How to read a home inspection report

How is a home inspection report organized?

A home inspection report is organized by system, not by severity: roof, structure, exterior, electrical, plumbing, heating and cooling, interiors, and any add-ons like a pool or septic system. Every finding sits inside its system's section and carries a severity word next to it. A report's summary section, if it has one, pulls the highest-severity findings out of the full report into one list. That summary section, not the full report page by page, is where your triage starts.

What do common inspector phrases in a report actually mean?

Reports mix standards language with inspector shorthand. Here is what the common phrases mean, and who to ask for more than the report itself gives you.

What do the severity words actually mean?

The words next to each finding come from the standards inspectors are trained and certified against, not from the seller's mood or yours. Two of the certifying bodies, ASHI and InterNACHI, define some of them directly; others are report wording that neither standard defines.

• Unsafe. ASHI's Standard of Practice defines unsafe as "a condition in a readily accessible, installed system or component that the inspector judges to be significant risk or serious bodily injury... during normal, day-to-day use" (ASHI Standard of Practice, Glossary). A report may label the same kind of finding a "safety hazard." That phrase is inspector convention, not a term ASHI or InterNACHI define.
• Material defect. InterNACHI defines it as "a specific issue with a system or component of a residential property that may have a significant, adverse impact on the value of the property, or that poses an unreasonable risk to people" (InterNACHI Standards of Practice, section 1.2).
• Near, at, or beyond normal useful life. The same standard says this fact "is not, in itself, a material defect" (section 1.2). The system still works. It is just old. An inspector may write "monitor" next to this kind of finding; that is convention, not a term either standard defines.
• Further evaluation recommended. ASHI's report requirement names "items needing further evaluation" as its own category, separate from a recommendation to correct or monitor (ASHI Standard of Practice, section 2.2). The inspector is naming a specialist to look closer, not describing a fixed problem yet.

Why doesn't the inspector just tell you what it costs to fix?

Both standards that train and certify inspectors put cost outside the job. ASHI's exclusions state the inspector is not required to determine "methods, materials, or costs of corrections" (ASHI Standard of Practice, section 13.2). InterNACHI's exclusions list "correction, replacement or repair cost estimates" and "estimates of the cost to operate any given system" among what the inspector does not have to determine (InterNACHI SOP, section 2.2, Exclusions). The report tells you what is wrong. It is not built to tell you what it costs.

What does a priced finding look like?

Once your list is sorted, the next step is a dollar figure on each safety, water, structure, or major-system line, not a description. These three findings are from the public sample memo on Kept's home page, priced from labor hours at trade wages anchored to BLS wage data for the buyer's metro, plus materials, adders, and local sales tax:

These are Kept's modeled estimates from public wage and materials data, not quotes.

That is the difference between "roof damage" as a red flag on page 12 and a line item you can put in a request. For what to actually ask for once your list is priced, see what to ask for after a home inspection.

Where do you start once you have the report?

Read the report's summary section first: it already pulls the highest-severity findings from every system section into one place, so you are not starting on page one. Sorting the phrases above into what belongs on a repair request, and what to skip, is covered on the page linked just above. If your priced list ends up dominated by structure or safety findings, that is a different question than negotiating a repair: see when to walk away after a home inspection.

What if the report names a defect you have never heard of?

Look the finding up by the name the inspector used. These guides cover six findings buyers ask about, each with the primary source on the hazard, published repair prices, and who to call.

• Foundation crack
• Federal Pacific panel
• Aluminum wiring
• Polybutylene pipes
• Galvanized pipes
• Double-tapped breaker

Get your repair-cost memo before your window closes, usually under 4 hours: try Kept.

Sources

• ASHI Standard of Practice (as of 2026-09-19)
• InterNACHI Standards of Practice (as of 2026-09-19)