A pipe lets go at ten at night. You are standing in the dark with a torch, and the valve is somewhere.
Somebody knows. The person who put it in, or the people who owned the place before you, or you, four years ago, before you stopped thinking about it. Right now that is worth nothing.
So write it down where it is
Stand at the valve. Drop a pin. Take a photo. Type the sentence you would say out loud:
“Shuts off at the blue valve by the shed. Turn it the wrong way and it feels stuck. It is not stuck.”
That is the whole idea. Not an inventory. A map of the things you would otherwise have to remember, with the awkward bit written next to each one.
Do it while you are standing there
Capture has to happen where the thing is, because that is the only moment you know exactly where it is. Tap, photo, done. Tidying up happens later on the couch.
It works with no signal. A pump is usually the furthest thing on the property from a cell tower, and an app that needs a bar of coverage to record a pump is an app that never records the pump. Everything saves on the phone and syncs when you get back.
Your boundary is on the map
Type your address. In New Zealand the outline of your section comes down from LINZ and lands on an aerial photo of the place, so the first thing you see is your property rather than an empty grid asking you to draw one. Anywhere else the map opens at your address and you draw the outline once.
Then the pin is not just a dot on the earth. It is a dot on your place, which is the question somebody arriving actually has.
It is never just the water
Once one thing is on there, the rest follows in an afternoon. The trench the power runs down, walked while it was still open. The gate nobody can find the key for. The heat pump and its model number. The ute, which needs no pin at all, just a WOF date.
A line for a pipe, a shape for a shed, a pin for everything else, and anything with no position is still on the list. The map and the list are the same records seen two ways.
What it turns into
Six months later it stops being a map and starts being a memory. The reminders know the WOF is due. The brief you hand a plumber already says where the valve is. Whoever helps you look after the place sees their part of it and nothing else.
None of which you were thinking about on the night the pipe burst. You were thinking about the valve.
Who it is for
Lifestyle blocks, farms, rural properties, and ordinary owners on a quarter-acre section. Landlords with a cottage or a rental to keep records for. What people use it for.
One honest warning
It is a plan, not a survey. A pin is where your phone thought you were, which is metres rather than centimetres, and the photo underneath was flown on a day that is not today. Never dig from it. Get the services located properly, starting at beforeudig.co.nz in New Zealand, or your own country's before-you-dig service.
It is good for finding a valve in the dark, and that is what it is for.
