HouseManual has no advertisements or third-party behavioral trackers. Core home records stay on the device by default. A small account service stores identity and licensing information so sign-in, sponsored access, staff access, and account deletion work. Online features are limited to actions you choose or services needed to operate the product.
1. Who is responsible
Epicalin LLC, doing business as HouseManual, is responsible for the HouseManual services described here. Our mailing address is 1810 N Burning Bush Ln, Mount Prospect, IL 60056, United States. Contact us at hello@house-manual.com.
2. Core home information stored on your device
HouseManual can store property details; control and shutoff locations; components, systems, appliances, finishes, utilities, contractors, tasks, notes, tags, warranties, smart-home details, manuals, photographs, documents, service history, and handoff records. App preferences, onboarding state, backup state, and a random non-advertising installation identifier may also be stored.
These records and attachments are held in the app’s private device storage. They are not uploaded to the HouseManual account and licensing service. HouseManual does not add database-level encryption to the live local database; protection at rest depends on operating-system safeguards, the app sandbox, and your device passcode or lock settings.
3. Account, licensing, and organization information
Signing in sends a short-lived Apple or Google identity proof to our service. We verify it and may store the provider, provider account identifier, verified email address, display name, account creation and update times, and an opaque hashed session record. We do not store your Apple or Google password. For Sign in with Apple, Apple provides a one-time authorization code that our service exchanges for a refresh token. We encrypt that token with authenticated encryption and retain it only so deleting your HouseManual account can also revoke its Sign in with Apple authorization. Google Sign-In may process a user identifier and normal network information such as an IP address, which can indicate an approximate location, for authentication, fraud prevention, and abuse prevention.
To provide purchases, staff access, sponsored licenses, and organization administration, we may store product and entitlement status; a one-way hash or provider identifier for a verified store transaction; license source, capabilities, limits, start and expiration dates; organization and property references; membership role and status; invitations and redemptions; and administrator actions. Organization property references in the licensing service are administrative identifiers and names, not the home database, manuals, attachments, or backup contents.
4. Optional backup, export, and sharing
Automatic backup
If you enable it, a rolling copy of eligible records and attachments is sent to HouseManual’s private iCloud container or Google Drive’s hidden appDataFolder. Google authorization uses the limited drive.appdata permission and is not designed to browse or change normal Drive files. Apple or Google controls provider storage, security, retention, and account settings. HouseManual’s account service does not receive the backup contents.
Manual exports and handoffs
When you generate and share a PDF, encrypted backup archive, transfer package, calendar file, or other export, the selected content goes to the destination you choose. A system picker may offer local storage, iCloud Drive, Google Drive, email, messaging, or another installed provider. HouseManual cannot control, revoke, or delete a file after you share it.
5. Discovery, recognition, and safety services
Manual and transfer-instruction discovery
When you request a public lookup or open a generated link, the request can include manufacturer, model, item category, and language. It does not require the property address, owner notes, photographs, attachments, or serial number. The destination website receives normal browser request information.
Product-safety checks
After the in-app disclosure and your action, a controlled equipment-category token can be sent to the United States Consumer Product Safety Commission’s public SaferProducts.gov interface. Make-and-model filtering occurs on the device.
Rating-plate recognition
Text recognition of a selected rating-plate image occurs on the device. The temporary recognition image is deleted after processing and is not sent to Google for recognition. Google ML Kit may process limited SDK diagnostics—such as app and device information, a per-install SDK identifier, interaction or performance data, configuration, and error diagnostics—after you see the disclosure and choose to scan.
6. Purchases, platform services, and calendars
Apple or Google processes sign-in and store transactions under its own terms and privacy policy. HouseManual receives only the information needed to validate and honor an entitlement; it does not receive full payment-card details. If you add a maintenance event to a selected calendar, its title, date, and note go to that calendar and may sync with its provider. Operating-system crash reports may reach Apple or Google when you enable platform analytics sharing.
7. Website, support, and contact requests
The public website does not use advertising pixels, third-party analytics scripts, cross-site tracking cookies, or embedded social widgets. Cloudflare delivers the site and service APIs and necessarily processes network, request, device, security, and abuse-prevention information, such as IP address, request headers, timestamps, and threat signals, under its applicable privacy and retention terms.
If you submit a contact form, we store its category, name, reply email, organization, subject, message, consent time, source, request identifier, and status. A signed-in app request may include user identifier, app version, platform, and diagnostics you explicitly include, but not household records or backup contents. We may use a keyed one-way network hash for abuse prevention and audit. Messages and administrative records are available only to authorized personnel protected by Cloudflare Access and HouseManual roles.
8. How information is used
We use information to authenticate accounts; maintain secure sessions; provide and restore licenses; administer staff, sponsored, and organization access; verify store entitlements; operate backups you enable; respond to support and privacy requests; prevent abuse and fraud; diagnose service availability; keep security and administrator audit records; comply with law; and improve reliability using privacy-preserving operational totals. We do not use home records to build advertising profiles.
9. Disclosure and processors
We disclose data only as needed to service providers acting for us, such as Cloudflare for hosting, security, databases, and delivery; to Apple or Google for sign-in, purchases, app distribution, and backups you choose; to a destination you explicitly select for export or lookup; to an organization administrator where your role or sponsored access makes that appropriate; or when required to comply with law, protect rights and safety, investigate abuse, or complete a corporate transaction subject to appropriate safeguards. We require service providers handling data for us to protect it consistently with this policy and applicable law.
10. No sale, advertising, or tracking
HouseManual does not sell personal information, share it for cross-context behavioral advertising, show third-party advertisements, use an advertising identifier, or include a third-party behavioral tracking SDK.
11. Permissions and choices
Depending on the feature and platform, HouseManual may request camera or selected-photo access, notifications, write-only calendar access, biometric authentication, Apple or Google sign-in, and cloud-provider authorization. Permissions are requested in context and can be declined or changed through device or provider settings. Some associated features will not work without permission. You can disable Google Drive or iCloud backup, revoke provider authorization, turn notifications off, export or delete local records, sign out, or delete the HouseManual account.
12. Retention and deletion
Local records remain until you delete them, erase app storage, or uninstall, subject to operating-system and provider backup behavior. Account and licensing records remain while the account is active and as needed to provide or defend the license. Support messages, purchase validation records, security logs, and administrator audit records are retained only as reasonably necessary for support, fraud prevention, accounting, disputes, security, and legal obligations.
Delete the server-side account in Profile → Delete connected account, or use our external account-deletion page. Account deletion does not automatically cancel a store subscription, erase local device storage, recall shared exports, remove external calendar events, or delete provider backups. We may retain narrowly limited information when required by law or reasonably necessary to prevent fraud, resolve disputes, enforce agreements, or demonstrate compliance.
13. Security
We use encrypted network transport, platform app isolation, protected local storage APIs for sensitive preferences, least-privilege provider permissions, hashed opaque sessions and transaction identifiers, validated import and export formats, role-based administration, Cloudflare Access for the administrative console, audit logs, and privacy review before handoff. Optional manual backup archives can be passphrase protected. No system is perfectly secure; protect devices and provider accounts, keep software current, and avoid recording secrets that do not need to be in a home manual.
14. Children
HouseManual is a general household organization service and is not directed to children under 13. We do not knowingly collect personal information from a child under 13 through the account service. Contact us if you believe a child supplied information so we can investigate and delete it where required.
15. International processing and regional rights
Epicalin LLC is based in Illinois, United States, and service providers may process information in the United States and other countries. Depending on where you live, you may have rights to access, correct, delete, restrict, object to, or obtain a portable copy of personal information, and to appeal or complain to a regulator. We do not discriminate for exercising a privacy right. Because the core home database is local, we ordinarily cannot retrieve it from our servers; the app provides direct access, correction, export, and deletion tools.
16. Changes
We may update this policy as the product or law changes. We will post the updated policy with a new effective date and provide additional notice when required.
17. Contact
Email privacy, support, or legal questions to hello@house-manual.com. Mail may be sent to Epicalin LLC, 1810 N Burning Bush Ln, Mount Prospect, IL 60056, United States.