The New Homeowner’s Inspection Checklist: 6 Things a Standard Inspection Might Miss
Closing on a house comes with an inspection report that can feel comprehensive. It isn’t. A general home inspector does a visual walkthrough in a few hours, checking what’s accessible, testing what’s easy to test, and flagging what’s visibly wrong.
That leaves real gaps: nobody’s running a camera down your sewer line, testing your septic system’s capacity, or confirming what’s happening behind a finished wall or under a slab.
The American Society of Home Inspectors’ Standard of Practice confirms this gap is built in, not an oversight. Inspectors aren’t required to inspect underground items or septic and sewage disposal systems as part of a standard inspection.
The six inspections below are the ones worth lining up separately, on top of the standard one, roughly in order of how much they matter for an older home.
1. Sewer Line Camera Inspection
A sewer line camera inspection feeds a waterproof camera through the line from a cleanout or access point, giving a technician a direct view of the pipe’s condition from the house to the connection point at the street or septic tank. It’s also the inspection most new homeowners skip, and the one most likely to save real money.
What it catches that a standard inspection can’t: root intrusion at joints and cracks, bellies or sags where the pipe has settled and now holds standing water, offset or separated joints, and the condition of the pipe material itself.
This matters most in older homes, where sewer lines may still be clay, cast iron, or Orangeburg pipe (a tar-paper composite pipe used roughly from the 1940s through the 1970s that degrades from the inside and is prone to collapse). None of that is visible from the surface, and none of it shows up on a standard inspection report.
A camera inspection before or shortly after closing gives a new homeowner a clear baseline: a healthy line, one with a known issue to plan for, or one that needs work now rather than after a backup.
Roto-Rooter offers camera-based sewer line inspections as a standalone service.
2. Whole-Home Plumbing Inspection
A whole-home plumbing inspection checks water pressure throughout the house, looks for visible leaks under sinks and around fixtures, and evaluates the water heater’s age and condition against its expected service life. It covers the rest of the system beyond the sewer line, and it’s worth its own separate visit.
It also catches material issues a general inspector may not flag with the same specificity: galvanized steel pipe that’s corroding from the inside and restricting flow, or polybutylene pipe (common in homes built between the 1970s and mid-1990s) that’s prone to failure at fittings.
A plumbing-specific inspection also confirms that main and fixture shutoff valves work, which matters the first time an emergency happens and someone needs to shut off the water fast. Roto-Rooter offers a whole-home plumbing inspection covering all of this.
3. Septic System Inspection
A septic inspection checks the tank’s level and condition, evaluates whether the drain field is functioning or showing signs of saturation, and reviews pumping history if the seller has records. Not every home has a septic system, but when it does, this inspection isn’t optional.
A septic system that’s near capacity or has a failing drain field is expensive to fix and easy to miss during a standard walkthrough, since the visible signs (soggy patches in the yard, slow drains) don’t always show up until the system is already stressed.
4. Termite and Wood-Destroying Insect Inspection
A termite or wood-destroying insect (WDI) inspection checks for mud tubes along the foundation, hollow or damaged-sounding wood in the framing and sill plates, discarded wings or frass (termite droppings) near support beams, and moisture conditions in crawlspaces that tend to attract termites in the first place. VA-backed loans and conventional loans in many termite-prone states typically require a WDI report before closing. Confirm this early, since it can affect the closing timeline if it isn’t already scheduled.
Where a WDI report isn’t required, it’s still worth getting one independently. Termite damage builds slowly, often behind walls or under floors, and a colony can be active for years before the damage becomes visible or structural.
5. Roof Inspection
A roof inspection checks shingle wear, flashing condition around chimneys and vents, and signs of past leaks or prior repairs that a seller may not have disclosed. It answers how much service life is left, not whether the roof looks fine from the driveway. A roof with 2 years left versus 15 changes how a new homeowner budgets for the first few years in the house.
6. Foundation Inspection
A foundation inspection checks for cracking, settling, and whether water is draining toward the foundation instead of away from it. Those drainage and grading issues are the cheapest part of this list to fix, and the part most homeowners ignore. Catching a grading issue early costs a fraction of the structural repair that follows years of water pooling against the foundation.
Why Bundle These In Now
Sewer line and plumbing inspections are worth scheduling first. A cracked sewer line or corroding pipe doesn’t wait for a convenient time. The difference between finding it in a camera inspection and finding it during a backup is the difference between a planned repair and an emergency call. Septic, termite, roof, and foundation inspections can follow on a normal timeline once you handle those two.
Which Inspection to Schedule First
Where to start depends on the home, not just the list order.
|
Home Profile |
Start With |
|---|---|
|
Built before 1980 |
Sewer line camera inspection (clay, cast iron, or Orangeburg pipe risk) |
|
Built 1970s-mid 1990s |
Whole-home plumbing inspection (polybutylene pipe risk) |
|
Has a septic system |
Sewer line + septic inspection together |
|
Any home, any age |
Foundation drainage check (cheapest fix on the list, easy to miss) |
For the plumbing and sewer line pieces specifically, that’s where Roto-Rooter’s camera-inspection equipment and technicians come in. New homeowners can schedule online or call 312-222-9091.
