Reading the report
How to read a home inspection report
A home inspection report is a long document written for two readers at once: the buyer who wants to know whether the house is a problem, and the record that has to hold up later. The result is a lot of pages, a lot of photographs, and a vocabulary that is more careful than it first appears. This page is a plain-language walk through how the report is put together, what its words actually mean, and what to do with each kind of finding.
Most reports in the United States are written to one of two standards, and the report inherits its shape from whichever one governs the work. The Standard of Practice published by the American Society of Home Inspectors (ASHI) and the Standards of Practice published by InterNACHI both tell the inspector not only what to look at but what the written report has to say. If you understand those reporting rules, the report stops looking like a wall of text and starts looking like a form with predictable parts.
What the report is required to tell you
The clearest description of a report's job is in the ASHI standard, which states that the written report shall provide four specific things. According to the American Society of Home Inspectors (homeinspector.org), the report states those systems and components inspected that, in the professional judgment of the inspector, are not functioning properly, significantly deficient, unsafe, or are near the end of their service lives; recommendations to correct, or monitor for future correction, those deficiencies, or items needing further evaluation; the reasoning or explanation as to the nature of the deficiencies that are not self-evident; and those systems and components that were present but were not inspected, and the reason why.
Read that list again slowly, because it is the whole report in four lines. Everything you will scroll past is one of these: a deficiency, a recommendation, an explanation, or a note that something could not be looked at. The InterNACHI standard describes the same output more tightly. According to InterNACHI (nachi.org), a home inspection report shall identify, in written format, defects within specific systems and components that are both observed and deemed material by the inspector. The report is a record of material defects, not a list of everything imperfect about the house.
The report is not a repair list, and it is not a grade. It records what the inspector observed on one day and judged worth your attention, with a recommendation for each item. It does not tell you what a repair will cost, how long a system will last, or whether the price you agreed is fair. The standards say so directly: inspectors are not required to determine methods, materials, and costs of corrections, or the remaining life expectancy of systems and components (homeinspector.org). Numbers like those come from tradespeople, not from the report.
How the report is structured
Nearly every modern report has the same three layers, whatever software produced it.
The summary comes first and is the part most buyers actually read. It pulls the flagged items out of the body and lists them in one place, usually grouped by how serious the inspector considered them. The summary is a convenience, not the report. A finding is only fully described in the body, with the photographs and the reasoning, and the summary line is a pointer to it.
The body is the long part, and it is organized by system: structure, exterior, roofing, plumbing, electrical, heating, cooling, interior, insulation and ventilation, and fuel-burning appliances. That order is not arbitrary; it follows the same system-by-system scope the standards lay out. Within each system the inspector first describes what is there (the standard defines describe as reporting a system or component by its type or observed characteristics), then reports anything in need of correction. Sections that were fine may say little more than what was present and that it was functioning at the time of the inspection.
The limitations and photographs run throughout. Photos are evidence, timestamped to the day. The limitations are the sentences that say what the inspector could not reach, and they matter as much as the findings, for reasons the next sections explain.
The severity words, and what each one is asking of you
The single most useful skill in reading a report is learning the vocabulary the inspector uses to signal how much a finding matters. The standards supply the anchor terms; report software then groups findings into summary categories built from those terms. The words below are the ones that carry weight.
| What you see in the report | What it means | What to do with it |
|---|---|---|
| Material defect | InterNACHI's core term: a specific issue that may have a significant adverse impact on the value of the property, or that poses an unreasonable risk to people (nachi.org). This is what the inspection exists to find. | Take seriously. This is the category that belongs in a repair conversation or a re-negotiation. |
| Unsafe / safety hazard | ASHI defines unsafe as a condition the inspector judges to be a significant risk of serious bodily injury (homeinspector.org). A missing GFCI near water, an unguarded stair, a scorched panel. | Address before occupancy, regardless of price. Safety items are rarely a negotiation; they are a fix. |
| Recommend correction / needs repair | A deficiency the inspector believes should be fixed, but not an immediate danger. | Get a tradesperson's quote and decide whether it changes your offer. |
| Monitor | Drawn from the standard's own phrase, "monitor for future correction" (homeinspector.org). The condition is not a problem now but could become one; a hairline crack, a stain that is currently dry. | Note it, watch it after you move in, and re-check at the interval the inspector suggests. |
| Minor / maintenance | Ordinary upkeep and small imperfections. Not a material defect; caulk, a loose handle, a dirty filter. | Add to your move-in to-do list. These are not leverage and are not meant to be. |
| Further evaluation | ASHI defines further evaluation as examination by a qualified professional or tradesperson beyond that of a home inspection (homeinspector.org). The inspector saw something that needs a specialist's tools or expertise. | Order the specialist inside your contingency window. This is a flag that the visual inspection reached its edge, not a verdict. |
A common misreading is to treat the length of the summary as the condition of the house. A twenty-item summary that is mostly maintenance and monitor notes describes a sound house with a thorough inspector; a three-item summary can hide a single defect that decides everything. Read the categories, not the count.
Why "not inspected" appears, and why it is not a gap in service
Somewhere in the report you will find items marked not inspected, not accessible, or unable to evaluate. These are required, not optional. Under the ASHI standard, the report must state those systems and components that were present at the time of the inspection but were not inspected, and the reasons why (homeinspector.org). The inspector is documenting the boundary of the examination, which protects you: it converts an unknown into a written, dated unknown that you can act on.
The reasons are almost always physical. A home inspection is a visual, non-invasive examination of readily accessible areas, and InterNACHI defines readily accessible as capable of being safely observed without removing obstacles, disengaging securing devices, or other unsafe or difficult procedures (nachi.org). A furnace with the utilities shut off cannot be operated. A crawlspace too low to enter cannot be seen. Snow on the roof, a locked room, boxes stacked against a wall, an attic hatch painted shut: each one leaves a part of the house unexamined, and each one produces a not-inspected note.
The misconception worth correcting: "If it is not flagged in the report, it is fine." A not-inspected item is not a passing grade. It is a piece of the house nobody looked at. Treat the limitations section as a punch list: ask whether the utilities can be turned on, the boxes moved, or the roof cleared, and request a return visit before your contingency period closes. An item that stays unknown at closing is a risk you are choosing to accept, and you should choose it on purpose.
What the report deliberately will not say
Several of the things buyers most want from a report are the very things the standards tell inspectors not to provide, and knowing this in advance prevents a lot of frustration. According to InterNACHI (nachi.org), inspectors are not required to determine the service life expectancy of any component or system, the size, capacity or efficiency of any component or system, the market value or marketability of the property, compliance with codes or regulations, or correction, replacement or repair cost estimates. The ASHI standard adds that inspectors are not required to determine the causes of conditions and deficiencies (homeinspector.org).
So a report will tell you the water heater is at or near the end of its service life, but not that it has "about two years left." It will tell you a receptacle is unsafe, but not what the electrician will charge. It will tell you the grading slopes toward the house, but not always why the basement is damp. Those answers exist; they simply come from the trades and specialists the report points you toward. The report's discipline about staying inside its own scope is a feature. It keeps the document to what was actually observed.
A short method for reading the whole thing
- Start with the limitations, not the summary. Learn first what was not looked at, so you know the size of the unknowns before you weigh the knowns.
- Sort the summary by category, not by count. Separate the safety and material-defect items from the monitor and maintenance ones. Your negotiation and your fix-it list live in different columns.
- Read the body entry for every flagged item. The summary line is a pointer; the reasoning and the photograph that justify it are in the body. The standard requires the inspector to explain deficiencies that are not self-evident (homeinspector.org), so the explanation is there to be read.
- Turn every "further evaluation" into an appointment. Each one is a task with a deadline, and the deadline is your contingency window, not the closing date.
- Get numbers from the trades. The report will not price anything. Take the flagged items to the relevant contractors and let their quotes, not the length of the report, drive what you ask for.
A report read this way stops being intimidating. It is a structured record of what one person could see on one day, sorted by how much it matters, with every unknown written down. Once you can tell a material defect from a maintenance note and a not-inspected item from a passing one, the document does exactly what it was built to do.
Sources
- Standard of Practice, American Society of Home Inspectors (ASHI). Written-report requirements, and the definitions of "unsafe", "further evaluation", "normal operating controls", and the list of determinations inspectors are not required to make.
- Standards of Practice, International Association of Certified Home Inspectors (InterNACHI). Definitions of "material defect", "readily accessible", and "describe", the report's identification of material defects, and the reporting exclusions.
Related
- What a home inspection actually covers, and what it does not, from the ALLSAFE guides.
- The final report, from the ALLSAFE archive.
- The full ALLSAFE archive index.