A home inspection report can run to forty pages, with minor maintenance items and significant defects in the same document. Reading it usefully means understanding what was inspected, what could not be reached and which findings need further work.
What a general inspection covers
A general home inspection is a visual, non invasive survey of the systems and components that are accessible on the day of the visit. It reports what the inspector observed and what they recommend looking at further.
It is not a code inspection, not a warranty, and not a list of work the seller is obliged to do.
What is normally in scope
- Roof covering, flashing and drainage, from the ground or the roof depending on access and weather
- Structure, foundation and what is visible of the framing, grading and drainage around the house
- Electrical service, the panel, and a sample of outlets, switches and fixtures
- Heating and cooling equipment, operated in the mode the season allows
- Plumbing supply and drainage, water heater, and visible leaks or corrosion
- Interior and exterior surfaces, windows, doors, stairs, attic and crawl space where they can be entered
- Installed appliances, run through a basic cycle
What is not in scope, and what to add
Anything behind a finished surface. Anything locked, blocked by storage or buried under snow. Anything requiring dismantling. And several things people assume are included and are not: the septic system, the well and its water quality, the sewer line between the house and the main, radon, mold, asbestos, lead paint, chimney interiors, in ground pools and irrigation, and pests.
Each of those is its own specialist and its own appointment.
A sewer scope on an older house, because a collapsed lateral is expensive and invisible from inside. A septic evaluation whenever there is no public sewer. A well test whenever there is no public water. Radon almost anywhere in Indiana, because the testing is cheap relative to what mitigation costs and the result is a fact rather than an opinion.
A structural engineer when the general inspector uses the word movement, because that is the point where you want somebody who can say what it means rather than that it should be evaluated.
Why the report reads worse than the house is
The report may place a missing outlet cover and a cracked heat exchanger in the same document. Review the findings by consequence: safety, possible financing issues, likely repair costs and routine maintenance. Ask the inspector to explain the items that require further evaluation.
It is not a repair list
Nothing in the report obliges a seller to do anything. What the contract permits a buyer to ask for, and what happens if the two sides do not agree, is written in the purchase agreement and the deadlines in it, which is a document worth reading before the inspection rather than after. On the seller side, the parallel question of what to fix before any of this starts is in the note on fixing it or pricing for it.
Go, and stay for the end
The report is a record. The walkthrough at the end is the education. Half an hour with the inspector at the panel and the water heater tells you where the shutoffs are, what the house will need first, and which items they are worried about rather than merely noting.
That conversation does not appear in the PDF.
The inspection contributes condition information to the buying decision. Discuss significant findings and any broader concerns about the house separately, so a repair negotiation addresses the actual issue.
What your contract lets you ask for, what a response obligates either side to, and what you are required to disclose once you know it, belong to an attorney. Whether a finding affects your loan or your insurance belongs to your lender and your insurer. What a repair should cost belongs to the trade that does it, and I would rather get you three quotes than guess at one number.
If you are earlier than this and still deciding what to do to the house, the note on preparing for the photographer covers that end of it, and the buyers page sets out the order things happen in.
This note is general. It is not legal, lending or engineering advice, and what a particular finding means for your transaction depends on the house and on your contract.