For new homeowners and buyers
A home inspection report is 40 pages of findings written for liability, not for you. Somewhere in there is the answer to the only three questions that matter: what can hurt me, what will get expensive if I wait, and what can I ignore? This page shows you how to pull those answers out — and what it looks like when Prax does it for you.
Below is a real sample: an inspection report for a 1997 two-story home, read by Prax and turned into a briefing. Every finding gets a plain-English explanation, a severity band, a rough cost range, and a call on whether it's DIY or a job for a pro.
Sample briefing
Two-story single-family home, built 1997 · 12 findings — a sample lightly adapted from real reports Prax has read.
This inspection turned up 3 safety findings — all electrical or water-heater related — 5 repair items, 2 things to keep an eye on, and 2 cosmetic fixes. For a house built in 1997, this mix of aging electrical quirks, appliance wear, and deferred exterior upkeep is fairly typical of a home approaching its late twenties without recent updates.
Three findings involve systems that can hurt you when they fail: outlets that did not test correctly, exterior receptacles without GFCI protection, and a water-heater relief valve with no overflow pipe. Have a licensed electrician and a plumber evaluate them before you rely on those systems — none of the three is expensive to fix.
Addressing the safety and repair items typically runs $950–$2,950 — a rough national estimate, not a quote.
Some outlets in the home didn't test correctly during the inspection, which can mean wiring issues or lost grounding or polarity. This is worth having an electrician check, because a faulty outlet can pose a shock or fire risk depending on the cause. Simple fixes are usually inexpensive, but the underlying wiring needs a professional look first.
Outdoor outlets lack GFCI protection — the safety feature that shuts power off fast if moisture causes a short. This is a common gap in homes of this age, and it is a quick, affordable upgrade for an electrician.
The water heater's pressure-relief valve has no overflow pipe routed to a safe discharge point. If that valve ever releases hot water or steam under pressure, it could spray directly into the space instead of safely away. A plumber can add the pipe quickly.
There's an open gap at the bottom of a sheet-metal pipe chase near the outdoor AC unit, which gives pests a path into the attic. Sealing it with expanding foam closes that entry point — a straightforward fix a handy homeowner or a handyman can knock out quickly.
Reclassified from safety: This is a pest-entry and maintenance issue rather than an immediate hazard, so it's better classified as a repair item than safety.
8 more findings in this sample — and every finding in yours.
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Read my report freeThe most common mistake with an inspection report is treating all of it as one to-do list. A cracked outlet cover and an ungrounded outlet will sit two lines apart in the report, and they are not the same problem. Prax sorts every finding into four bands:
Inspectors themselves often over-flag out of caution — you can see it in the sample above, where a pest-entry gap arrived marked as a safety item and Prax reclassified it as a repair, with the reasoning shown. Knowing why a finding sits in its band is what makes the list actionable.
A workable schedule beats a perfect one. When you accept findings into a plan, Prax dates them on a simple ladder: safety items within a week, repairs within 30 days, keep-an-eye-on items get a 90-day check-in, and cosmetic items get no deadline at all. A new homeowner who fixes three safety findings in week one and works down the repair list over a season is doing it right — the goal is never "everything at once."
If you're reading a report during an option period, the safety and major-repair bands are your negotiation list. The standard asks are repairs before closing, a price reduction, or seller credits — and they land best as a short, specific document: the finding in the inspector's words, the page citation, and a cost range. Tell Prax you're still considering the home and it builds that repair-request document for you instead of a task list, so you can hand it to your agent as-is.
Every number Prax attaches is a rough national estimate, and it says so on the page — real prices come from real quotes. The point of a range isn't precision; it's triage. Knowing that all three safety findings in the sample above together run well under a thousand dollars, while the roof edge is the item that could grow a zero, tells you where your first calls go.
Start with the summary and the safety items. Inspectors list dozens of findings, but they are not equally urgent — a missing outlet cover and an ungrounded outlet are different problems. Look for anything involving electrical, gas, water heaters, or structure first; those are the findings that can hurt you or get expensive fast. Everything else is a repair list you can work through on a schedule.
Almost never. A typical report on an older home lists 30–80 findings, and most are ordinary wear: worn caulk, aging appliances, cosmetic damage. What matters is the handful of safety and major-repair items and what they cost to address. A report with a long list of small items and a clean bill on the roof, foundation, electrical panel, plumbing mains, and HVAC is usually a healthy house.
Individually, most findings are cheap: GFCI outlets run $150–$400, a water-heater overflow pipe $75–$250, re-caulking under $200. The total for the safety-and-repair tier on a typical older home often lands in the low thousands. Any number you see before getting quotes is a rough national estimate, not a price — but even rough ranges tell you which findings deserve your budget first.
Yes — it is the single strongest document a buyer has. The usual asks are repairs before closing, a price reduction, or seller credits, and they work best when framed around the safety and major-repair items with cost ranges attached, in the inspector's own words. If you upload a report to Prax while you are still deciding on a home, it builds that repair-request document for you.
Upload the PDF and Prax extracts every finding, sorts them into four bands — safety, repairs, keep an eye on, cosmetic — writes a plain-English briefing of what each one means, attaches rough cost ranges, and turns the ones you accept into a maintenance plan with dates. Your first report is free, no credit card required.
Upload the PDF and get your own briefing in minutes — every finding explained, banded, priced, and turned into a plan. First report free, no credit card.
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