Before you buy a new home, you should always have a home inspector stop by and give it a look. There are plenty of things that can be wrong with a home that aren’t that obvious, so an untrained eye can easily miss them. That’s why you should, for example, hire an electrician in Kansas City to check your wiring instead of doing it on your own.

In can’t be overstated how important it is to do a proper home inspection before committing to buying a new home. It’s not a DIY project or a fun afternoon. If you’d call a Kansas City garage door repair service when your garage door can’t open, what do you think you should do when entering a new home, with no idea about the problems it might have or the damage it endured in the past?

When a home inspector walks into your home, they’ll prioritize looking for certain things. Here’s what those things are.

Home’s Structural Integrity

The worst-case scenario for entering a new home usually involves finding out that it’s structurally unsound. You don’t want your new house slowly sinking, or splitting in two, or finding other ways to hurt you. You want it to protect you from the elements and all the bad stuff that’s outside. It’s supposed to be safe on the inside.

The things your home inspector will look for include cracks in the basement walls, around doorframes, in walls, bricks, and stonework. Nails that pop out of walls are a bad sign, as are leaning porches and stairs. Uneven floors and gaps between walls and floors are another sign of concern.

Roof Damage

Since the roof is the thing that prevents most of the rain from falling into your house, you want it to be in the best condition possible. Your home inspector will have to get up there and check it for signs of wear and tear, but also bad craftsmanship and serious damage.

Shingles that are loose or missing need to be fixed or replaced. The same goes for curled shingles or shingles that show too much wear. If the flashing shows rust and cracks, it’s a sign of concern, as is finding soft spots on the roof. And if nothing shows but the attic is still wet, well, you have yourself a mystery to solve up there.

Issues with Electricity and Plumbing

Electricity and plumbing should never go together except in a sentence that states how both are vital for modern living. Your home inspector will have to look for any problems with either, including signs for previous electrical fires or water damage.

There are just too many things that can go wrong with plumbing and electricity, and a lot of them can cause damage to your property, your health, or even cost you your life. So whatever the inspector needs to look, they should look. You don’t mess with water and electricity, never.

Pest Infestation

Believe it or not, some pests are worse than others. Ants, for example, might be perfectly harmless if annoying. Termites, on the other hand, can cause serious damage to your property. Rats can spread illness.

The problem with pests is that you need to catch them in time. If certain pests are left loose for too long, they’ll cause enough damage to make you seriously reconsider buying the house. With pests, it’s always better to go overboard and be maybe too diligent than skip something. It’ll come back to bite you later, figuratively, and possibly literally.