A re-inspection is a second, shorter visit after the original inspection. Sometimes it’s because something couldn’t be tested the first time, and sometimes it’s to confirm that repairs actually got done right. Here are the three situations where we recommend one.

Disconnected Items

During a home inspection if something is disconnected it won’t be inspected or will have a very limited inspection. This can mean a sink, appliance or air conditioner doesn’t have any visual defects, yet does not function correctly when reconnected and operated. That’s the part worth understanding. A disconnected item isn’t a passed item, it’s an unknown, and it stays an unknown until somebody plugs it in and runs it.

Utilities Are Off

If utilities are turned off it will affect how much of many different systems the inspector can evaluate. For instance, if the gas is turned off to the home many different appliances like the water heater, furnace, and oven can’t be tested. Therefore, limiting the inspector’s ability to find issues other than those that are visible without operating the unit. Furthermore, any issues not found during the initial inspection have the potential to cost the clients lots of time and money in the future.

This one comes up most often on vacant homes and foreclosures, where the power or gas has been shut off for a while. If you know ahead of time that utilities are off, it’s worth asking whether they can be turned on before the inspection rather than paying for two visits.

Check Completed Repairs

Lastly, re-inspections are a great way to check to make sure any repairs performed after the initial inspection were done correctly. These inspections also typically cost a fraction of what the original inspection did and are an unbiased professional analysis of the completed work. A receipt from a contractor tells you money changed hands. It doesn’t tell you the work was done properly, and we do find repairs that were done wrong or not done at all.

Re-inspections fill in any gaps left from the first inspection and check any repairs that have been made. So, the next time you or someone you know get an inspection, consider a re-inspection if any of the above items apply. We at Panther Inspections offer re-inspections and have flexible scheduling to ensure our clients get the info they need to make informed home purchases quickly. You can see what’s covered on a full inspection on our what’s inspected page.

Updated July 2026

This is the question we get pushed back on most. The house is brand new, it passed the city inspections, the builder has their own people looking at it, so what is there for a third party to find? Quite a lot, as it turns out.

Builders Make Mistakes

All builders use subcontractors to complete a home quickly. Many times even having to share these subs because of the high demand for housing here in the Austin area. These “subs” are many times in a hurry, under pressure, and minimally paid. So, mistakes are made in every home. The builder’s representatives monitor and revise construction but they too are typically overseeing more homes than they can handle. That means any mistakes made, go unnoticed or are forgotten.

Remember also that each trade covers up the work of the trade before it. Framing gets hidden by insulation, insulation gets hidden by drywall, and drywall gets painted. A mistake that would have taken ten minutes to correct at the right stage becomes a much bigger job once it’s buried.

Builders’ Inspectors Miss Things

Yes, many builders have their own inspectors or contract them. These inspectors are usually paid bottom dollar for their services and perform as many as 10 inspections a day. That is not enough time to thoroughly inspect a home. All this means it’s easy for them to miss problems with the home. Furthermore, since they are paid by the builder, they are liable only to the builder, not the buyer.

The same goes for the municipal inspections. Those are checking the home against code, which is a minimum standard, and they aren’t checking whether the systems actually perform the way they should for you.

Clients Are Ultimately Responsible

When reading the paperwork from the builder, the buyers must pay very close attention to where responsibility lies. Many builder’s contracts put the liability of ensuring the home is properly built on the buyer, who many times is not equipped to do so. We can’t all be experts on homes after all, so the best thing to do is call a third party inspector. An expert inspector of your choice will take the time needed to completely evaluate the home.

One more thing worth timing correctly. Most builders offer a warranty period, commonly a year, and an inspection shortly before that runs out is one of the more useful ones you can get. Anything found is still the builder’s problem rather than yours. That’s a different visit from the one at closing, and both are worth doing.

If you or a friend are buying or building a new home, the home inspection experts at Panther Inspections are fully equipped with the latest technology and techniques to help ensure a new home is performing as intended. There’s more on what’s covered and what isn’t on our what’s inspected page and our home inspection FAQ.

Updated July 2026

Not every question about a house needs a full inspection to answer. Sometimes there’s one water stain, one hot room, or one crack that somebody wants a straight answer on. That’s what a consultation is for.

Save Time

A normal inspection will take anywhere from 2 to 6 hours depending on the size of the house and what is being inspected. A consultation generally being only an hour or so limits the amount of time needed to get the desired info. The inspector will check any specific items in question and advise the client verbally on the outcome and recommendations, on site. Therefore eliminating the wait time associated with a full inspection or the headache associated with calling many different contractors.

Get Only The Info You Need

Sometimes a full home inspection isn’t needed. A consultation focuses only on getting the client the answers to the questions they have. The inspector arrives prepared to use all of their knowledge and tools available to them (including a thermal camera) to investigate any areas of the home in question and consult the client on findings and next course of action.

The thermal camera is worth mentioning on its own here, because a lot of consultations are about moisture. A stain on a ceiling, a soft spot on a floor, a room that never gets comfortable. Those are exactly the things an infrared scan is good at narrowing down. There’s more on that on our thermography page.

Save Money

A consultation is billed by the hour, and most only take one hour, so there is a large money savings compared with a normal inspection. Clients get the info they need to move forward without costing a small fortune. For current consultation rates, use our quote page or give us a call.

Lastly, not all inspectors offer consultations. So the next time someone you know has questions about a water stain, a hot room, or any issue with their home and they don’t know who to call, Panther Inspections can help.

Updated July 2026

Other than your inspector looking like an Eskimo, there are 2 main things that change with an inspection in winter.

The air conditioner

The first one is the air conditioner. On days that temperatures are below 60°F the air conditioner likely won’t be tested, because operating the unit at those temperatures can damage it. Instead, it will be visually inspected and any deficiencies found noted in the report.

Here’s the part that catches people out. Central Texas winters swing around a lot, so this isn’t a whole-season thing, it’s a that-particular-morning thing. A December inspection at 70°F gets a full cooling test. The same house the following week at 45°F doesn’t. If the cooling system is a big question mark on a house you’re buying, it’s worth watching the forecast when you schedule.

The roof covering

The other item is the roof covering. At low temperatures and wet conditions, ice and snow can make a roof very slippery. Therefore an inspector may have no choice but to inspect the roof from the ground or with another method instead of walking on it, for their own safety. We don’t get many of those days around here, but we do get them, and a wet roof on a cold morning is not worth anybody getting hurt over. On those days a drone usually gets us most of what we’d have gotten on foot.

So make sure that on cold days you check with your inspector on whether or not they could normally inspect these items so you are comfortable with the level of information that you or your clients have about the property. If something did get limited by the weather, that’s a good candidate for a re-inspection later on.

If you or a friend are in need of a high-value inspector, Panther Inspections can help.

Updated July 2026

People ask this one a lot, usually because they assume a warranty inspection is some lighter, cheaper version of the real thing. It isn’t. Here’s what actually changes and what doesn’t.

What actually differs

In short the only real difference is the type of issues or deficiencies your inspector will find on a new home versus a resale home. In new homes improper installation and poor materials performance are the most common issues. Where on an older home the most common deficiencies are code updates and maintenance issues.

Think of it as new problems versus worn problems. A one-year-old home usually hasn’t had time to wear anything out, so what turns up is something that was put in wrong to begin with and has had a year to start showing it. An older home has had everything work correctly for years and is now just getting tired.

How the inspection is performed

In regards to how the inspection is performed, every company is a little different. We at Panther Inspections believe there should be no difference in how a recently finished home is inspected in relation to one that is older. We treat the warranty inspection the same way as a resale or pre-purchase inspection so that comparisons can be made between the home inspections and proper performance of each system is ensured.

Timing the warranty one

The one thing that really matters on a warranty inspection is when you book it. Builder warranties commonly run a year, so the inspection needs to happen with enough room left for the builder to actually come back and fix what gets found. Leaving it until the last week of the eleventh month is cutting it close. A month or two of margin is a lot more comfortable, and it’s the difference between the builder paying for a repair and you paying for it.

There’s more on why new construction is worth inspecting at all in our post on why new homes need inspections.

So, whether you or a friend have a home coming up on its first birthday, and need a thorough warranty inspection or are buying a resale home and need to have it evaluated we can help. Call us now to book your inspection.

Updated July 2026

Buyers don’t usually get to pick whether the house they’re looking at is lived in or sitting empty, but it does change what an inspection can tell you. Here’s what each one means for the report.

Vacant homes

As far as the inspection goes, it’s generally better to have a vacant home. This is because the inspector has full access to the home and all of its interior and exterior surfaces. However, vacant homes see more intrusion of insects and rodents because there is no one there making the normal noise of living to ward them off, putting down pesticides, or calling a pest control company. They also can be in greater disrepair since no one is there constantly seeing what needs to be repaired. For these homes, a thorough home inspection coupled with a termite inspection is recommended.

The other thing to watch on a vacant home is whether the utilities are still on. Power and gas often get shut off once a house empties out, and anything that can’t be powered up can only be looked at, not tested. That’s worth sorting out before the inspection rather than after. We wrote about that in more detail in why re-inspections are necessary.

Occupied homes

Occupied homes, on the other hand, have many belongings and furnishings that make inspecting some areas impossible and others difficult. Things not inspected could include some windows, many outlets, large areas of flooring and walls. They do, however, tend to be better maintained and show fewer signs of pest inhabitation.

None of that is anybody’s fault, it’s just what a lived-in house looks like. But it does mean the report will have some items marked as inaccessible, and it’s worth reading those rather than skipping past them. A wall behind a bookcase isn’t a wall that passed, it’s a wall nobody saw.

Whether a home is vacant or occupied, new or old, no home is perfect. So, every home needs a great inspection to identify any major issues. If you or someone you know is buying a home and would like even more peace of mind, Panther Inspections has many inspection types to make the home buying process a little easier. On any home more than a year old the termite inspection comes with it at no extra cost, and you can see the rest of what’s covered on our what’s inspected page.

Updated July 2026

Some (but not all) home inspectors take the time after the inspection is complete to either provide a brief summary of the findings or present the entire report to their clients. This practice has some major benefits.

The reason it matters is that an inspection report is a long document full of photos and terminology, and it lands in your inbox at one of the busier moments of a transaction. Plenty of people skim it, spot the scariest-looking item, and worry about the wrong thing. Twenty minutes of somebody walking you through it fixes that.

For first-time home buyers

First time home buyers often need extra explanation about some of the materials used in a home or the proper function of a system. With a presentation, these buyers get the extra explanations they need to fully understand the report and the home. It’s also where we can separate the “this needs a licensed electrician this week” items from the “this is normal for a house this age, keep an eye on it” items, which is a distinction that doesn’t always come through in writing.

For experienced home buyers

More experienced home buyers benefit by getting the info they need about the home as soon as it’s available and have any specific questions and concerns addressed on the spot.

For home sellers

For home sellers, they get access to an inspector with experience in what issues buyers are most concerned with on an inspection report. This gives them the ability to focus on making repairs that help the home sell.

For agents

Agents get something out of it too. A client who understands their report is a client who negotiates on the items that actually matter, instead of handing over a repair list with forty things on it and stalling the whole deal over a loose doorknob.

While a home inspector can’t answer all questions, they can answer many questions that clients may have about the home they are purchasing or selling, putting them in a more educated position.

At Panther Inspections, all of our inspections include a report presentation giving our clients extra insight and knowledge about the home they are buying or selling. Reports go out the same day, and there’s more on how that works on our home inspection FAQ. So, if you or someone you know could use that extra insight call us now to schedule an inspection.

Updated July 2026