Which is an inspector not required to determine about a system?

Standards of practice draw a hard line between observing and evaluating. An inspector determines whether a system is present, whether visible components appear damaged, and whether the system responds to its normal operating controls — all observations available on the day. Adequacy and efficiency are different in kind: adequacy asks whether a system is correctly sized for the building's load, which requires a heat loss calculation, a fixture unit count or a load analysis; efficiency asks how well it converts input to output, which requires instrumentation and often data over time. Neither is available from a visual examination, and both would be opinions dressed as findings. This exclusion is why an inspector reports that a furnace operated rather than that it heats the house adequately.

Adequacy and efficiency require load calculations, instrumentation or data over time, none of which a visual inspection produces. Standards explicitly exclude determining them.

Standards of practice enumerate what inspectors are not required to determine, including adequacy, efficiency, code compliance, remaining life and causes of conditions. Inspectors report presence, visible condition and response to normal controls.

Operate, Do Not Evaluate. You can say it ran. You cannot say it is big enough or efficient enough — those need calculations you did not do.

The excluded list is a reliable source of exam answers: adequacy, efficiency, code compliance, life expectancy, cause, and construction method.

• •Offering an opinion on whether a system is adequately sized
• •Rating efficiency from a visual observation
• •Confusing operating a system with evaluating its performance