Put a number on something people care about and they'll react to the number before they read anything around it. A 64 on your house feels like a grade, and nobody likes getting a D on the place they live.
Reyn doesn't call a 64 a D. It calls it Fair. Scores of 90 and up read Excellent, 70 to 89 read Solid, 60 to 69 read Fair, and anything under 60 reads Needs attention. The words help, but the number only becomes useful once you know what's inside it. So here's what the home health score measures, what it leaves out, and what moves it. None of it is a secret.
Three things, for every system
Reyn scores your house one system at a time: the roof, the heating, the water heater, the electrical panel, the main plumbing, the sewer line, and on down to the deck and the fence if you have them. Each system's score comes from three things.
Condition is how the system is doing right now: excellent, good, fair, needs attention. It's 40 percent of the score.
Age is measured against how long that kind of system usually lasts. A furnace five years in is in a different place than one at year seventeen. Age is another 40 percent, with one rule worth knowing: an old system that's been well kept isn't scored like a neglected one. When the condition is better than the age would suggest, the score gives it credit for the condition.
How current the record is makes up the last 20 percent. If someone confirmed the record in the last six months, it gets full marks. After six months it starts to slip, after a year it slips further, and after two years it gets nothing. This is the part people find strangest, so it gets its own section below.
The overall score is a weighted average of your systems. The ones that cost the most when they go, and the ones that tend to damage other things on the way out, count more. Your roof counts more than six times as much as your exterior lighting.
Two more rules keep it fair. A system only counts if it applies to your home, so a condo owner isn't marked down for a roof the association owns, and a house without a pool is never scored on one. And the score doesn't show up until at least three systems are on record. With fewer than that, there isn't enough to say anything honest.
Why "current" is part of health
A record can be completely right the day it's written and wrong a year later. The water heater that was fine at the inspection has been running every day since. Reyn treats a record nobody has looked at in two years as a guess, because that's what it's become.
That's also why the score can move when nothing has happened to the house. If nobody confirms anything for a year, it drifts down. Confirm the big systems and it comes back. When you confirm something in the app, Reyn shows you how much that one confirmation added.
This part is a little uncomfortable, and we built it that way on purpose. A score that stays high while nobody is paying attention would be easy to like and useless when it counts.
Estimates count, but not as much
Most people don't know exactly when their roof went on. So when a new home is set up, Reyn asks up to three quick questions about whatever isn't already on record: about how old is your roof, your heating, your water heater. You pick a range, from less than five years to more than twenty, or you say you're not sure. A range becomes an estimated record, marked as an estimate. "Not sure" records nothing. That's usually enough to get a score on the first day.
An estimate gets partial credit for age. It counts, but it's held at a middle mark until a real install date replaces it. Finding the actual date on a receipt, the unit itself, or your inspection report usually moves the score up. It always makes the score more accurate.
What it doesn't measure
The score isn't a home inspection. It only knows what's on the record, and it can't see the crack nobody has noticed yet. It isn't an appraisal either, and it says nothing about what your house is worth. And it isn't a countdown to failure. Plenty of systems run well past their expected life, and some fail early. The repair or replace decision still takes a pro who can see the unit.
A system you haven't recorded doesn't pull the score down. It doesn't quietly disappear either. When a major system is missing, Reyn lists it as something to focus on, along with any system scoring under 70. The list is ordered by what matters most: how far each system is from healthy, how much it counts, and whether its failure tends to take other things down with it. A struggling sewer line moves up the list ahead of a tired fence.
How to raise it
The honest way to raise the score is also the useful way to own a house.
- Record the big systems first. Roof, heating, water heater, electrical panel and plumbing carry the most weight.
- Upload your inspection report. Reyn reads it and fills in what it finds, which is often most of the major systems in one go. If you haven't opened yours since closing, here's how to read your inspection report.
- Scan your appliance labels. The make and model go on record, and you stop guessing what's in the kitchen.
- Swap estimates for real dates. When you find the receipt or the date on the unit, put it in.
- Confirm things after they're serviced. A record checked in the last six months gets full credit for being current.
- Fix what's flagged. Condition is 40 percent of every system's score. No amount of record-keeping makes up for a roof that needs work.
The same record that drives the score is what Reyn draws on when you ask it about your house, so every one of these steps makes those answers better too.
Reyn comes to you as a gift from the real estate agent who sold you the home. If yours hasn't sent it yet, ask them about it, or save your spot in the meantime.
