The report arrives as a PDF running to forty pages, most of it photographs, and the first thing a buyer says is some version of: is this bad. The honest answer is that a long report is usually a thorough inspector rather than a failing house. People ask about an inspection as though it produces a grade. It does not. It produces a description of what one person could see on one morning, and knowing where that description stops is what makes it worth the money.
The short answer
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
An inspector is paid to notice and is liable for what they fail to notice, so everything gets written down, and a missing outlet cover appears in the same document as a cracked heat exchanger. The report is not sorted by consequence. Sorting it is the work that happens after it arrives, and the sort is roughly: things that stop a loan, things that are a safety matter, things that will cost real money within a few years, and things that are simply the age of the house. The first three are the conversation. The fourth is what you bought.
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 uncomfortable part
An inspection cannot tell you whether the house is a good decision. I have watched buyers use a list of small items as a way of not saying out loud that they had changed their mind about the house, and I have watched sellers treat a fair report as an insult. Both cost people money. If the doubt is about the house rather than the wiring, that is worth saying plainly, and it is a cheaper conversation than the one that happens two weeks later.
The part I will not answer
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.