How to read a home inspection report

Read it in this order

1. 1

   Start with the summary, but do not stop there

   Most reports open with a summary of major findings. Read it first for orientation, then go through the body anyway. Summaries routinely omit items the inspector described in the narrative but did not flag — a 22-year-old furnace noted as "operational at time of inspection" will not appear in a summary and is still one of the most expensive things in the house.

2. 2

   Learn the inspector's vocabulary before you judge severity

   Inspectors use graded language: "monitor" means it is not a defect today, "repair" means fix it, "further evaluation recommended" means the inspector saw something outside their scope and is handing it to a specialist, and "safety hazard" means act regardless of price. "Further evaluation" is the phrase that costs buyers the most, because it is easy to read as minor and it is the report telling you it does not yet know how bad this is.

3. 3

   Sort every finding into four piles

   Pile one, safety: gas leaks, exposed wiring, missing GFCI near water, no railings, blocked egress. Pile two, structure and water: foundation movement, roof leaks, grading and drainage, sewer, active moisture. Pile three, systems near end of life: roof, water heater, furnace or boiler, AC or heat pump, electrical panel. Pile four, everything else: caulking, sticking doors, missing outlet covers, worn finishes. Piles one and two are what you act on. Pile three is what you budget. Pile four is what you fix on a Saturday and should almost never be in a negotiation.

4. 4

   Write down the age of every major system

   The report will list manufacture dates or serial-decoded ages for the furnace, water heater, AC condenser, and often the roof. Compare each to typical service life: asphalt roof 20 to 25 years, tank water heater 10 to 12, gas furnace 18 to 25, AC or heat pump 12 to 18, and an electrical panel indefinitely unless it is a known-defective brand. A system at 90 percent of its service life is not a defect, but it is a real number arriving on a known schedule, and that belongs in your budget rather than in your repair request.

5. 5

   Chase every 'further evaluation' item to an actual answer

   If the report recommends a structural engineer, a licensed electrician, a chimney Level 2, or a sewer camera scan, get that done inside the contingency window. A specialist's report converts an unknown into a number, and an unknown is the only thing you cannot negotiate about. Sewer scans and chimney inspections are the two most commonly skipped and the two that most often turn out to be five figures.

6. 6

   Attach an estimated cost range to every item in piles one to three

   You are not trying to be exact. You are trying to know whether the flagged list totals $4,000 or $40,000, because those two numbers lead to completely different conversations with the seller. Use the ranges below for a first pass, then get a real quote on anything above roughly one percent of the purchase price.

7. 7

   Separate what you will ask for from what you will simply own

   The final list you hand your agent should be short and defensible: safety items, active water intrusion, structural findings, and anything a specialist confirmed. Everything else you now know about and have priced, which is the actual point of the inspection. A buyer who asks for forty items usually gets fewer concessions than one who asks for four.

8. 8

   Keep the report — it is the founding record of the house

   The report contains the system ages, the deferred items, and the condition baseline for a house you are about to own with zero history. Two years from now, when the water heater is at fourteen years, that date is the only thing that tells you it was on borrowed time. Put it somewhere you will find it again, not in an email thread.