Receiving the keys to our new house
01 Nov 2025 | #housing | #japanLast week our house was finished, and we had the official handover (家の引き渡し) yesterday.
From Ichijo two people joined:
- the sales rep, who has been acting as a project manager since our first visit to Ichijo, and will continue to be our main contact in the future, and
- the construction manager, who has been overseeing the construction after the foundation was done (foundation was managed by a different person). We already met him when I went to see the main construction (done with the crane), and also when we visited the half-finished house in September
I initially though that we will confirm that the house was built per specs, and that there are no mistakes or damages, but we have 2 months to report those, so this was more about getting an explanation of all the equipment in the house.
Usually it takes 1.5-2 hours, and we took almost 2 hours (I had a lot of questions, as usual).
What we learned
I’m documenting it here also for my future self, since I will for sure forget half of this.
Bath
The self-cleaning bath tub needs the yellow マジックリーン (浴室用) and it takes 10 minutes to start the cleaning after you press the button (as it wants to make sure the bathtub is empty, so it opens the drain then waits, as it doesn’t have a sensor).
In the bath most things on the wall (including the mirror) are fixed with magnets, so they can be moved easily. We can also get more magnetic hooks or selves (e.g. Nitori has them).
The air circulation system
The 24-hour air circulation system (ロスガード) has filters that need to be cleaned:
- The main unit has a filter that has to be cleaned (vacuumed) after 3 months, then replaced after another 3 months. Ichijo gave us filters for the next 10 years for this.
- They also offer stronger filters (PM2.5 type, if I remember correctly), that only need to be replaced yearly, and gave us 2 of these (they recommend them for people with hay fever, and these are sort of like samples as you can also buy them from Ichijo).
- The main unit also has an insect capturing bag, right next to the main filter. This should be cleaned together with the filters. I don’t remember the replacement schedule for this, but we got only one extra, so I assume it needs to be replaced when it gets worn out.
- Rooms have intakes where air comes in, and outtakes. The outtakes have filters. These need to be washed every 3 months with water.
(This blog post talks about these steps in detail.)
Apart from the set of replacement filters, we also got a big bag of leftover/extra wallpapers. They told us that wallpapers are slightly different even between different lots of the same design, so it is better to keep these for future repairs.
ロスガード also has a control panel where we can set three things:
- whether to exchange heat (cool the incoming air in summer with the outgoing / heat it in winter) or not. This is generally good to keep it on.
- whether to add humidity and how much to the incoming air (low, medium, high). This should be on during the winter, and off during summer. This is available because we chose the うるケア extra option that adds the humidifier.
- turning it on or off, or to quiet mode (お休みモード) - this is for people that are bothered by the noise and want to turn it down/off for a short while. It turns back on after 1 hour. Ichijo highly recommends keeping the air circulation always on (so much so that it has been on ever since the house was finished)
Floor heating
The control panel can control the temperature of the water in the 4 sections we defined during the design of the house (2 on the first floor, 2 on the second). The temperature of the air is usually 5-6 degrees cooler than the water, so they recommend setting it to 25-28 degrees (depending on personal preference). There are sensors in some rooms that measure the temperature of the water, and these should not be covered.
We also checked the section of the wall where the floor heating pipes go between the first and second floor, as we should not put any screw or nail into there.
Solar panels
We checked the solar panel’s control panel. This also has a corresponding app that I have already installed and configured (the main Ichijo app prompted me to do it, and handled the authentication). Both the app and the control panel allows adjusting the mode of operation (whether to prioritize selling the electricity produced or using it) and the amount that we always want to keep in the battery (e.g. if the battery reaches 30% then stop using electricity from it). The point of this is that in case of a blackout (e.g. after a natural disaster) this setting will ensure that you always have some electricity left in the batteries to use. I asked if this was also to extend the life of the batteries, but they said no, this is just for emergencies. So I changed it to 10% (down from the default 30%), the lowest they recommended.
We also checked the breaker box: there are actually two boxes next to each other. One is the usual breaker box with breakers for individual circuits and a main breaker. The other one is for solar panel operations. This has a 3 way switch that is on the top setting in normal operations (producing electricity but also connected to the grid). If there is a blackout, the house will loose electricity until we switch this to the bottom setting (solar and battery mode). The third, middle mode is neutral (off). We actually tested this, and worked as described.
Last information on the solar panels was the billing for selling the excess electricity: Ichijo handled the contract for us with Tepco, however due to Tepco being busy, it only starts in 1-2 months. Until then we just waste the excess electricity. After that we will receive a bank transfer each months for the electricity sold. This is unrelated to the fact that we are also buying electricity from Tepco: that’s a separate contract and we could even change it to be a different company (e.g. Tokyo Gas). Unfortunately that also makes this an income and will be taxed as misc income (I need to look into how to deduct the depreciation to lower it, as misc income gets taxed at the marginal rate).
Connectivity box
Ichijo created a connectivity box (情報ボックス) in the location of our choice, so we put it into my office. This is where all ethernet cables go and where the internet fiber will come. Right now it has the ethernet cables from each room, from the LAN cameras (the Panasonic ones that Ichijo installed), from the power conditioner (providing the data on the solar panels), and from the smart breaker box (main unit of the HEMS smart home system).
The solar panel and the breaker box was already connected to a mobile modem. That’s how the app with the solar panel information is already working, even though we don’t have the internet connected yet. Ichijo pays for this for 10 years, and after that they ask customers to connect it to their own network. Our sales guy said that we can connect it earlier as well, they mainly have it as the company wants to see how the solar panels are doing and some customers don’t have internet at home.
This also brought us to the list of things that don’t yet work:
- the cameras since they will need to be connected to our own network
- the intercom, since the outside unit (caller) will be installed during the exterior construction
- HEMS and any of the smart home - I was told this will be enabled soon via the app. I might ask about it again if it doesn’t work in a week or so
Entrance door
During the constructions they were using the construction keys to open the door (these look like regular keys, but they are different from the final keys). As part of the handover, I got to open the sealed bag of the final keys, then use them to lock and unlock the door once. After this the constructions keys no longer worked (we verified this).
We also got the radio keys as an additional option: so we can keep the key in our pocket and simply press a button on the door to lock/unlock it (similar to how modern cars work). We were told to never leave the keys near the door even inside, as if the door detects them, then anyone can open the door even from outside. The best is to place them in a Faraday cage box that blocks all radio waves, so we will get one of those. (This is also nice for the car’s key, as relay attacks are becoming common even in Japan.)
Minor mechanical equipments
We also checked how the locks on the windows work, how the insect screens open, how the cloth lines can be used, how the door to the loft storage opens, and how the underfloor storage worked. No surprises, more like making sure we will be able to use everything from day 1.
We also got the manuals and the warranty papers for all the equipment. Since we went with a custom kitchen we didn’t get any explanation about that (other than to please check and follow the manuals).
I had one more extra question about how to remove the door of one of the built-in closets, so they showed me. (Initially we will use one of the kids’ room as family closet, so we don’t need the door.) It doesn’t need any tools, just un-clip the door on the bottom, then on the top, and move it. But it’s heavy.