How Long Does a Home Inspection Take?

A home inspection takes two to three hours on a typical Florida house, and at Patriot Home Inspections we average about two and a half hours on a 2,000 to 2,500 square foot home with the normal number of defects. A house with more problems takes longer, because every problem has to be documented and photographed. One hour is not a home inspection. Six to eight hours means something else is going on, and we will get to that below.

The homeowner who came back after an hour

This week we were on a 2,200 square foot house in Naples with no pool. At the one hour mark the owner came back and was surprised to find us still there. Somebody had told her a home inspection takes an hour, and she had planned her day around it. She was not being difficult. She had simply been given a number by someone who either does one-hour inspections or has never watched a real one.

There are budget inspectors in Southwest Florida who will do a 2,300 square foot home in an hour. So the question is not whether it can be done in an hour. The question is whether it makes any sense.

Would you trust an air conditioning tech who spent five minutes?

Think about what you would expect from any one trade. If you called an HVAC technician to evaluate your air conditioner and he spent five to ten minutes and said everything was fine, you would not feel good about it. The same goes for a roofer, a plumber, an electrician, a building specialist, a foundation specialist, a sprinkler specialist or a generator specialist. If each of them showed up, spent five to seven minutes, told you everything was okay and left, you would not feel secure in what they told you.

A home inspection is every one of those evaluations in one visit, on every system in the house. The time adds up for a reason.

What twenty minutes on one air conditioner looks like

Here is the air conditioning system alone, on a house where everything is working. We switch the system from cooling to heat and wait for it to kick over, which is about five minutes by itself. We take the temperature split, the delta T, and record the readings. We photograph the equipment. We check the ductwork, and the plenum boxes where they are accessible. We look at the coils. We check that the breaker size matches what is listed on the data plate. We look for visible mold and for signs of rust. Then it goes into the report with the photos and the readings. If everything is going well, that is easily twenty minutes on one system.

Now do the same for the roof and the attic, the electrical panel and the outlets, the plumbing supply and drains and the water heater, the appliances, the windows and doors, the exterior and the grading, and the pool if there is one. Twenty minutes here, fifteen there, and the hours are not padding. They are the work.

The three kinds of inspection time

An hour is unacceptable. There are too many systems in a house for one hour to cover any of them properly, and a buyer who hires a one-hour inspector is missing most of what they paid for.

Two to three hours is the normal range for a typical house, and it is where we land on most jobs. More defects push it toward the top of that range or past it, because every defect is a photo, a note and a few minutes of looking harder at what is around it.

Six to eight hours is the other extreme. We have been told that one outfit in the area sent two inspectors to a brand new, end-of-year construction home and spent seven hours on it. That may produce an incredible report. It may also mean they are writing the report and doing the paperwork on site instead of inspecting, and saving nothing for the editing at home. It swings widely in this business, and a buyer paying for a full day deserves to know what the day was spent on.

What a pool adds, and why it pushes past two and a half hours

A pool is the item that most often takes a 2,000 square foot house past the two and a half hour mark, and it should. A pool is a major system the way a roof is a major system: a small problem carries a large repair bill. When we break a pool down it can run to fifty items. We are looking for cracks in the shell. There is a pool heater, and sometimes a solar pool heating system on top of an electric or gas heater. There are valves, the lighting system and the return system. There is a control panel indoors, another outdoors, and sometimes a third at the spa, so one house can have three control panels to run through.

Take the pool light. Most people assume a dead pool light is a bulb. It is not. The fixture's cord runs from the light niche all the way back to the junction box, and replacing it means pulling that whole run, which costs anywhere from $700 to $1,500 depending on how far the run is and what type of light goes in. That is one line on a fifty-line system, and an inspector who tells you he covered the pool in five to ten minutes is not someone we would hang our hat on.

Read the inspection agreement carefully, too. On a lot of contracts the pool is quietly left out of the inspector's responsibility, and the buyer finds out after closing. At Patriot the pool and spa inspection is its own item on your quote, because we evaluate everything on the pool rather than giving it a quick sign-off: all of the equipment, the controls and a visual check of the shell. The one thing it does not include is leak detection, which is a separate inspection that takes two to three hours by itself, and we say so up front rather than burying it. Most of our clients take the package that combines the home inspection with the pool, the wind mitigation and the 4 point on one visit, because one visit saves time and money over scheduling them apart.

What makes an inspection run longer

Size and age are the obvious ones. A 4,000 square foot house has twice the systems of a 2,000 square foot house, and a 1978 house has forty years of repairs to read. Attic access adds time, and in Southwest Florida the attic is where roof leaks, insulation gaps and rodent evidence live. A 4 point inspection or a wind mitigation inspection done on the same visit adds time, though less than scheduling them separately. And the house itself decides the rest: a clean house moves fast, a house with problems does not, and we would rather be the inspector who stayed than the one who left.

The other clocks a buyer asks about

Scheduling: in Southwest Florida we can usually be at the house the same day or the next day.

The report: you should have it within 24 hours, and ours arrives the next morning before 9 a.m. Some companies hand over a report on site; our guide to how long it takes to get a home inspection report explains why we write ours overnight and what that does for you at the negotiating table.

Insurance inspections: a standalone 4 point inspection or wind mitigation inspection takes 30 to 60 minutes on site and the report is returned the same day, never more than 24 hours. The one thing that can hold it up is a roof permit the county portal does not show, which means a records request of seven to ten business days, and that clock is the county's, not ours.

Radon: a radon test runs on a continuous monitor for a minimum of 48 hours, so radon results arrive two days after the inspection at the earliest. Our guide covers how long a radon test takes and what the numbers mean.

The question to ask any inspector

Ask how long they expect to be on site for a house your size. It is one of the best questions a buyer can ask, and the answer tells you what you are buying. If the answer is an hour, keep looking. If the answer is a full day, ask what the day is for.

We give the best home inspections in Southwest Florida, and we have mastered the art of doing a thorough inspection in a reasonable amount of time, because this is what we do all day and we are skilled at it. Two and a half hours on an average house, longer when the house asks for it, and the report written afterward with the care it deserves. That is the standard across our inspectors, who are trained and overseen by our owner, a Florida licensed home inspector, general contractor and roofing contractor.

If you are buying in Naples, Marco Island, Bonita Springs, Estero, Fort Myers or Charlotte County, schedule a home inspection or call (239) 826-5866. If you are comparing inspectors, our side-by-side of the best home inspection companies in Naples lists what each one states about licenses, reviews and pricing.

Questions people ask about this

How long does a home inspection take in Florida?

Two to three hours for a typical single-family home of 2,000 to 2,500 square feet with a normal number of defects. Patriot Home Inspections averages about two and a half hours on that house. Larger homes, older homes, pools and homes with more defects take longer.

Can a home inspection really be done in one hour?

It can be done in an hour, and some budget inspectors do it, but it cannot be done well. A proper check of one air conditioning system alone takes about twenty minutes. An hour for an entire house means systems were looked at, not inspected.

Why do some inspectors take six, seven or eight hours?

Either they are producing an unusually detailed report, or they are writing the report on site instead of inspecting. We have heard of a two-inspector crew in Southwest Florida spending seven hours on a new-construction home. Ask what the extra hours were spent on.

How long does a condo inspection take?

Two to three hours depending on the unit. A condo inspection covers the systems inside the unit, and the air handler, panel, plumbing and fixtures take the same care they would in a house.

How long does it take to get the home inspection report?

Within 24 hours. Patriot Home Inspections delivers the report the next day before 9 a.m., which gives the inspector the evening to review the photos and write full explanations rather than one-line labels. Anything longer than 24 hours is unacceptable inside a Florida inspection period.

Does a home inspection include the pool?

Not always, and the inspection agreement is where to check. Many inspectors exclude the pool from their responsibility in the contract. At Patriot Home Inspections the pool and spa inspection is a separate line on the quote and covers all of the pool equipment, the control panels and a visual check of the shell; leak detection is a separate two to three hour inspection and is not included. Most clients bundle the pool with the home inspection, wind mitigation and 4 point on one visit. A pool adds time beyond the two and a half hour average.

Do I need to be at the home inspection the whole time?

No. You are not required to attend and you are always invited. Most Patriot buyers are out of town, so the report is written for that: full explanations, photos, and video when an issue is complex or hard to put into words, and your inspector is available to discuss the findings afterward. If you can be there, the walkthrough at the end is the most useful part.