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Sample report

Read a whole report before you book one.

Not a brochure about a report. The complete document, every page of it, built from a fictional 1974 detached home in Ottawa — the same template, the same wording and the same depth you would receive.

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Page one

The summary your agent reads first.

Every report opens with this. Five ratings, everything sorted by how much it matters, so nobody has to read sixty pages to find the three things that change the offer.

Summary of findings
42 Fictional Crescent, Ottawa
Detached house · built 1974 · 1,850 sq ft
8
Safety
8
Major
10
Repair
4
Monitor
1
Improve
Major concern

Granular loss — advanced wear

Roof › Roof covering · South and west slopes

The shingles show widespread granular loss, with the asphalt mat exposed in places. Granules are the shingle's protection against ultraviolet light; once they are gone the mat degrades quickly.

Recommendation. Obtain quotes for full roof replacement. Budget accordingly as part of your purchase planning.

Major concern

Negative grade — slopes toward foundation

Exterior › Grading & site drainage · North elevation

The grade slopes toward the foundation on one or more sides of the house.

Recommendation. Regrade to fall a minimum of 6 inches over the first 10 feet away from the foundation.

Major concern

No flashing at the ledger

Exterior › Decks, porches & balconies

No flashing was observed where the deck ledger meets the house.

Recommendation. Have proper ledger flashing installed.

Safety hazard

Guard height below current standard

Exterior › Decks, porches & balconies · Rear deck, 34 inches measured

The guard is lower than the 36-inch minimum required for residential decks.

Recommendation. Have the guard raised to current code height.

Safety hazard

Garage door auto-reverse not functioning

Exterior › Garage

The garage door's automatic reverse did not operate correctly on test.

Recommendation. Have the opener serviced or replaced and both reverse mechanisms verified.

Major concern

Equipment beyond typical service life

Heating › Heating equipment

The heating equipment is beyond the typical service life for its type. It operated at the time of inspection.

Recommendation. Budget for replacement. Have an HVAC contractor perform a full service and combustion analysis.

Major concern Insurance

Polybutylene (Poly-B) supply piping

Plumbing › Water supply piping

The supply piping is polybutylene, commonly installed between roughly 1978 and 1998.

Recommendation. Confirm insurability with your broker before waiving conditions, and obtain quotes for full repiping.

31 findings in total, each photographed and located, followed by every system we inspected — including the ones with nothing wrong. Open the full report ↓

What is in it

Written to a published standard, not to a template we invented.

Every report follows the InterNACHI Residential Standards of Practice — ten systems, every component declared inspected, not present, or not accessible with the reason stated.

Photographs, located precisely

Every finding is photographed and placed. "North-east corner of the basement, below the downspout" — not "basement".

Infrared on every inspection

Thermal imagery of the envelope, ceilings, below-grade walls and the panel, with moisture-meter confirmation where it matters. Included, never an upsell.

Five severity ratings

Safety hazard, major concern, repair, monitor, improve. Sorted, so the urgent things are not buried among the trivial.

An insurance page

Ontario insurers refuse or surcharge a specific short list — aluminum wiring, knob and tube, 60-amp services, Poly-B, Kitec, oil tanks, old roofs. If your house has any of them they get their own page, so you can send it to your broker early.

Honest limitations

What could not be reached and exactly why. Snow cover, stored belongings, a shut-off utility — recorded as it happens, not glossed over.

The agreement, in full

Scope, exclusions and terms printed inside the report, because a term you have not read is a term you cannot rely on.

Two things we leave out on purpose

No repair prices. No predictions about how long things will last.

Both are common in Ottawa inspection reports. Both are a disservice, and we will not put either in writing.

A repair figure in an inspection report is not a quote. It has not accounted for your contractor, your access, the season, or the scope you actually choose — and once it is on the page it anchors your expectations and your negotiation to a number nobody has stood behind. Every finding in our report ends with who to call. Take it to them and get a real one.

Nobody can tell you how long your furnace has left. An inspector who writes "8 to 12 years remaining" is guessing, and you may make a five-figure decision on that guess. We tell you what we observed, how old the equipment appears to be, and whether to budget for it. That is the honest limit of a visual inspection, and it is what the Standards of Practice say too.

Why the sample is a fictional house.A published sample built from a real inspection publishes a real client's property condition, and that is theirs, not ours. So the address and the client are invented. Everything else — the findings, the wording, the structure, the limitations — is exactly what a real one contains.

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