will be referring back to this guide at some point. If the video was available, then it would be even better!
- How to attach a floor fixing
- How to attach a wall fixing
Unfortunately, the videos are no longer available. If there were videos, this would have been a useful resource for us when we installed our curtains and blinds!
- Decorate your home
There is a link to a B&Q YouTube video on ‘How to paint a room’ which is really clear and informative.
- Connect a kitchen appliance
It’s a shame that the video is no longer available.
Overall, I was impressed with the useful information on the portal and wanted to say thanks to NHBC for putting it together! I hope other new build homeowners use the HUG earlier on than we did. It is a shame that we only found out about it a month after we completed! I hope this blog post can help raise awareness of it and so others can make the most of the useful guidance on the portal.
If you have already signed up, here's the HUG log in page.
Thanks for reading! Follow @adventuresofahomebuyer on Instagram for more tips and home decor ideas!
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