Structural inspection: before you buy, before you build

What is structural inspection?

A structural inspection is a scheduled examination of the parts of a house that carry load - usually commissioned before a purchase, before a renovation, or to re-check something already known about. Two different professionals perform two different versions of it. A general home inspector produces a broad, visual, non-invasive report and refers concerns onward. A licensed engineer determines cause and specifies remedy. Most homeowners meet the first one first, and the moment that matters is the referral between them.

How structural inspection actually works

1. 1

   Work out which occasion you are in

   Four situations bring people here and they want different things. Under contract with a clock running: you need speed and a document that supports a negotiation or an extension. Pre-renovation: you need a finding early enough to change the drawings. Following up an old "further evaluation recommended" that nobody actioned: you need the specific question answered. Establishing whether previous structural work held: you need a baseline and a comparison. Say which one you are in when you call - it changes who you should be hiring.

   Watch forBooking the standard product because it is the one advertised. The occasion determines the scope, and the scope determines whether the report is any use to you.

2. 2

   Decide which inspection you are actually buying

   A general home inspection covers the whole house - roof, systems, envelope, structure - visually and non-invasively, to a published standard of practice. A structural inspection by an engineer is narrower and deeper: fewer systems, more determination. Buying the second when you needed the first, or the reverse, is the commonest waste of money in this category.

   Watch forBooking a general inspection when you already know the question is structural. You will pay for a broad report that ends by telling you to hire the person you should have hired first.

3. 3

   Access decides how much you get

   Inspection is visual. Crawl-space hatches, basement corners, attic access, the interior of a bearing wall - whatever cannot be reached is not assessed, and a competent report says so explicitly. Finished basements and sealed crawl spaces are where the most consequential things quietly go unlooked-at.

   Watch forA report with no limitations section. Every honest inspection has one. Its absence means either nothing was excluded - unlikely - or the exclusions were not written down.

4. 4

   "Further evaluation recommended" - read this as a specific instruction

   This phrase appears because the inspector observed something outside what their licence allows them to conclude. It is not hedging and it is not filler. It means: a defined question exists, and answering it requires a professional with a different licence. Treat the sentence as a work order with a name attached.

   Watch forReading the phrase as reassurance because the report did not use the word "serious". Inspectors are constrained in their wording by their standards of practice, not by how worried they are.

5. 5

   The referral, inside a purchase timeline

   In a transaction the practical constraint is the clock. Engineers are not always available at three days' notice, so the moment you see the referral language, start calling. Where the contingency period genuinely cannot accommodate it, an extension request supported by the inspection report is a reasonable ask and sellers routinely grant it - a buyer who walks helps nobody.

   Watch forAccepting a seller's existing report as your evaluation. It answers the question the seller asked, at the time they asked it, and you did not choose who wrote it. Read it, then decide whether it covers your question.

6. 6

   Pre-renovation: inspect before you design, not after

   If you are opening walls, adding a storey, converting an attic or putting a heavy load somewhere it has never been, the structural assessment belongs at the front of the design process. The finding changes the drawings. Discovering it after the drawings are approved means paying for them twice.

   Watch forA designer or contractor who says the structure "will be fine" without anyone qualified having looked. It is a prediction, and you are the one who pays if it is wrong.

7. 7

   Monitoring and re-inspection - the evidence nobody wants to wait for

   The most important structural question is usually not how bad something is but whether it is still moving. Dated photographs with a scale in frame, marked crack ends, recorded floor levels, and a repeat visit some months later produce a comparison. That comparison is real evidence, and it is the only thing that reliably separates a live defect from an old one.

   Watch forMonitoring with no baseline. Undated photos taken from different angles prove nothing later. Establish the record properly the first time or the waiting is wasted.

What does structural inspection cost?

A general home inspection is a set fee for the whole house; an engineer's structural inspection is priced on time and is usually the larger number for a narrower scope. Re-inspection visits are typically cheaper than the first. Ask what the fee includes before booking - some quote the visit and price the report separately.

See the full structural inspection cost guide - by material, size and region →

If the number is the problem, here are the ways people pay for it →