Buyers open a building report hoping for a sentence that says the electricity is safe, the pipes do not leak and the gas heater will not kill anyone. They get, instead, a paragraph about a rusted overflow, a board that looks original, and a recommendation to engage a licensed electrician, a licensed plumber and, if there is a gas meter, a licensed gasfitter. It feels like a cop-out. Sometimes it is lazy writing. More often it is the standard doing what the standard is for: drawing a line around a visual job so that nobody pretends a two-hour walk-through is a services certificate.
This article is about that line — what an inspector can usefully see in electrical, plumbing and gas, and why the report keeps sending you to the trades. It sits in our defects and construction coverage. It is not a how-to for DIY work, and it is not legal or financial advice. For the wider scope, see what a pre-purchase building inspection covers and AS 4349.1 explained.
Visual only, on purpose
AS 4349.1 describes a non-invasive inspection of residential buildings. The inspector does not remove the switchboard cover if that means exposing live parts they are not licensed to expose. They do not isolate the power. They do not pressure-test the water or the gas. They do not light every appliance and measure the flue. They do not CCTV the sewer unless you bought that extra. They look, they operate the taps and the lights that are safe to operate, and they write down what that revealed.
That limit is frustrating on the day you are about to borrow a large multiple of your income. It is also the reason a competent inspector is still standing in the hallway and not in a tribunal explaining why they “certified” a house. The useful report leans into the limit. It says what was seen, what was not opened, and which licensed person should open it. The less useful report copies the same “engage a licensed…” sentence under every heading and adds nothing a buyer can act on.
A visual inspection can see a wet stain, a crowded board and a rusted flue. It cannot certify the wiring, pressure-test the gas, or open a sealed wall. The licensed trade is the person who can test.
Electrical: boards, RCDs, smoke alarms and the things that look like a fire
The switchboard is the first stop. An inspector can usually see:
- whether the board is a modern circuit-breaker arrangement or a fuse board from an earlier decade
- whether it is overcrowded, with cables hanging from the bottom
- signs of burning or melting
- whether residual current devices — safety switches — are present
- double adaptors and power boards doing the work of missing points
They cannot tell you that the earthing is correct, that the underground consumer mains are sound, or that the kitchen circuit will hold an induction cooktop.
Residual current devices are one of the few electrical items a buyer can usefully ask about in a visual report. Presence or absence is visible. Operation of the test button, if the inspector is prepared to press it, is a limited check. It is not a substitute for a licensed test of the installation. Houses without RCDs on power and lighting circuits are common enough in older stock that the comment should be expected, not treated as a rare defect.
Smoke alarms are similar. The inspector looks for alarms in the locations the current rules generally expect — typically in bedrooms and in the path of travel on each storey, with variations by state and by when the house was last sold or altered. They look at whether the alarm is there, whether it is hanging off the ceiling, and sometimes whether it chirps. They do not certify that the interconnect works, that the battery is new, or that the installation would pass a fire-service audit. Missing alarms are an easy, cheap, important note. They are also easy to over-read as a full fire-safety assessment.
Lugging and overloaded boards are the comments that should slow a buyer down. A board stuffed with extra circuits, with double-tapped breakers, with a tangle of sheathed cable and a smell of warm plastic, is a board that needs a licensed electrician before anyone starts planning a renovation. The inspector’s photograph is the brief.
Asbestos-era boards need a calmer paragraph. Many boards from the middle of the last century have a grey or black backing that may contain asbestos. The backing is a problem if it is drilled, broken or sanded. It is not, on its own, a reason to evacuate the house. The report should flag the possibility, say “do not disturb”, and send the assessment to an electrician who knows how to work on that era of board. Buyers who panic at the word asbestos and buyers who ignore it are both getting the risk wrong.
Unenclosed connections in a roof space, old rubber-sheathed cable that has perished, and downlights that have cooked the insulation above a bedroom are the other visual items. They are not a full wiring report. They are the items a careful walk through the hatch can still catch.
Plumbing: leaks, pressure as observed, drainage and the hot water corner
Plumbing is kinder to a visual inspection than electricity, because water leaves evidence. Stains under a sink, a wet patch at the base of a toilet, a ceiling mark under a bathroom, a soft skirting beside a shower — these are observations, not guesses. The inspector runs taps. They flush toilets. They look at the visible wastes and the trap under the basin if the cupboard is empty enough. They look at the garden for a wet line that might be a leaking poly pipe.
Water pressure, in a standard report, is “as observed”. The kitchen tap either comes out with conviction or it does not. That is not a pressure test at the meter, and it is not a comment on what happens when the shower, the dishwasher and the washing machine run at once. A house on a long private main, or on the high side of a gravity system, can look fine at 11am on a weekday and fade at 7pm. The report should not pretend otherwise.
Unsanitary drainage is the phrase that sounds Victorian and still earns its keep. A gully that sits dry and cracked, a waste that discharges onto the ground, a toilet that is slow to clear, an overflow relief gully that is buried in a garden bed — these are health and amenity issues, and they are often also council issues. An inspector who sees sewage at the surface will say so in plain language. They will not camera the drain unless that was booked.
Hot water systems get a lot of report inches because they are expensive and visible. Location matters. A unit in a roof space needs a tray and an overflow that goes somewhere safe. A unit in a cupboard needs ventilation and a path for the relief valve. A unit against a bedroom wall will be noisy. Overflow that dumps beside the slab on a clay site is a damp and movement problem as much as a plumbing one. Age is a budget note: a twenty-year-old storage unit that is not leaking is still near the end of a normal life. The inspector records the type and the obvious condition. They do not predict the week it will fail.
Roof plumbing — gutters, downpipes, valleys — is a neighbour to this subject and is covered on its own in our roofs, gutters and stormwater reporting. The wet ceiling under a bathroom is plumbing. The wet ceiling under a valley is weatherproofing. The report should keep those two sentences apart.
Gas: appliances you can see, and a test you did not buy
Gas is the service that most often arrives in a report as a disclaimer. The inspector can see a meter, a regulator, a rusted flue, a heater that is obviously disconnected, a cooktop that is there, a hot-water unit that is gas. They can sometimes see flexible connections that look tired and flues that terminate too close to a window. They do not, on a standard building inspection, test for leaks with a meter, measure combustion, or certify that the installation meets the current gas code.
That is why the report says to engage a licensed gasfitter. The sentence is correct. It is also incomplete if it is the only sentence. A buyer who is about to live with an old flued heater in a small lounge deserves a comment on the age and the visible condition of that heater, and a prompt to have it tested, not only a generic line about “gas appliances not inspected”. Unflued heaters, in particular, are an indoor-air problem as well as a gasfitting problem. The inspector can name the appliance. The specialist tests it.
LPG bottles, underground consumer piping and the barbecue that was plumbed by a helpful uncle sit in the same visual-only bucket. If the inspector cannot see it, they should say they could not see it.
Dual occupancies, converted garages and the services that give the game away
Services are often the first honest witness to an unapproved conversion. A second kitchenette in a garage, a separate power board in a “studio”, a second hot-water unit, an extra meter, a laundry trough beside a car space, a shower that was not on the original plan — these are the clues that the house is being used as two dwellings, or was. The inspector’s job is to describe the arrangement. It is not to search the council file.
That description still matters. Dual occupancy and secondary-dwelling rules vary by state and by council. An unapproved conversion can be a planning problem, a fire-separation problem, a waterproofing problem and a finance problem. It is also, often, incomplete or defective building work. The electrical and plumbing comments are part of that story: extra circuits on a tired board, a shower with no visible overflow, a gas bayonet in a room that is now a bedroom.
Buyers who want the rent from the outbuilding should read those comments as a prompt for a council search and a licensed look at the services, not as a green light. Vendors who “always used it as a granny flat” are describing a use, not an approval.
What “engage a licensed electrician” should mean in a good report
The phrase is going to stay. The standard, the insurance and the licence lines all point that way. A good report uses it after a specific observation. The board appears original, ceramic fuses, no RCD visible on lighting — engage a licensed electrician to assess the installation and the options for safety switches. The shower waste is slow and the ceiling below is stained — engage a licensed plumber to investigate the wet area and the waste. The gas heater is old and the flue is rusted at the terminal — do not use it until a licensed gasfitter has inspected it.
A poor report uses the phrase instead of the observation. That is the version buyers are right to dislike. It gives them nothing to price and nothing to ask the vendor.
If you are comparing reports, look for the photographs of the board, the hot-water overflow, the gully and the flue. Look for the limitations: board cover not removed, gas not tested, drains not camera-inspected. Then decide which extra specialist you actually need. Many buyers do not need all three trades on every house. They need the one the observations point to.
How to read the services section
Read it as a visual set, not as a certificate. Then decide what you still need before you take the keys. A house with a modern board, visible RCDs, working alarms, a dry under-sink cupboard and a hot-water unit you can budget to replace is a different purchase from a house with a crowded fuse board, a wet ceiling under the shower and a gas heater of uncertain age. Both houses can be bought. Only one of them should be bought without a licensed follow-up.
Services are easy to skip because they are not pretty and because the report sounds like it is washing its hands. The hands are supposed to be washed. The eyes are not. The inspection that is worth the invoice is the one that still used them.
