Selling House - what would you leave behind in terms of Automation?

General
1

Guys,

We have decided to sell our place - we have a LOT of automation built with Node Red - from Grid Arbitrage with our Battery and Solar system, through to Pool Automation (for automatic measuring and dosage), lighting, Notification of events, Camera sytems etc

Our house is a mid tier house in an expensive suburb so not sure exactly who the buyers would be at this point - although i assume a family (as it is 4/5 bedrooms)

Ideas anyone ?

Craig

2

I've thought about this myself as we plan to move in a few years. But honestly I'd take everything easily removed. Assuming that you might be able to make use of it in the next house.

In ours, the only thing I might consider leaving is the heating controls - but I'd want new owners to pay at least something for it since it is expensive. If they didn't want it, it is easy enough to remove along with the TRV's.

I would probably leave the doorbell but that's only a fairly cheap 433MHz system.

I imagine solar would be harder to move though and might add value to the old house anyway?

We only have 1 camera set up at the moment, and I'd probably take that. Though I'd always be open to new owners buying some stuff from us so we could do something new.

3

Funny this comes up. I just did that and I absolutely stripped every last thing I could before I left.

4

What about the loss of functionality though ? For instance we have Tasmota plugs that control our pool pump cycle - if i take them - then the pumps will not run ?

Our front door motion sensor feeds a shelly which then enables the exterior lighting based on certain conditions

A lot of our external ligths are controlled by Sunrise/Sunset events through Node Red and Tasmota nodes

Craig

5

Same here. I say it would depend also on the new owners interest and ability. I have a lot of home automation features I feel is a necessity. But it's not a given the next owner will feel the same. We also have a very extended home alarm system with "ridiculous lot of sensors & cameras", I'm not sure the next want to keep it

Do you feel you want to explain everything and help migrating it to the new owners local network once it is in operation?

Do you want and are keen to accept calls for support?

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6

Won't the new owner be apprehensive that you may still have 'ability' to remotely monitor the facility ?

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7

Really?? Looking for extra work?

Extra: Besides, nowadays I would not like the idea "someone else" is able to access any part of my network, u never know, u know

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8

It's not what the previous owner actually may or may not do, 'ability' is the keyword here.

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9

I would expect the new owners to get a new router as they will probably change broadband supplier... and hopefully the firewall there would block some things working. I would tend to leave anything that was fully automatic - but that can be manually overridden. (Eg heating, external lights) And remove anything that I need to monitor - eg security, video servers, etc

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10

Unless it's a consumer off the shelf product that you can factory reset and leave the owners the manual/setup guide I'd remove it and replace with a dumb switch (so as not to break basic funcationality of fixtures and fittings)

You really don't want to be on the hook for providing tech support for this stuff to the new owners and despite whatever you put in an agreement they'll find a way to track you down and get in touch with "just a small query"

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11

Anything proprietary (to yourself) I would remove. I don't see the point in leaving anything at all.

12

This is why I make sure that I don't install anything that doesn't have a manual backup.

I might make an exception if it was critical and if the pool is a selling point that raised the value of the house.

As long as the lighting can be manually controlled, I wouldn't have a problem removing that.

That's just a nice-to-have, so no problems removing it.

So the 2 factors I would apply are:

  • Is there a manual control if the automation is removed?
  • Are the buyers effectively paying for the automation - e.g. has it added monetary value to the price of the house? Or are they willing to pay for it separately?

And a 3rd, based on others comments:

  • Is the automation easily explained and easy to adjust?
13

There is a related issue here, related to the fact that I am now of fairly advanced years. That is, what would happen if I were suddenly no longer be available to maintain the system? I have made sure that everything will revert to manual operation merely by powering down the PIs etc. Also there are written instructions on how to remove the kit if necessary and leave the house operational.

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14

Further examples, all our outdoor lighting on the facade is nicely controlled by Shelly devices mounted behind the flushmounted wall switches. Currently they are controlled by Node-RED and all the nice conditions & rules you may invent. But if I turn off Node-RED, automation will stop and they revert back to manual operation via the wall switches. So in my case I would not care removing the Shelly devices, it would be more work to dismount, and I would not bother mentioning them either, unless the buyer seems a bit interested in tech

The same for all our awnings; fullly automated via Node-RED but they can be operated manually with a dedicated remote. So I would leave the remote and I would not dismount the awning engines either :wink:

And it goes on...I would try to make my life as convinient as possible also after sales, anyway that was in fact the main reason why I started automate things; why would I have any interest to put that at risk, becoming a support centre, at least for a while?

15

There were a few things such as heating that when I pulled the Pi's just kept working as the old thermostat was left as an emergency backup. All the rest such as lighting were removed. Had several long talks with realtors and pretty much the advice was pull everything. They thought everyone would be put off by home grown technology and while it was generally very stable there were occasionally glitches to be dealt with. Power was not very stable and several times power losses caused havoc. Generally when the power bounced several times quickly. The up side is i now have stuff for new place. The down side is I didn't get to buy new toys for new place.
What do your realtors think?

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16

Can you share any details about the parts and flow you use to control your pool pumps? My circa 1985 timer clock boxes (pool pump and booster pump for cleaner) are on their last legs (clock motors have been replaced three or four times), I'd be interested in an alternative. I have a mesh network and good WiFi coverage out by the pool. I've been thinking about doing this but have no experience with Shelly devices, a 20A 220V line powers the pumps. I've played with some ESP32 Tasmota versions for LED light strip displays, but ended up buying three WLED "boxes" from Athom Tech after prototyping an ESP32 and installing WLED as it was easier and not much more expensive than building and packaging three systems.

I'd either take it all or leave it all depending on the owners preference, but we are retired and not planning to move while we can still care for ourselves.

17

Yep i (am in OZ) and use the Sonoff POWR3 - this provides both switching and power stats so i can see when the pool needs a backwash etc.

I have been using these for quite a while on heavier draw/motor type applications - due to their rating to 25AMP - and the internals do look quite solid.

I flash them to Tasmota.

Then setup comms through MQTT to Mosquitto running on a standalone VM

I will grab my flows when i am home and send something over

Craig

18

Thanks everyone for all the advice - looks like best option will be roll back all the fancy stuff and go back to dumb timers and switches etc

I will start acquiring them and document a plan to swap them in once we have the house sold and shortly before we settle.

regards

Craig

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