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Write a room schedule that includes every off-grid service room

A room schedule is a table of every room, its job, size, the systems it serves and whether it must stay heated or cooled. It turns the design brief (design-1) into a list you can furnish and equip.

How

1. Start from the space programme in design-1 and add a line for each service room this module covers: water and pump room, battery and inverter room, utility and laundry, mudroom, pantry and cold store, workshop, medical room or cupboard, safe room or secure store and a comms corner.
2. For each room record: purpose, floor area, who uses it and when, the systems it connects to (power, water, greywater, ventilation), and whether it is heated, cooled or deliberately left cool.
3. Mark which rooms must keep working in a total blackout. These get battery-backed lighting and priority in the power budget (continuity-3).
4. Combine jobs where you can: a mudroom can hold the laundry, a utility room can hold the water treatment, and a home office can double as the comms corner. Fewer heated square metres means lower heat loss and battery load, as design-1 explains.
5. List the large items each room must fit (chest freezer, tanks, battery cabinet, workbench, washing machine) so room sizes are set by real equipment, not guesses.

Do these first

• design-1

Sources

1. Approved Document M: Access to and use of buildings, Volume 1: Dwellings. HM Government (GOV.UK), accessed 2026-11
2. Orientation. Your Home, Australian Government, accessed 2026-11

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