Free Home Inspection HVAC Checklist

Only in Texas. 22 TAC §535.230(b)(1)(B)(ii)(I) reports as Deficient a cooling system that fails to achieve a 15°F to 22°F differential, and that language entered the rule with the amendment effective 1 February 2022. Neither InterNACHI nor ASHI prescribes any range, and both go further by excluding determination of cooling temperature and adequacy altogether — InterNACHI 3.5.IV, ASHI 9.2.B. The familiar 14-to-22 figure is HVAC trade convention, not a home inspection standard. This builder grades the differential under TREC, records it without a verdict under the national standards, and says which it is doing on the report.

No, and no standard asks them to. TREC §535.230(d)(4)(D) says the inspector is not required to verify the integrity of the heat exchanger. InterNACHI 3.4.IV excludes inspecting, measuring or evaluating the interior of heat exchangers. ASHI 8.2.A.2 excludes heat exchangers outright. A proper evaluation means dismantling the furnace or running a combustion analyser, and InterNACHI 2.2.III bars dismantling entirely. A cracked exchanger is a genuine carbon monoxide hazard, which is precisely why the finding belongs to a licensed contractor rather than to a visual inspection. This checklist carries it as a stated limitation so the client sees that it was not evaluated, instead of an empty line they read as a pass.

Because a load calculation is a design exercise performed from the building, not a measurement taken from the equipment, and every standard excludes it. TREC §535.230(d)(5)(A) excludes determining the sizing, efficiency or adequacy of the system. InterNACHI 3.4.IV and 3.5.IV exclude determining size, capacity, BTU or supply adequacy. ASHI 13.2.A.3 excludes strength, adequacy, effectiveness and efficiency. Worth noting that none of the three ever uses the words “load calculation”, “heat loss”, “heat gain” or “Manual J” — they reach it through the adequacy and sizing language, and that is how the report cites it.

Record the outdoor temperature and mark the cooling items Not Inspected. TREC §535.230(d)(3)(C)(i) does not require operating cooling equipment when the outdoor temperature is less than 60°F; InterNACHI 3.5.IV sets its figure at 65°F. Running a condenser below the floor can damage the compressor. If you enter an outdoor temperature below the floor for your standard, this builder records any differential you took but draws no performance conclusion from it and prints why — so a sound unit tested in October is never called deficient by arithmetic.

No. IRC M1602.2 item 4 prohibits return air taken from a closet, bathroom, toilet room, kitchen, garage, mechanical room, boiler room, furnace room or unconditioned attic, and item 1 separately requires return openings be at least 10 feet from an open combustion chamber or draft hood in the same room. A return inside a furnace closet depressurises it and can pull flue gases back into the living space, which is why it is one of the findings a real-estate transaction actually turns on. Note there is no direct-vent exception in M1602.2 — its only two carve-outs are a kitchen-only return 10 feet from the cooking appliances and a system serving the garage alone. The direct-vent and dedicated-enclosure allowances people attach to it belong to IMC 303.3, which governs where an appliance may be located, a different question.

Only under stated conditions. IRC G2406.2, which is IFGC 303.3, prohibits appliances in sleeping rooms, bathrooms, toilet rooms, storage closets and surgical rooms, or in a space opening only into one, except where one of six conditions is met. The two seen in the field are a direct-vent appliance installed per its listing, and an appliance in a space that opens only into a bedroom or bathroom, is used for no other purpose, has a solid weather-stripped door with an approved self-closing device, and takes combustion air directly from outdoors. That enclosure allowance does not extend to toilet rooms or storage closets, which is a distinction commonly missed.

It carries the Texas rule’s own definition: a condition that adversely and materially affects the performance of a system or component, or constitutes a hazard to life, limb or property (22 TAC §535.231). It is worth stressing that I / NI / NP / D is an inspection-status schema, not a severity scale — it has no “marginal” tier. The Satisfactory / Marginal / Defective scales common in inspection software are a product convention that neither InterNACHI nor ASHI defines; both use only a binary “report as in need of correction”. We ship the vocabulary that has a legal definition behind it and do not dress it up as something else.

No standard permits it. InterNACHI 2.2.I excludes determining the service life expectancy of any component or system, and ASHI 13.2.A.2 excludes remaining life expectancy. Age itself is an observation you may record, though the serial format is manufacturer-specific with no standard governing it, so say how you derived it. The ASHRAE service-life figures widely quoted are medians from a survival curve seeded largely with commercial-building data — half the population had failed by that point and half had not, which tells you nothing about the unit in front of you. Condition determines serviceability, not age.

No, and every export says so. Codes are not retroactive — a house built in 1985 is not in violation of a code published in 2021, and a deviation from current practice is not a legal violation. Sections are cited to explain why a condition was called deficient, never to certify compliance, and each names its edition because these move: condensate disposal is M1411.3 in the 2021 IRC and M1411.9 in the 2024. Determining compliance rests with the authority having jurisdiction.

That one is a contractor’s document — a pass/fail maintenance and service checklist for a technician working on equipment. This is the heating and cooling section of a residential home inspection: a different grading schema, an explicit scope-of-practice boundary that names what the inspector is not permitted to conclude, and the gas-safety and return-air findings a real-estate transaction turns on. If you are performing a tune-up, use the contractor checklist. If you are writing a report a buyer, a seller and two agents will read, use this one.