Tobi — Blog

How often to change your furnace filter

Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Check your furnace filter once a month. Change it when it looks dirty. Most 1-inch filters need changing every 1 to 3 months. Thicker filters last longer, because they hold more dust.

ENERGY STAR says to inspect, clean, or change air filters once a month in a central air conditioner, furnace, or heat pump. That monthly look is the real rule. The month counts below are only a starting guess.

How long a filter lasts, by thickness

1 inch: every 1 to 3 months
2 inch: about every 3 months
4 inch: about every 6 months
5 inch: every 6 to 12 months
Washable: rinse on the schedule in its instructions, often monthly

Your filter’s box, or the manual for your furnace, has a number for your exact filter. That number wins over any list, including this one.

What makes a filter dirty faster

Some homes go through filters much faster than others. Change yours sooner if any of these are true:

A pet or two that sheds
Someone in the house has allergies or asthma
Anyone smokes indoors
You are sanding, painting, or remodeling
The house sits on a dirt road, or the yard is dry and dusty
The heat or the air conditioning runs most of the year
Your filter catches very small particles, so it fills up sooner

A filter lasts longer when the house is empty a lot, or when the weather is mild and the system barely runs.

How to check your filter in one minute

Turn the system off at the thermostat.
Find the filter. It sits next to the furnace or air handler, or behind a big return vent in a wall or ceiling.
Slide the filter out.
Hold it up to a light. If light barely gets through, change it. Gray and furry means change it.
Put it back in the same way it came out, or put a new one in.

How to change it

Turn the system off first.
Read the size printed on the frame, like 16x25x1. Take a photo of it before the old filter goes in the trash.
Look for the arrow on the frame and note which way it points.
Pull the old filter out slowly. Slide it into a trash bag right away, because dust falls off it.
Slide the new filter in with its arrow pointing the same way the old one did. The arrow follows the air, so it points toward the furnace.
Write the date on the edge of the frame with a marker.
Turn the system back on.

If your setup looks different from this, or the filter has no arrow, follow the instructions that came with your system.

What happens when you skip it

ENERGY STAR puts it plainly: a dirty filter slows down air flow and makes the system work harder to keep you warm or cool, which wastes energy. It also lets dust and dirt build up inside the system, which leads to expensive repairs or an early failure.

In the house, that shows up as:

Rooms that take longer to warm up or cool down
A system that runs longer, so bills creep up
More dust on everything
A repair bill years before you expected one

Buying the right one

The size is three numbers on the frame: width, height, and thickness.
The printed size is rounded off, so a new filter measures a little smaller than its label. That is normal.
Filters have a MERV number, which says how small a particle they can catch. The EPA suggests a filter rated MERV 13, or as high a rating as your system and filter slot can handle.
Ask an HVAC pro before you jump to a much tighter filter. Some systems do not move air well through one.

Buy two or three at a time. The filter you already own is the one that actually gets changed.

The hard part is remembering

Changing a filter takes two minutes. Remembering to do it is the part people lose.

Nothing in the house tells you. The filter is behind a panel, on a slow clock, and it fails quietly. By the time a room feels stuffy, it has been dirty for months.

Sharing a home makes it harder, not easier. One person changes it, nobody else knows, and six months later two people each think the other one did it.

Tobi’s maintenance log is built for jobs like this one. Your furnace becomes a record in your home. The filter change becomes a task on it that repeats as often as you want, like every 3 months. When someone marks it done, the next date moves forward on its own.

A few things that help with filters:

Save a link to the exact filter you buy, so the size is never a guess again.
Keep the size and any notes on the furnace record itself.
Every change is saved with the date, who did it, and notes. Nothing gets written over.
Tobi reminds you the day it is due, and again the next day if it is still not done.
On supported devices, Tobi can suggest the upkeep an item needs and fill in the schedule for you.

Everyone in the household sees the same record on their own phone, in real time. So the filter shows as due for the whole house, and once it is done, it is done for everyone. One subscription covers the household, and only the owner pays.

Common questions

Can I wash my filter instead of replacing it?

Only if it is a washable filter. Most are not, and a paper or pleated filter falls apart when it gets wet. If yours is washable, rinse it the way the instructions say and let it dry all the way before it goes back in. A damp filter can grow mold.

Do I need to change it more often in winter?

Change it more often when the system runs more. For most homes that means the coldest months and the hottest ones. In spring and fall, when the system barely runs, a filter can last longer.

It still looks clean after three months. Change it anyway?

If it really looks clean and the system is running fine, you can wait a bit. Keep checking every month. Do not stretch it past what the filter’s own instructions say.

Does a thicker filter mean I can forget about it?

No. It means fewer changes, not zero. A 4-inch filter still needs a look every month, and it still has a date it needs to be swapped.

Will a new filter fix a dusty house?

It helps, but it is not the whole story. Open windows, leaky ducts, and a system that is off most of the day all put dust back in the air. Start with the filter, because it is the cheapest thing to rule out.

Put it on a schedule

One filter is easy. The trouble is that a house has twenty of these, all on different clocks. The water heater, the gutters, the dryer vent, the smoke alarms.

Writing them down is where it starts. The new homeowner checklist covers what to record in a house you just bought, including the filter sizes you will buy again. Then give each one a date and something that reminds you.

A filter you remember is worth more than an expensive one you forget.

Electrical panel numbering explained: how breaker slots are numbered

Mon, 10 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Breaker numbers are a map. They show where each breaker sits in the panel.

In many home panels, the odd numbers go down the left side. The even numbers go down the right side. The top row is 1 and 2. The next row is 3 and 4. Then come 5 and 6.

This explains a common puzzle. A double-pole breaker on the left uses 1 and 3. It does not use 1 and 2. A tandem breaker can hold two circuits in one numbered spot.

Always follow the numbers printed on your own panel and door card. The odd-left, even-right pattern is common, but not every panel uses it.

This is an example panel. Use the numbers and markings on your own panel when you make a list.

The common breaker number pattern

Most home panels have two columns. Read the numbers across each row, then down.

Left side	Right side
1	2
3	4
5	6
7	8
9	10

So slot 1 is at the top left. Slot 2 is at the top right. Slot 3 is right below slot 1. Slot 4 is right below slot 2.

Schneider Electric uses this odd and even pattern for many panels. Still, do not guess. Some door cards use a different order. The panel itself is the answer.

Why a double-pole breaker uses 1 and 3

A double-pole breaker is one breaker with two linked handles. It takes two spots in one column. On the left side, the first pair is 1 and 3. On the right side, the first pair is 2 and 4.

Where the breaker sits	Numbers to write down
Top left	1 and 3
Top right	2 and 4
Second left spot	3 and 5
Second right spot	4 and 6

The breakers in spots 1 and 2 sit next to each other. They are not a normal double-pole pair. When you label a double-pole breaker, write both numbers. For example, write Range / oven: 1 and 3.

Double-pole breakers often run big home equipment, such as a dryer, range, water heater, heat pump, or air conditioner. Do not use the name of the equipment to guess what kind of breaker it has. Read the breaker and the panel first.

One spot can mean different things

The number tells you where a breaker is. It does not always tell you how many circuits are there.

Single-pole breaker

This is the usual kind. One breaker takes one spot and runs one circuit. If it is in spot 7, write its label next to 7.

Tandem breaker

A tandem has two small, separate handles in one spot. It runs two circuits. If it sits in spot 9, both circuits belong at spot 9. Label each handle. You might write 9 upper: hall lights and 9 lower: garage outlets.

Only some panels allow tandem breakers. Some allow them in only a few spots. Do not add one just because there is room. A qualified electrician can help if you are not sure.

Double-pole breaker

A double-pole breaker takes two spots, but it is one circuit. On the left, it might use 9 and 11. Give it one label and list both numbers.

Quad breaker

A quad breaker has several handles in a small space. Some handles may work together. Look for a handle tie and follow the maker’s marks. If you cannot tell which handles belong together, ask an electrician.

A few words to know

Spot, slot, or space: One place where a breaker goes.
Circuit: The path that carries power to lights, outlets, or equipment.
Single-pole: One breaker in one spot.
Double-pole: One linked breaker in two spots.
Tandem: Two separate breakers in one spot.

You may see a panel called “20 spaces, 40 circuits.” That means it has 20 physical spots. It may be built to hold more circuits with approved tandem breakers. Check the panel label to see what it allows.

Make a clear panel list

Write your list in the same order as the panel. This makes it easier to use when a breaker trips.

Put 1, 3, 5, and the other odd numbers in the left column.
Put 2, 4, 6, and the other even numbers in the right column.
For a double-pole breaker, write both numbers. For example: Heat pump: 17 and 19.
For a tandem, keep both labels next to the same number.
Write spare for an empty spot. If you do not know what a live breaker does, mark it as a guess until you can test it.

The free panel label generator can turn your list into a printout for the panel door. Need help finding each circuit first? Read how to map an unlabeled panel. Then use our guide to labeling your electrical panel.

Only touch breaker handles from outside the panel. Do not remove the cover. If you see heat, rust, damage, or burn marks, stop and call a qualified electrician.

Keep the same shape on your phone

Numbers are easier to check when the list looks like the real panel. Tobi’s electrical panel schedule keeps the same two-column shape. Odd spots are on the left. Even spots are on the right. Tandems share a spot. Double-pole breakers cover the two spots they use.

You can also mark a label as correct, a guess, or wrong. That helps everyone in the house know what they can trust.

Common questions

Are odd breaker numbers always on the left?

No. That pattern is common, but not every panel uses it. Read the numbers on your panel and door card.

Why are breaker 1 and breaker 3 linked?

They are stacked in the left column. A double-pole breaker can use those two spots as one circuit.

Does a tandem breaker have two numbers?

Usually, no. It has one panel number and two separate handles. Use upper and lower, or A and B, to show which label goes with each handle.

Can I put a tandem breaker in any empty spot?

No. The exact panel model decides where tandems are allowed. Have a qualified electrician make changes inside the panel.

New homeowner checklist: what the previous owner never wrote down

Thu, 06 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

In your first month in a house you just bought, write down seven things:

What each breaker controls.
The make, model, and serial number of every major system and appliance.
The sizes of the parts you will buy again — filters, belts, batteries.
When each system was last serviced, and who did it.
Where the water, gas, and electrical shutoffs are.
The manufacture date on every smoke and carbon monoxide alarm.
Whatever the seller told you out loud during the walkthrough.

Paint, furniture, and the boxes in the garage can wait. This list cannot, because every item on it gets harder to recover the longer you live there. The people who knew the answers have moved out, and the receipts they kept went with them.

You bought the building, not the knowledge

A house transfers on paper. What it does not transfer is the decade of operating detail the last owner accumulated: that the upstairs bathroom outlet is on the hallway circuit, that the furnace was serviced every October by the same company, that the dishwasher was replaced four years ago and the old one is still sitting in the crawlspace.

The seller’s disclosure does not cover this. Disclosure requirements vary by state, and they cover material defects the seller knew about — not the operational detail that makes a house easy to maintain. The inspection report is closer, and worth rereading in month one rather than filing, but it is a snapshot of condition on one day. It does not tell you what the maintenance rhythm was.

So the first month’s job is not repairs. It is recording. Here is what each item takes.

1. Map the breaker panel

Most panels in a resold home are labeled badly, partially, or not at all, and the labels that do exist may predate a renovation. Assume nothing on the panel door is true until you have tested it.

The test itself is simple. Turn on lights everywhere, plug a lamp or a radio into unswitched outlets, then flip one breaker off and walk the whole house writing down everything that lost power. Mapping an unlabeled panel covers the full process, including the breakers that seem to control nothing, and how to label your electrical panel covers writing labels a stranger could use. The free panel label generator prints a directory that fits inside the panel door.

Operate the breaker handles only. Do not remove the panel cover, and if you see heat, rust, damage, or scorch marks, stop and call an electrician — an inherited panel is exactly where a previous owner’s shortcut tends to surface.

Mark what you have not verified as unverified. A new owner’s panel map is mostly guesses in week one, and guesses recorded as facts are worse than blanks.

2. Photograph every data plate

Every major system and appliance has a plate, sticker, or engraved panel with its make, model, and serial number. The furnace and air handler, the water heater, the outdoor condenser, the range, the dishwasher, the washer and dryer, the garage door opener, the sump pump, the water softener.

Photograph all of them now, while you are still walking the house with fresh eyes. Model and serial numbers are what every future search, part order, warranty claim, and service call needs first, and they are always printed somewhere inconvenient — behind the machine, under the lid, on the back of the door.

Many manufacturers encode the build date in the serial number, so those photos often tell you roughly how old each system is. The encoding differs by brand, so look up the format for yours rather than assuming a pattern.

3. Record the sizes before you need them

The parts you will replace on a schedule have sizes, and reading them off the old part is easy while the old part is still installed.

Furnace and air handler filter dimensions, printed on the frame of the filter already in place.
Refrigerator water filter model.
Range hood filter or charcoal cartridge.
Humidifier pad, if there is a whole-house humidifier.
Smoke and CO alarm battery type.
Garage door opener remote battery.

Ten minutes of reading labels now removes a trip to the store later, every time.

4. Reconstruct the service history

You will not get a complete history, but you can usually get more than nothing.

Ask the seller’s agent whether the seller kept service records; sometimes they exist and nobody thought to pass them on. Check inside cabinet doors, the furnace closet, and the water heater — service technicians often leave a dated sticker on the equipment itself. Look for a permit history at your local building department, which will show the work that was inspected: a re-roof, a panel upgrade, an added circuit, a water heater replacement.

Write down whatever you find, dated, with the company name if you have it. A furnace with an October sticker from a named company tells you two useful things: the system has been maintained, and there is a contractor who has already been inside it.

Then start your own history from day one. Every time someone works on the house — you, a plumber, an HVAC technician — record what was done, when, and who did it. That record is worth more each year it exists, and it is the thing the next owner will wish you had kept.

5. Find the shutoffs before an emergency

Locate and label the main water shutoff, the individual fixture shutoffs under sinks and behind toilets, the water heater’s shutoff, the main gas valve, and the main breaker. Test that the water valves actually turn; a valve that has not moved in fifteen years sometimes will not.

If you shut off gas at the meter, have the utility or a qualified professional restore service rather than relighting appliances yourself.

The point of doing this in month one is that the day you need a shutoff, you will be standing in water, and searching is not a plan.

6. Check the age of the alarms

Every smoke alarm has a manufacture date printed on the back of the unit. The NFPA says smoke alarms should be replaced 10 years from that date, regardless of whether they still respond to the test button. Carbon monoxide alarms have a shorter service life that varies by manufacturer — check the unit and its documentation.

Pull each one down, read the date, and write it on your list. In a house that changed hands, alarms installed at the same time will expire at the same time, so knowing the dates now means replacing them on a schedule rather than after one starts chirping at 3 a.m.

7. Write down what the seller said out loud

Somewhere in the walkthrough or the closing, somebody mentions the thing that is not in any document. The disposal jams if you run it without water. The back gate latch sticks in winter. The guy who did the deck is still local. The upstairs radiator needs bleeding every fall.

That information has a short shelf life in your memory. Write it down the same day. It is the closest thing to the previous owner’s operating manual you will ever get.

Turn the list into a schedule

A list of facts is where this starts, not where it ends. Once you know the furnace filter size, the useful next step is a recurring reminder to change it. Once you know the water heater’s age, the useful next step is an annual check on your calendar rather than a memory of having read something about it.

That is what Tobi’s maintenance log does with the list. Each thing in your home becomes a record — furnace, water heater, gutters — with the tasks it needs attached to it, either recurring on an interval or scheduled once. Completing a recurring task recalculates the next due date. Every completion is appended permanently with the date, who did the work, and notes, so the service history you just reconstructed keeps growing instead of going stale. The contractors you find in year one become records too, and their work stays attributed to them.

The panel schedule handles the first item on the list the same way. It mirrors your panel slot by slot, and every circuit carries a flag: verified, a guess, or known wrong. A panel you inherited starts out mostly guesses, and it gets more trustworthy one confirmed circuit at a time.

Put it where the rest of the house can reach it

The failure mode for all of this is a notes app on one person’s phone. That is how the knowledge ended up concentrated in one head in the first place, and buying a house is the moment to not repeat it. If two people live there, both should be able to answer what breaker feeds the garage and when the furnace was last serviced.

A shared household means one record everyone can see and edit from their own phone, syncing in real time. One subscription covers the household, and only the owner pays, so inviting the people you live with costs nothing extra.

Common questions

How long does the first-month list actually take?

The panel mapping is the long one, usually an afternoon. The data plate photos, the part sizes, the shutoffs, and the alarm dates are a couple of hours combined if you do them in one pass through the house. The service history is the piece that trickles in over weeks, as records surface and contractors get called.

What if the house is brand new?

A new build hands you more paperwork, and you still have to consolidate it. The model numbers are in the packet, the panel should be labeled, and the systems are all the same age. Record it anyway, because year one of a new house is the easiest possible time to build a complete history and the paperwork packet is not a schedule.

Which of the seven is most urgent?

The shutoffs and the alarm dates, because both are about the day something goes wrong. The panel is the largest job and the one that pays back longest.

What can wait

Not everything belongs in month one. Cosmetic work, the yard, and the renovation you already have opinions about will all still be there in six months, and none of them get harder to do because you waited. Recording what you inherited is the opposite: the seller’s phone number goes stale, the sticker on the furnace peels, and the memory of the walkthrough fades within a week.

Do the recording first. Then the house is yours in the way that matters — you know how it works.

Tobi is on the App Store

Sun, 02 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Tobi 1.0.0 is available on the App Store today, for iPhone on iOS 26 and later.

Tobi keeps one shared record of your home. The maintenance tasks and their full history, the breaker panel with every circuit labeled, and the contractors you hire, all in one household that everyone in the house can see and edit from their own phone.

If you want the full walkthrough of what the first release does, What is Tobi? covers every feature in detail. The short version: recurring and one-off tasks with reminders, a completion history that records who did what and when, an editable model of your electrical panel with a confidence flag on every label, and contractor records that build up a history of the work done in your home.

One subscription covers the whole household, and only the owner pays. Both plans start with a 7-day free trial, and if you would rather look around before subscribing, the paywall includes a sample household you can explore on your device.

Download Tobi below and start your household’s record.

What does this breaker control? Mapping an unlabeled panel

Thu, 30 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

To find out what a breaker controls in an unlabeled breaker panel, turn the house on first. Turn on lights in every room. Plug a lamp or a loud radio into outlets that have no switch. Now flip that one breaker off. Walk the whole house and write down everything that lost power. That list tells you what that breaker controls. The first thing you notice is usually not all of it, because one breaker often feeds parts of several rooms. Turn the breaker back on and move to the next one.

That is the test for one mystery breaker. A panel with no labels at all needs a plan on top of it. You need an order to work in, notes that keep up, and a way to handle the circuits you cannot pin down. This post walks through all of it.

Two rules before you start. First, this is a mapping job, not a repair job. Touch only the breaker handles. Never take the panel cover off, and never reach inside. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission says not to remove the service-panel cover; if you see heat, rust, damage, or burn marks, stop and call an electrician. Second, do not cut power to things that must stay on. Shut down computers first. Leave medical gear, alarm systems, and a sump pump that is in use alone.

The free label generator makes a printable circuit directory for standard residential panel layouts, with a custom size for unusual panels. Open it in another tab and fill it in as you go. That way your notes land somewhere useful the first time.

Open the free label generator

Set up an unlabeled breaker panel

A little setup saves extra walking. Turn on every light. Include closets, the basement, the garage, and outdoor lights. Plug a lamp or radio into empty outlets. The goal: when a breaker opens, something goes dark or quiet in every area it feeds.

Some things cannot be staged this way. The doorbell. The garage door opener. The furnace. The water heater. Note your list now. These show up later as the breakers that seem to do nothing.

Map the panel breaker by breaker

It is tempting to pick a room and hunt for its breaker. That fails on a panel with no labels, because circuits do not follow walls. A bedroom’s lights and its outlets are often on different circuits. One breaker can feed the living room lights, the porch light, and half the hallway outlets. Room-by-room means flipping the same breakers over and over, and you still miss things.

So work breaker by breaker instead. Flip each one once, and check the whole house each time. When every slot has a note—verified, unknown, or spare—you have a usable first map.

Check double-pole breakers safely

After you have ruled out the main breaker, feeders, and backup-power equipment, start with the branch-circuit double-pole breakers. These span two slots and have a joined handle. They often feed large loads such as a range, dryer, water heater, or central air. Mapping them first clears easy wins off the list.

A few cautions here:

Mapping central air? Use the thermostat’s normal off control first. Follow the equipment instructions and allow any built-in restart delay before turning the breaker back on.
Do not use the main breaker, a feeder, or solar, battery, or generator equipment as part of this test.
A double-pole breaker can feed more than one thing. Still walk the whole house. Do not stop at the first appliance you find.

Test one breaker at a time

Now work the rest in panel order:

Flip one breaker off. Only one. Two at once makes your notes a mess. A tied pair counts as one, so flip it as a group. A tandem breaker holds two circuits; test each handle on its own.
Walk the same route every time. Front door to back, floor by floor. With a fixed route, you fix a missed room once, not on every pass.
List everything that went dark or quiet. Lights, the lamp, the radio. Check the doorbell, the garage door, and the rest of your list. Test outlets with the lamp, even in rooms where the lights stayed on.
Write it next to the breaker number first. A notebook, painter’s tape, or the generator tab all work. Write before you touch the panel again. Memory does not survive forty breakers.
Then turn it back on. Only do that if nothing seems wrong: no trip, odd sound, or smell. If it trips or anything seems unsafe, leave it off and call an electrician. Move to the next breaker.

What if a breaker controls nothing?

A few breakers may show no obvious change, depending on what is running. Common examples include the doorbell, garage door opener, furnace, sump pump, and outdoor outlets. Seasons hide things too: the air conditioner may show nothing in January, and the heat may show nothing in July. Use normal thermostat controls to test HVAC circuits when appropriate, and follow the equipment instructions.

Write “unknown” for now and keep moving. Mark a truly empty slot as “spare.” But do not leave a live circuit marked “unknown” for good. If you cannot solve it safely, have an electrician find it.

Mark guesses as guesses

Every mapped panel ends with a few maybes. The breaker that probably feeds the garage door. The outlet you think shares a circuit with the bathroom. The trap is writing those down like facts. The next person cannot tell your guess from the truth, and then the panel lies.

So keep three states: verified, a guess, and known wrong. Tobi’s electrical panel schedule is built on exactly this. It mirrors your panel slot by slot, and every circuit carries a confidence flag. Guesses stay marked as guesses until someone confirms them. And when a mystery breaker gets solved, everyone in the house gets the update.

Common questions

Do I need to turn off the main breaker?

No, and do not use it for mapping. Killing the whole panel tells you nothing about single circuits. The main breaker and anything feeding the panel are not part of this job.

Can I do this alone?

Yes, it just takes more walking. The radio is your ears, the lamp checks outlets, and the fixed route covers the rest. A helper who walks while you flip can make the process faster.

How long does it take?

The time varies with the panel size, the number of circuits, and how much of the house you need to check. Give yourself extra time the first time; setup and writing can take longer than the flipping.

Turn the map into labels

The map was the hard part. Writing labels people can trust is its own short skill, and I cover it in how to label your electrical panel the right way. The short version: name the thing, not the person. Note the exceptions. List everything on the circuit. The panel label generator turns your list into a printable card for the panel door. And a shared record in Tobi makes it easier for the household to keep the map current after the paper copy falls behind.

How to label your electrical panel the right way

Sun, 26 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Here is the short version. Flip one branch-circuit breaker at a time while the house is running. Write down everything that turns off. Make each label clear enough that a stranger could use it. Do not copy the old labels without testing them. A guess written down as a fact is how a breaker box ends up lying to you.

This is a mapping job, not an electrical repair job. Operate only the breaker handles from outside the panel. Never remove the panel cover or touch anything inside it. If you see heat, corrosion, damage, or signs of arcing, stop and call a qualified electrician.

This guide walks through each step. By the end, you will have a list of what every breaker controls. Type that list into the free label generator and it formats a printable directory that fits inside your panel door. Open it in another tab and fill it in as you map.

Open the free label generator

What you need

A helper in the house to call out what turns off. Working alone? A loud radio does the job. You can hear it stop from the panel.
A plug-in lamp for checking outlets. An outlet tester is optional, but do not treat it as proof that a circuit is safe to touch.
Painter’s tape and a marker for quick notes.
An hour or two, ideally in daylight, plus a flashlight for the panel area.

Read the panel before you map it

Many U.S. residential panels have two columns of breaker positions. In the common layout, odd numbers go down the left and even numbers go down the right: slot 1 sits across from slot 2, and slot 3 sits across from slot 4. Do not assume that layout, though. Follow the numbers printed on your panel and the numbering shown on its directory; some panels number positions sequentially.

The card inside the door follows that same numbering. This card is called the circuit directory, or the panel schedule. If the old labels look shuffled to you, this numbering is usually why.

Breakers come in a few shapes. Know them before you start:

Single-pole breakers are most of your panel. On a typical U.S. residential panel, one handle and one position serve one 120-volt branch circuit. They commonly run lights and everyday outlets.
Double-pole breakers occupy two adjacent positions and may have a common handle or a handle tie. In a typical 120/240-volt home panel, they often serve 240-volt equipment such as a range, dryer, water heater, or central air conditioner. They can also serve two 120-volt loads on a shared-neutral branch circuit, so do not assume that every one feeds a single appliance.
Tandem breakers put two independent single-pole circuits in one position. Each handle is a separate circuit, but tandems are only permitted in panels and positions listed for them by the manufacturer.
Quad breakers vary by model. One may contain two single-pole circuits and one common-trip two-pole circuit, or two common-trip two-pole circuits. Use the breaker’s handle ties and markings to identify the circuit groups. Label each circuit, not automatically each handle.

How to find out what breaker controls what

Get the house talking. Turn on lights in every room. Include closets, the basement, and outside lights. Plug a lamp or radio into outlets that have no switch. Shut down computers and other sensitive electronics first. Do not deliberately interrupt medical equipment, security or fire systems, or a sump pump that is currently needed.
Start with clear dedicated loads. You can begin with two-pole breakers serving equipment that is running, but do not switch off the main breaker, a panel feeder, or solar, battery, generator, or transfer equipment as part of this process. If you are mapping central air, turn the thermostat off first and wait for the equipment’s restart delay before turning the breaker back on. A two-pole breaker may serve more than one load, so check the whole house rather than looking for only one appliance.
Then flip one branch-circuit breaker at a time. Turn one off. Walk the house, or have your helper call out what went dark. For a common-trip or handle-tied pair, operate the pair as one group. Turn a breaker back on only if nothing tripped and there are no unusual sounds or smells. One at a time keeps the picture clean.
Write down everything that turned off. Not just the first thing you noticed. One breaker might feed the living room lights, the porch light, and half the hallway outlets. The full list is the label.
Test outlets on their own. Lights and outlets in the same room are often on different circuits. Many newer homes have at least two small-appliance circuits serving kitchen countertop receptacles, and bathroom receptacles may share a circuit while the lights are elsewhere. Older homes and local codes can differ. Use the lamp to check each outlet; an outlet tester can help identify wiring conditions, but it is not a substitute for a qualified electrician.
Expect a few mystery breakers. The doorbell, the garage door opener, the sump pump, and the furnace like to hide. If a breaker seems to control nothing, write “unknown” as a temporary mapping note and move on. Mark a genuinely unused position as “spare.” Do not leave an active circuit marked “unknown” in the final directory; if you cannot resolve it safely, have an electrician identify it.

The fridge and freezer will generally be fine without power for a few minutes if you keep the doors closed, but do not interrupt equipment that must remain powered for health or safety. Map those circuits only when doing so is safe for the equipment and the household.

Write labels that stay true

A good label helps someone who is not you. Three rules get you there:

Name the thing, not the person. “Emma’s room” stops working the day Emma switches rooms. “Northeast bedroom” always works. The electrical code agrees: labels must be specific, and they cannot depend on who lives there (NEC 408.4(A)).
Note the exceptions. If one kitchen outlet is on a different circuit, say so. “Kitchen outlets (except coffee maker)” saves someone twenty minutes.
List everything on the circuit. “Living room lights, porch light, hallway outlets” is a real label. “Living room” is a rumor.

These rules work on paper. They work even better in an app the whole house can see. Tobi’s electrical panel schedule mirrors your panel slot by slot. Each circuit carries a flag: verified, a guess, or known wrong. The circuits you have not tested yet stay honest about it, and when someone pins down a mystery breaker, everyone’s phone gets the update.

Print a copy for the panel door

The panel door should always hold a directory people can read. The person dealing with a power loss will not check your notes app. The NEC calls for a legible, permanent, clear, and specific circuit description. The free panel label generator handles the formatting for standard U.S. residential panels. Pick your panel size, type in your labels, print the PDF, and secure it inside or next to the panel door. Verify that it fits your particular panel before relying on it.

Labels fade, so plan for it

Time is hard on a circuit directory. A renovation adds circuits. An electrician moves a few breakers around. The person who did the mapping moves out and takes the knowledge along. Paper cannot keep up on its own.

Give the directory a second home that is easy to update. That can be a shared record in Tobi or any place the whole house can reach. When something changes, fix it there the same day. Reprint the paper copy when it stops matching.

That is the whole method. One afternoon, one breaker at a time, and labels a stranger could understand. The next time a breaker trips, the directory can identify the circuit so whoever is home knows what lost power. Unplug or turn off obvious loads and reset the breaker only if there are no warning signs and it has not repeatedly tripped. If it trips again, leave it off and call a qualified electrician.

What is Tobi? A home maintenance app your whole household shares

Sun, 26 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Tobi is a home maintenance app for households that share the work. It holds one record of what your home needs: the maintenance log, the electrical panel schedule, the contractors you call, and the full history of who did what. Everyone in the household sees that same record, in real time, on their own phone.

What follows describes the first release, the one on the App Store today. All of it already works. None of it is a roadmap.

The problem it solves

Home maintenance knowledge is scattered, and most of it sits in one person’s head. What the furnace filter schedule is. Which breaker feeds the garage. Which plumber fixed the upstairs leak, and when. None of it is written down anywhere the rest of the house can reach, so when one person handles something, everyone else has no record that it happened.

That is the gap Tobi fills. Not a private to-do list for one person, but a record the household keeps together.

One household, one shared record

A household is the container. Every task, every panel, and every contractor belongs to exactly one household, and you only ever see the households you belong to.

There are two roles. Owners can invite people, promote or remove members, and delete the household. Members can view and edit all of the maintenance data: tasks, home elements, panels, and contractors. A household can have more than one owner, and promoting someone grants ownership rather than handing it over, so a household always keeps at least one owner.

Inviting someone works two ways. Share a link, or read out a six-character code over the phone. Both resolve to the same invitation, and invitations expire after seven days.

Every change syncs in real time to every member’s device. More on household sharing.

The maintenance log

The log has two linked layers.

Home elements are the things you maintain: the furnace, the water heater, the gutters, the refrigerator. Each one carries a name, notes, and an optional link to its manual. One element can have any number of tasks against it.

Tasks are the actual upkeep. “Replace the air filter.” “Flush the tank.” A task is either recurring, repeating on an interval such as every three months, or one-off, scheduled once and then done. Completing a recurring task recalculates its next due date automatically.

Each task can also carry:

an assignee, either a specific person or nobody, which means the whole household
a reorder link for the consumable involved, so the exact air filter is one tap away next time
notes

Then there is the part that makes it a log rather than a checklist. Every completion is appended, never overwritten. Each record holds the date, who did the work, and notes for that occurrence. Open a task months later and the whole history is sitting there. Enter something wrong and you can delete or correct that record; the due-date math recalculates either way.

The task list shows what is due, flags what is overdue, and keeps a done section that surfaces recently finished recurring work, not just one-off items. More on the maintenance log.

Contractors are records, not just contacts

A contractor in Tobi has a name, a company, a trade such as plumbing or HVAC or pest control, a phone number, an email address, and notes. They are kept separately from the maintenance log itself.

The connection between the two is attribution. Any completed task can be credited to a contractor instead of a household member, which means that over time you build something genuinely useful: a filtered view of everything one contractor has ever done in your home, with dates.

Deleting behaves the way it should. A contractor with no history is deleted outright. A contractor with history is archived instead, hidden from future selection while their name and details stay attached to the work they did, so past records are never rewritten.

The electrical panel schedule

This is the part of Tobi people tend to be surprised by, and it is not a checklist item pretending to be a feature. It is an editable model of your actual breaker panel.

It mirrors the physical two-column layout: odd slots down the left, even down the right, paired by row.
The standard residential sizes (12, 20, 24, 30, 40, and 42 slots) are one tap, and anything else takes a custom slot count, so no panel is too large to represent.
A household can keep several named panels, for example the current one and the original as-built.
Circuits cover every real arrangement: single-pole, tandem (two circuits sharing one slot), double-pole (one circuit spanning two slots, such as a range or a heat pump), and combined half-height circuits that also span two slots.
Labels are free text and multi-line, so “Kitchen outlets (except coffee maker)” fits.

The part that matters most in a house you did not wire yourself is the confidence flag. Every circuit is marked Correct (green, verified), Unverified (orange, a guess), or Incorrect (red, known wrong). That turns an inherited panel from something you either trust or you don’t into something a household can correct one circuit at a time, and anyone who opens the box can tell at a glance which labels are trustworthy.

More on the electrical panel schedule, or try the free panel label generator, which prints a directory for the inside of your panel door with no account required.

Reminders that reach the right person

Push notifications fire on the day a task is due, with a second one the day after if it is still open. Assigned tasks notify only the assignee. Unassigned tasks notify everyone, on every device they use. Anyone can snooze a reminder to a date they choose, and snoozing is personal, so two people sharing one task can each push it to a different day. Completing the task clears the pending reminders for everyone at once, since the work only needs doing once.

Email is on by default and can be switched off per type:

a daily digest, sent only on days with something due or overdue, which also bundles anything due in the next fourteen days
a monthly summary of the household’s activity
a note when another member completes something

It works with no signal

The place you most need the panel schedule is the basement, which is also the place least likely to have bars. Tobi stays fully readable offline, and anything you change without a connection syncs once the connection comes back. A banner tells you when you are offline, so the state is never ambiguous.

Accounts

Three ways to sign in: Apple, Google, or an email address and password. All three resolve to a single account, and you can link more than one of them to it later from the account screen. There is one account per email address, so linking never has to reconcile two separate histories.

Account management is complete rather than partial: change your display name, change your password, link or unlink providers, delete the account. Deletion is immediate. If you are the sole owner of a household that has other people in it, you hand ownership over first. If you are the only member, the household goes with you. Past records keep the departed person’s stored name, so the history still reads correctly afterward.

What it costs

One subscription covers the whole household, and only the owner pays for it. Anyone they invite gets full read and write access at no extra cost, with no second paywall. There are monthly and annual plans, both starting with a free trial. Current pricing is on the pricing page.

If you would rather look before subscribing, the paywall has a way through it: a fully populated sample household, with tasks and history and contractors and a labeled panel, held entirely on your device. Explore the real app with it, then decide.

What Tobi is not

Being specific about the edges is more useful than pretending there are none.

It is not a general-purpose to-do list. Tasks attach to things in your home.
It is not a smart-home controller. Tobi records and reminds; it does not talk to your devices.
It handles one household per person for now, so it does not yet serve landlords or property managers with several properties.
There is no projects concept. A kitchen remodel with sub-tasks and a budget is out of scope; discrete maintenance tasks are in.
There is no contractor marketplace or booking. Contractors are records you keep, not a directory you search.
The first release is iPhone only, on iOS 26 and later. No Android app, no web app, no Watch app, no widgets.

Who it is for

People who just moved into a house they did not wire themselves and inherited a panel with no labels, or worse, wrong ones.
Households where more than one person handles upkeep: couples, roommates, multi-generational homes. A private notes app stops working the moment the knowledge needs to be shared.
Homeowners who hire out plumbing, HVAC, pest control, or electrical work and want a durable record of who did what, independent of anyone’s memory or a pile of paper invoices.

Where to get it

Tobi is on the App Store for iPhone on iOS 26 and later. Download it below and start your household’s record.