How to Set Up Home Services in Your New House

Settling into your new home means more than just arranging all your furniture and unpacking every box. It also means setting up your utilities, familiarizing yourself with your new neighborhood, and most importantly, installing all your home services. After all, is it really your home if you can’t safely watch Netflix?

To help you outfit your new home for entertainment and safety, we’ve broken down the setup process for these essential home services:

• Internet
• Cable or satellite TV
• Home security

Keep reading to learn how to get your home ready to be lived in.

Access to the internet is an absolute necessity in today’s world. Whether you use the internet for work, streaming your favorite shows, or just checking the news, it’s safe to assume you use it multiple times every day.

That’s why you can’t really say you’ve properly settled into your home until your internet is up and running. Get access to the world wide web ASAP with these guides.

Setting up internet in your new home is relatively easy, and it can be broken down into four steps:

1. Choosing an internet provider
2. Installing routers and other equipment
3. Setting up your wireless network
4. Connecting all your devices

Our guide to setting up your internet after you move can give you a more detailed walkthrough that’ll have you surfing the web in no time.

If you still have questions about internet services, these guides might be able to help:

• Do Internet Companies Charge a Fee to Relocate My Service?
• Best Internet Service Providers When You Move
• How Much Internet Speed Do I Need?
• High-Speed Internet Deals
• DSL vs. Cable Internet Service
• How Much Should I Be Paying for High-Speed Internet?
• How to Find the Best Internet for Your New Home

If you pay for cable or satellite TV, then you clearly take all your shows, sports games, and news stations seriously. Get your TV ready to go so you don’t miss a single episode or day of coverage.

Unlike cable’s early days when you could just hook your TV up to a coaxial outlet in your wall, cable requires a slightly more complex apparatus now. You need to connect a digital cable box (from your cable provider) to the wall outlet, and from there, you need a separate cable to connect the cable box to your TV.

Here are the three types of cords that work and what they do best:

1. HDMI cable—Best picture quality
2. Coaxial cable—Quickest setup
3. S-Video cable or composite-video cable—Best for older TVs

If you want a more detailed walkthrough of cable installation using any of these different cords, hop over to our guide about installing cable yourself.

If you’ve never had cable but you’ve always wanted it, your move is the perfect time to start your cable subscription. There are a lot of cable providers to choose from, though, so it can be hard to determine which one is best.

To tell the difference between different providers and select the one that’s best for you, here’s what you should look for:

• Providers that service your new area
• Providers with good reviews
• Providers that your new neighbors like
• Providers that offer the channels you want
• Providers that offer the best prices

If you take all of these factors into account, you’ll be able to determine which cable provider is best for you. For more tips and a few provider recommendations, read our guide to choosing a cable provider.

When choosing a TV service, it can be hard to decide if satellite or cable is better.

It ultimately comes down to which providers offer service in your area and carry the channels you want, but we consider cable to be the better service generally. It’s a bit more reliable than satellite (which can be affected by weather), and you can often bundle it with your internet or phone service, thereby saving you money.

That said, satellite TV can be a bit cheaper.

If you want a more detailed comparison before you make a decision, read our guide to the differences between cable and satellite TV.

If the guides above leave you with some unanswered questions about cable and satellite TV, check out these other guides to find what you’re looking for:

• Best Cable Providers for Moving
• How Much Does Cable TV Cost?
• Best TV Streaming Services
• Should I Get Cable or a Streaming Service?

Moving to an unfamiliar area can be frightening, and nighttime bumps and creaks can keep you up at night in a new home. Get the peace of mind that only comes from knowing your family is safe by immediately setting up a home security system.

If you’ve never had a home security system before, you might feel overwhelmed by all the available options. To help you quickly find the right home security plan for your new house, we’ve looked through all the options and chosen a few favorites:

If you want to know why we chose these systems and learn a little more about what makes them so good, read our guide to home security systems.

If you’re thinking about getting a DIY security system but the prospect of setting it up yourself is keeping you away––don’t worry! Setting up your own home security system is actually pretty easy.

Here are the basic steps for installing DIY home security:

1. Familiarize yourself with your security system’s basic components (control panels, motion sensors, security cameras, etc.).
2. Find the most important areas of your home to secure (doors, ground floor windows, etc.).
3. Install your security equipment and start monitoring.
4. Consider adding smart home devices to your home security arsenal.

To get a more detailed walkthrough for each of these steps, check out our guide to installing your home security system.

Home security is about more than just installing motion detectors and cameras. It also requires you to batten down the hatches and ensure your home is difficult to get into. A little disaster preparedness also goes a long way.

In addition to installing a home security system, here are a few quick and simple ways to make your home more secure:

• Enhance your home’s lighting.
• Change your locks.
• Check your smoke alarms.
• Get fire extinguishers.
• Install carbon monoxide alarms.
• Purchase homeowners insurance and/or warranties.

If you’re ready to beef up your home security, visit our guide about securing a home or apartment.

For all other questions or concerns about home security, check out these guides:

• Best Home Security Cameras
• Best Home Security Systems for Apartment Renters
• How Much Do Home Security Systems Cost?
• Monitored vs. Unmonitored Security Systems

Now that you know all about setting up your home services, here are a few other guides that can help you finish settling into your new place:

• How to Throw a Housewarming Party
• Are Moving Expenses Tax Deductible?