Your home is under contract in Bucks County, Montgomery County, or Philadelphia, the buyer’s home inspector is booked for later this week, and now you are looking around the house wondering what to do before the inspector shows up.
The work that happens in the next few days does not change what the inspector finds, but it shapes the report, the access the inspector has to your major systems, and the number of small items the buyer brings back to the negotiation table.
This article walks through why preparation matters, what to do inside the house, what to clear outside, the small repairs worth tackling before the visit, and the items not worth touching. The goal is a faster, calmer inspection visit, a shorter punch list from the buyer, and a closing date you can actually hold.
Why Does Preparing for a Home Inspection Matter?
A typical inspection on a Bucks or Montgomery County single-family home runs two to three hours, with another hour outside on the roof, lot, and exterior.
During that window the inspector checks the roof, the structure, the electrical panel, the plumbing supply and drains, the water heater, the heating and cooling systems, the windows and doors, the attic, the basement or crawl space, and dozens of smaller items inside each room. The report often runs forty to eighty pages with photos.
Most of that report writes itself the moment the inspector starts the visit. You cannot hide a cracked sewer line or a thirty-year-old furnace, and you should not try. What you can control is two things. First, whether the inspector can actually reach the systems being inspected.
A water heater behind a wall of stored boxes, an attic hatch covered by a dresser, or an electrical panel locked behind a finished room often gets noted as a limitation in the report, which the buyer’s agent reads as a red flag.
Second, whether the report fills up with small, easy-to-fix items that pad the buyer’s repair request list and make the home feel neglected.
The buyer is reading the report in their kitchen the next day with their agent on the phone. A report with three structural notes and four small cosmetic items reads very differently than the same report with twenty-five lines that include burned-out bulbs, missing outlet covers, and a running toilet. The structural notes are unavoidable. The pile of small items is not.
Some sellers choose to handle the unknown earlier by ordering a pre-listing inspection before they list, which is worth a look at whether the seller’s pre-listing report is reliable enough to share with buyers. If you are past that decision and the buyer’s inspection is on the calendar, the rest of this article is the prep that still pays off in the last few days.
What Should You Do Inside Before the Inspector Arrives?
Inside the house, the goal is two-part: clear access to every system the inspector has to physically reach, and make sure every appliance and utility can actually run during the visit. The full sequence of what a typical inspection day looks like in older Bucks and Montgomery homes is useful background if you want to picture the inspector’s path through the house.
Clear Access to the Major Systems
Walk through the house the day before with the inspector’s path in mind. Make sure there is a three-foot clear zone in front of the electrical panel, the furnace, the indoor air handler, the water heater, the sump pump, and the main water shutoff.
Move boxes, laundry baskets, holiday decorations, and storage bins that have crept in front of any of those items. In older Bucks County homes the electrical panel often sits at the back of a basement workshop wall, and the path is the first thing the inspector notices.
Pull anything off the attic hatch and any pull-down attic stairs. If you have storage stacked in the attic, leave a path so the inspector can step into the attic without having to climb over Christmas trees and totes. Crawl spaces are the same. If the access hatch is in a closet, clear the closet floor for the day.
Turn Everything On
This is the single biggest preventable issue on vacant or partially-vacated homes. The inspector has to test every system that has power, gas, or water. If the gas is off at the meter, the furnace and water heater cannot be fired. If the breakers in the panel are off, half the outlets will not test. If the water is shut at the curb, no fixtures can be tested for drainage or supply.
Confirm that the gas, water, and electricity are on the morning of the inspection, including any breakers you flipped off for unused rooms or the basement workshop. Pilot lights on older gas water heaters and any standing-pilot furnaces should be lit.
If a fireplace pilot is off, leave a note for the inspector explaining whether it should be on or not, because an unverifiable fireplace usually shows up on the report as not tested.
Pets, Kids, and the Front Door
Plan to be out of the house for the visit, with pets out of the house or securely crated in one closed room with a clear note on the door. Inspectors will skip rooms where a loose dog is barking, and skipped rooms become limitation notes in the report.
Leave the lockbox code working, leave a key for the inspector if needed, and confirm with the listing agent who is letting the inspector in. If the buyer plans to walk through with their agent during or after the visit, the listing agent usually coordinates the timing.
What Outside Areas Should You Tidy and Open Up?
The exterior of the house carries some of the highest-impact items on the inspection report because most of them touch the roof, the foundation, the drainage, and the building envelope. None of these need a contractor for a basic pass, and ninety minutes of yard work the weekend before the inspection can take real items off the report.
Roof, Gutters, and Downspouts
Inspectors in southeastern Pennsylvania spend real time on gutters because clogged gutters drive water back into the fascia, the soffit, and eventually the basement. Clean out leaves and debris from gutters and downspout strainers.
Walk every downspout and make sure the extension actually carries water away from the foundation rather than dumping it next to the basement wall. Trim any branches that are sitting on the roof or rubbing the shingles, because abrasion marks and biological staining are common roof report items in older neighborhoods.
Foundation Perimeter and Grading
Walk the full foundation perimeter. Move mulch down at least four inches below any wood siding or wood trim, because wood-to-soil and wood-to-mulch contact is a standard wood destroying insect finding in this region. Pull firewood, leaf piles, and any stored building materials away from the foundation.
If the grading slopes toward the house at any point along the wall, that section will get noted as negative slope on the report, and a small amount of soil regrading can move that finding off the list before the visit.
AC Condenser, Outdoor Equipment, and the Garage
Clear leaves and debris out of the outdoor air conditioning condenser fins, and make sure the disconnect box on the wall next to the unit is reachable. Move the trash cans, the grill, or the patio furniture off the condenser pad.
In the garage, clear access to the electrical sub-panel if there is one, the laundry hookups, and the door from the garage to the house.
Test the garage door’s reverse safety with a roll of paper towels under the door, because the auto-reverse feature is one of the most commonly failed safety items on inspection reports for homes built in the last twenty-five years.
If you want a preview of the kind of items inspectors typically flag in older Delaware Valley housing stock, look at the common findings inspectors document in Pennsylvania reports and walk your own house with that list in mind.
Which Small Repairs Are Worth Tackling Before the Inspection?
Some pre-inspection repairs are worth a Saturday morning and a trip to the hardware store. Others are not worth touching because the patch job will be obvious to the inspector and will read worse on the report than the original issue.
Almost every item visible to the unaided eye sits inside the scope of a standard residential inspection, so the dividing line is honesty: if a repair can be done cleanly to current code, do it. If the only way to handle the issue is to mask it, leave it alone and let the negotiation handle it.
Five-Minute Items Worth Doing
Replace burned-out lightbulbs in every fixture, including basement utility bulbs, exterior porch and floodlights, garage bay lights, and closet lights. A burned-out bulb is one of the most common report items because the inspector cannot confirm the fixture works. Reinstall missing outlet covers and switch plates.
Replace dead smoke alarm batteries and confirm every smoke and carbon monoxide detector chirps on the test button. Tighten any loose cabinet pulls, door knobs, or toilet seat bolts.
Thirty-Minute Items Worth Doing
Fix a running toilet by replacing the flapper, which is a five-dollar part on the back tank lid. Tighten loose handrails on any interior or exterior stair, because loose handrails are a safety finding.
Hit every GFCI outlet near sinks, bathrooms, garages, and exterior receptacles with the test and reset buttons to confirm they trip properly, and replace any that fail. Caulk obvious gaps around tubs, sinks, and the kitchen backsplash where water can run behind the wall.
Replace cracked or broken outlet covers, switch plates with chips, and any switch with a loose toggle.
Repairs Not Worth Attempting Before the Inspection
Skip any electrical panel work. Adding a breaker, replacing a panel cover, or rewiring an outlet on the morning of the inspection almost always shows up as an obvious recent change, and many of those changes require a permit and an inspection from the township that you will not have. Skip roof patches.
A fresh patch on an aging roof draws the inspector’s eye directly to the surrounding area. Skip major plumbing repairs to the main stack or the water heater. Skip cosmetic paint over visible water stains on the ceiling, because the stains will still show up on the moisture meter even after paint.
For these larger items, the better path is to let them surface on the report and address them through the buyer’s repair request, the closing credit, or a price adjustment depending on how the deal is structured and what the local market looks like.
Frequently Asked Questions About Home Inspection Preparation
How long does a home inspection usually take?
Two to three hours inside the house plus another hour on the roof, lot, and exterior is typical for a single-family home in Bucks or Montgomery County. Larger homes, multi-unit properties, and older Philadelphia row homes can run longer. Ancillary services like radon testing, wood destroying insect inspections, and sewer scopes add time and may require a separate visit or a coordinated team.
Do I need to be home during the inspection?
Most listing agents recommend that sellers leave the house during the inspection. The buyer and their agent are usually present for at least the last hour for the verbal walk-through, and the conversation is more productive when the seller is not in the room. If you have to stay because of pets or a work-from-home setup, plan to be in one closed room and let the inspector know in advance.
Should I get a pre-listing inspection before I list?
A pre-listing inspection can be useful for older homes where you expect surprises, where the market is slow enough that buyers can walk away easily, or where you want to price the home with a known set of conditions in mind. In a fast market with multiple offers, many sellers skip the pre-listing inspection because the negotiation power is on their side.
Talk to your listing agent about whether the local market favors a pre-listing report.
Will small cosmetic issues show up on the report?
Some will and some will not. Cosmetic issues that overlap with a safety or functional concern, like a chipped outlet cover, a torn screen, or a missing switch plate, almost always get noted. Pure cosmetic items like worn paint, dated carpet, or a stained vanity top usually do not appear because they are not part of the standard inspection scope.
The inspector is writing for the buyer, not for the seller, and the line between cosmetic and functional is judged from the buyer’s perspective.
Is it better to do repairs before the inspection or negotiate after?
Small, clean repairs are usually worth doing before the visit because they shorten the report and the negotiation. Larger repairs are usually worth leaving for the negotiation because a rushed contractor visit before closing rarely produces a clean fix and often creates a new issue the inspector or the buyer’s contractor catches.
The middle category, repairs in the fifty to three hundred dollar range, depends on time and access to a trusted handyman or contractor in the next forty-eight hours.
How clean does the house need to be?
Clean enough that the inspector can move through every room and reach every system without climbing over storage. The inspector is not judging tidiness or cleanliness, but visible clutter blocks access, and a strong household odor sometimes triggers a moisture or air-quality note.
Vacuuming, taking out the trash, and clearing the floors in the laundry room, the basement, the garage, and around mechanical systems is enough.
What paperwork should I leave out for the inspector?
Leave any recent service records for the furnace, central air, water heater, roof, septic, and well in a visible spot on the kitchen counter or near the front door. Warranty paperwork on appliances, recent radon test results, prior termite or wood destroying insect reports, and any permits pulled for additions or renovations all help.
The inspector can write more confidently about the systems when the maintenance history is visible.
When Should You Book Your Inspection in the Delaware Valley?
If you are a buyer and the contract is signed, book the inspection in the first three or four days of the contingency window so there is time to schedule re-inspections, get contractor quotes on any findings, and present a repair request before the deadline.
If you are a seller deciding whether to order a pre-listing inspection, book at least two weeks before the listing photos and your first open house so any small repairs can be handled before the home goes live.
If you are buying or selling a home in Bucks County, Montgomery County, or Philadelphia and want a thorough inspection with a clean, easy-to-read report, schedule your inspection with our team so the visit is set up correctly the first time.