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After the Report

An inspection report names conditions. It does not price repairs, and it is not written to tell you which of them matter.

The one-paragraph answer

An inspection report names conditions rather than repairs. A standard note that appears on every house reads very differently from a finding specific to this one, and telling the two apart is what decides which items are worth a contractor’s visit.

PresalePipe is a referral service, not a contractor or a home inspector. We connect homeowners and buyers with independent contractors. Contractors are required to hold whatever credential their state or municipality demands. Every state page sets out who licenses plumbers there and where to check, so you can confirm before work begins. We carry out no inspections and no work, we do not set prices, and we never charge homeowners anything — the contractors in our network pay us when we route them a call.

Separate the notes from the findings

A long report is not a bad house. Inspectors record what they observe, including things that are normal for the age of the building, and the standards require several items to be described whether or not anything is wrong with them.

The useful sort is: what is failing now, what will fail predictably, and what is simply being recorded.

Findings the standards could not have priced

Neither standard asks an inspector to determine adequacy. So a note saying a system is functioning is a statement about the day of the inspection, not a verdict on whether it is right for the house.

Where a report says a condition was observed but its extent could not be established, that is the sentence to act on. It means the boundary of the inspection was reached, not that the problem is small.

Source: InterNACHI Home Inspection Standards of Practice; ASHI Standard of Practice.

The two worth a contractor before you exchange

Anything involving water where it should not be, and anything the report could not see the end of. Both are open-ended, and open-ended is the only category that can move a price materially.

Everything else can usually wait until you own the place.

What to ask the contractor, not the inspector

An inspector is not permitted to quote the repairs they find, and a good one will decline. What you want from a contractor is different: what would need opening up to establish the extent, and what the range is depending on what is behind it.

A quote given without that step is a guess wearing a number.

And if you are the seller

Then the report is arriving to somebody else and you are responding to it. Knowing first is worth more than arguing later, because a finding discovered by the buyer is worth more to them than the same finding disclosed by you.

Inspection report in front of you?Read us the plumbing lines and nothing else — we do not want the document. We will route you to a contractor covering your area who can quote the items on it, and you are never charged by us. Inspections are the theme here; calls of every kind are routed.

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