New home utility setup checklist
Know which service to order first before you move: internet needs about 21 days, electric and gas 14, water and trash 7, so the checklist puts broadband at the top and starts your planning three weeks out. Free in your browser.
- Free
- Runs in your browser
- No sign-up
- Your data stays on your device
Run — free
Worked example
- Utilities
- electric, gas, water, internet, trash
- Item count
- 5
- Utilities requested
- electric, gas, water, internet, trash
- Max lead time days
- 21
- Min lead time days
- 7
Moving into a new home is not only boxes and keys: every household depends on a short list of utilities that must be active on day one. Electric and gas accounts often need two weeks of notice, municipal water and trash can take about a week, and broadband installs commonly need three weeks or more for technician windows. Forgetting any of those timelines leaves a dark house, cold water, or no Wi-Fi on move-in morning. This new home utility setup checklist accepts the utility types you still need—electric, gas, water, internet, and trash—and returns a deterministic checklist with a suggested lead time in days before move-in for each service, ordered so the longest lead times come first. An empty list is rejected with invalid input so automation never silently builds a blank plan.
What a new-home utility checklist covers and why lead times matter
A utility setup checklist for a new home is a planning artifact, not a sales pitch for any single provider. Electric service transfers and new connections typically need about fourteen days so the meter is read, the account is created, and any deposit or identity check clears. Natural gas or propane follows a similar two-week window, especially when a safety inspection or meter unlock is required after a vacant period.
Municipal water and sewer billing changes often complete in about seven days, but cities still need the previous occupant closed and the new name on the account before shutoff policies kick in. Trash and recycling enrollment is usually about a week so bins are delivered and the first pickup day is confirmed for the address. Internet and broadband are almost always the critical path: installation appointments, conduit work, and equipment shipping push the practical lead time toward twenty-one days.
This capability encodes those fixed planning constants for the five common residential types—electric, gas, water, internet, and trash—so every checklist is reproducible. The value is a shared, machine-readable order of operations that relocation checklists, CRM tasks, and buyer packets can all hang off without arguing about who starts first.
What you can do with it
Buyer packets and agent move-in kits
Agents send clients a five-utility checklist with lead times so electric, gas, water, internet, and trash are ordered before the keys are handed over.
Proptech and relocation onboarding
Apps create CRM tasks from the sorted checklist, starting the internet install three weeks out and shorter leads closer to move-in.
Property manager tenant turnovers
Managers generate a consistent utility setup plan for each new lease without reinventing lead times per office spreadsheet.
FAQ
Which utility types does the new home checklist support?
The canonical set is electric, gas, water, internet, and trash. Unknown types are rejected.
What happens if the utilities list is empty?
A checklist cannot be built from zero services; empty lists are not billed.
What lead times does the checklist use?
Internet uses 21 days, electric and gas use 14 days, and water and trash use 7 days before move-in. These are fixed planning defaults, not live provider SLAs.
In what order should I set up utilities for a new home?
Start with the longest lead time: internet about 21 days before move-in, then electric and gas at 14 days, then trash and water at 7 days. The checklist sorts the services in that order for you.
What happens if I list the same utility twice?
Duplicates are merged in the order they first appear, so a pasted list never creates the same task twice. You can include up to twenty entries in one list.
Related tools
For developers — API access
Everything on this page is available programmatically. This section is for teams who want to wire it into their own systems; everyone else can just use the tool above.
API endpoint
Prefer to automate it? One authenticated POST creates the task; the result comes back by webhook or a signed link. The same capability also runs here on the web, by email and from Telegram — and soon from our app too.
Call it from your stack
curl -X POST https://api.kit.forhosting.com/realestate/utility-setup-checklist-new-home \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $KIT_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"utilities":["electric","gas","water","internet","trash"]}'const res = await fetch("https://api.kit.forhosting.com/realestate/utility-setup-checklist-new-home", {
method: "POST",
headers: {
"Authorization": `Bearer ${process.env.KIT_KEY}`,
"Content-Type": "application/json"
},
body: JSON.stringify({
"utilities": [
"electric",
"gas",
"water",
"internet",
"trash"
]
})
});
const { task_id } = await res.json();import os, requests
res = requests.post(
"https://api.kit.forhosting.com/realestate/utility-setup-checklist-new-home",
headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['KIT_KEY']}"},
json={
"utilities": [
"electric",
"gas",
"water",
"internet",
"trash"
]
},
)
task_id = res.json()["task_id"]<?php
$res = file_get_contents("https://api.kit.forhosting.com/realestate/utility-setup-checklist-new-home", false, stream_context_create([
"http" => [
"method" => "POST",
"header" => "Authorization: Bearer " . getenv("KIT_KEY") . "\r\nContent-Type: application/json",
"content" => '{"utilities":["electric","gas","water","internet","trash"]}',
],
]));
$task = json_decode($res, true);body := bytes.NewBufferString(`{"utilities":["electric","gas","water","internet","trash"]}`)
req, _ := http.NewRequest("POST", "https://api.kit.forhosting.com/realestate/utility-setup-checklist-new-home", body)
req.Header.Set("Authorization", "Bearer "+os.Getenv("KIT_KEY"))
req.Header.Set("Content-Type", "application/json")
res, _ := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)Example request
{
"utilities": [
"electric",
"gas",
"water",
"internet",
"trash"
]
}Example response
{
"task_id": "tsk_a1b2c3d4e5f6a1b2c3d4e5f6",
"type": "realestate.utility_setup_checklist_new_home",
"status": "queued",
"_links": {
"result": "/tasks/tsk_…/result"
}
}The API is asynchronous: the call returns a task_id immediately and the result arrives by webhook. Polling is capped at 1 req/s per task.
Pricing
Published price — no tokens, no invented credits. A failed task is never charged.
Errors
| HTTP | Code | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
401 | unauthorized | Missing or invalid API key. |
402 | insufficient_balance | Your balance doesn't cover the task price. |
404 | unknown_type | That task type doesn't exist. |
429 | rate_limited | Too many requests. Use the webhook instead of polling. |
Technical notes
What a new-home utility checklist covers and why lead times matter
It answers a practical question: which services must be ordered, and how many days before the move-in date should each request go out? It does not call a utility API, check coverage maps, or invent provider-specific rules; those belong in your local research after the schedule skeleton exists.
Input contract, response shape, and error behaviour
Allowed canonical values are electric, gas, water, internet, and trash. Duplicates are collapsed in first-seen order so a pasted list does not create double tasks. The array may have at most twenty entries; more is rejected as invalid input. Priority is critical when lead time is twenty-one days or more, high at fourteen days, and standard at seven days. The calculator does not pick providers, estimate deposits, or convert move-in calendars into absolute dates—pair the day offsets with your own move-in date in the client. POST a JSON body with one required field: utilities, a non-empty array of utility type strings. Aliases such as electricity, power, natural_gas, broadband, wifi, garbage, and recycling normalize to those five keys so short form labels still work. Missing utilities, a non-array value, or an empty array fails with invalid_input and a message that the utilities list must not be empty—those failures are not billed. Unknown tokens that cannot map to a canonical type also fail with invalid_input naming the bad index. On success the body includes item_count; utilities_requested in the order first seen; max_lead_time_days and min_lead_time_days across the set; start_planning_days_before_move_in equal to the maximum lead time so you know when the critical path begins; checklist as an array sorted by longest lead time first with step, utility, display_name, lead_time_days, priority, start_by, and action; items_input_order preserving the caller order for UIs that prefer the original sequence; plus formula and method strings for display and client branching. Example: requesting electric, gas, water, internet, and trash yields a five-row checklist with internet at twenty-one days first, electric and gas at fourteen, then water and trash at seven, and start_planning_days_before_move_in equal to twenty-one.
Where a utility setup checklist API earns its keep
Real-estate agents and transaction coordinators need a repeatable utility setup list in every buyer packet so move-in day is not improvised by text message. Classroom and housing-counseling programs can teach move-in readiness with a deterministic oracle instead of a static PDF that never updates priority order. Property managers and corporate relocation desks embed the same endpoint when onboarding tenants across many markets and want one schema for electric, gas, water, internet, and trash tasks. Mortgage and escrow packages often mention utilities only as a reminder; calling this API at $0.002 per successful item turns the reminder into structured steps with lead times that can create calendar tasks or CRM checklists automatically.
Technical questions
How is the checklist ordered?
The checklist array is sorted by lead_time_days descending so the critical path (usually internet) appears first. items_input_order preserves the order you sent.
What does the new home utility setup checklist cost?
The browser tool is free. API requests use prepaid KIT balance at $0.002 per successful call; invalid input is not billed.