What should a home inspection look for in Herriman, Utah?

Start below grade. In Herriman, the basement is where the expensive surprises live, and it is also the part of the house buyers spend the least time in during a showing.

A general home inspection covers the whole property — roof to foundation, systems, structure, safety. That is the baseline and it is not optional. What this post adds is the Herriman-specific layer: the things a competent inspector should be looking at here, the add-ons worth paying for, and the items a standard inspection will not catch that a buyer in this town needs to know.

For the general process rather than the local specifics, see what happens during a home inspection in Utah.

The basement, first and hardest

Nearly every Herriman house has one and most were delivered unfinished. Whether it is finished or not, the inspection should cover:

Moisture. Staining on the walls, efflorescence (the white crust that means water has moved through the concrete), any smell, any softness in drywall at the base of finished walls. A dry basement is the whole premise of finishing one later.

Foundation cracks. Hairline vertical cracks in poured concrete are common and usually cosmetic. Horizontal cracks, stair-step cracks in block, or anything wider than a coin edge is a structural question, not a cosmetic one.

Window wells and egress. Every well should drain, every cover should fit, and any bedroom below grade needs a code-compliant egress window. A finished basement bedroom without one is not a legal bedroom regardless of what the listing says.

The sump, if there is one. Does it run? Where does it discharge? A sump pump that discharges next to the foundation is moving water in a circle.

Radon — the add-on to always buy

Parts of Utah have elevated radon, it collects in basements, and you cannot see, smell or guess it. The test is inexpensive, takes a couple of days, and the result either clears the house or tells you a mitigation system is needed. Mitigation is routine and not expensive relative to the house. Test before you close; if you finish the basement later, test again, because finishing changes the airflow.

Grading and drainage

Herriman’s newer subdivisions were graded by builders on compacted fill, and lots settle. Walk the perimeter: the ground should slope away from the foundation on every side. Look at where downspouts discharge, whether the neighbor’s yard drains into this one, and whether the driveway has settled toward the garage. Grading is the cheapest problem to fix and the most expensive to ignore. One hazard is invisible and not on a standard inspection, and whether radon is a problem in Utah homes covers testing.

The systems

Furnace and air conditioning. Age, condition, filter, whether it has been serviced. Utah winters make the furnace the system you cannot live without.

Water heater. Age and whether it is showing rust or sediment. On a newer home this is usually fine; on a fifteen-year-old home it is often near the end.

Water pressure and the pressure-reducing valve. Many south valley homes have a PRV on the main line, and when it fails you get either a trickle or pressure high enough to stress the plumbing.

Electrical panel. Brand, capacity, any double-tapped breakers, whether the basement finish added circuits properly.

The roof, honestly

Newer Herriman roofs are mostly asphalt shingle, and the inspector should walk it or at least look from the edges: lifted shingles, exposed nails, flashing around vents, the condition of the gutters. The south valley gets wind, and wind damage on a roof that looks fine from the driveway is common. Ask the age. Ask for any repair history.

What a general inspection does not do

Sewer scope. A camera down the main sewer line to the street. On a newer home this is usually clean; on an older Herriman home near the original town center, or any home with mature trees, roots and bellies in the line are real. Worth paying for on anything more than fifteen years old.

Permits. The inspector looks at what is there; they do not check whether the city approved it. If the basement was finished, a deck was added, or a bathroom appeared, ask the city for the permit record. A finish done without permits may not count at appraisal and can become your problem to correct.

The HOA. Nothing in an inspection tells you what the association will and will not let you do. Separate document, separate read.

The lot’s future. What is approved for the open ground next door is a question for the city planning office, not the inspector.

On a newer house: the builder-warranty layer

A home under a few years old still carries builder warranty on some items, and the inspection doubles as a punch list.

Cosmetic settling — nail pops, drywall cracks at corners, doors that have started to stick — is normal in the first couple of years and usually covered.

Grading and concrete — driveway heave, sidewalk settlement, patio cracks — is where the real warranty conversations happen.

Systems often carry manufacturer warranties beyond the builder’s. Get the paperwork.

If the seller is the original owner, ask what warranty claims were made and how the builder responded. That history tells you how the house was built and how it will be to deal with.

Read the seller’s disclosure first

Utah sellers complete a property condition disclosure, and it lands in your hands before the inspection does. Read it properly rather than skimming.

It tells you what the seller knows: past water in the basement, a roof repair, a furnace replaced, a finish done without permits, an HOA dispute. Anything disclosed is something the inspector should look at specifically, and anything you later find that the seller knew and did not disclose is a different conversation entirely.

Cross-check it against the inspection. A disclosure that says “no known water intrusion” alongside an inspector’s photo of efflorescence on the foundation wall is worth a direct question. Most sellers are honest and some genuinely do not know. The disclosure plus the inspection is how you find out which. Grading and drainage deserve their own look, because the way Herriman actually floods is a lot question more than a creek question.

What to do with the report

You will get a long document with a lot of items on it, and most of them will be minor. You do not have to ask for everything to be fixed, and asking for everything is how a buyer loses a house they wanted over a loose doorknob.

Sort it into three piles: safety and structure, which you address; expensive systems near end of life, which you negotiate; and the cosmetic list, which you let go. That is the whole strategy.

What I actually see happen

I am Kelsey Earl, a Realtor with Keller Williams South Valley, and the Herriman inspection findings that change deals are almost always in the basement or in the yard.

Buyers walk a beautiful main floor, spend four minutes downstairs, and write an offer. Then the inspector finds the window well that does not drain, the crack that is not hairline, or the finish that was never permitted. None of those are reasons to walk. All of them are reasons to renegotiate, and the buyer who skipped the inspection to win the house has no way to.

The other pattern is the newer-home buyer who assumes new means fine and waives the inspection. New means the builder’s crew did it; it does not mean it was done well. The inspection on a two-year-old home is shorter and cheaper, and it is the one that catches grading before it becomes a foundation problem.

What to do next

Book the general inspection and add radon. Add a sewer scope on anything older or anything with big trees. Walk the basement yourself with a flashlight before the inspector arrives, so you know what questions to ask.

The things you notice walking through are worth far more at the inspection than in the hallway, which is why what you say at a showing matters.

Send me the address and I will tell you what I would want checked on that specific house, before you spend money on the report.