Guide

Switching from HomeGauge

Most inspectors who try Plumb Report are coming from HomeGauge, so this page answers the questions they ask. It is written for the inspector doing the move, not for a software reviewer. If your current tool is something else, almost everything here still applies.

What carries over

The report your clients receive. Plumb Report's PDF follows the layout buyers and agents already know from HomeGauge-style reports: numbered sections and items, IN / NI / NP / TR status boxes, photos with captions under each item, styles and materials, and a summary of the items that need attention. Your business name, inspector name, address and logo go on every page. A client who got your last report from HomeGauge will not be confused by the first one from Plumb Report.

Your wording. The comments you have refined over years are the most valuable thing in your current system. The reliable way to bring them across is through the reports you have already delivered: send us a handful of recent report PDFs and we pull your comments out of them, matched to the items they were written for. That works whether you use HomeGauge Desktop or HomeGauge Web. Expect your most-used comments to be there on day one; anything you rarely use you can add to the library as it comes up.

Your picklists. The usual answers for styles and materials (roof covering, siding, heating type and so on) are taken from the same past reports, so the common choices are one click away.

What is different in the day-to-day

Photos first, not items first. In HomeGauge you typically open an item and attach photos to it. In Plumb Report you drop the whole day's folder in, then move through the photo grid assigning each one to an item by typing its code. It is faster once you know the item numbers, which you already do.

It is a keyboard job. Arrow keys move through photos. Typing 2.3 and Enter assigns, x excludes a photo from the report, c edits the caption. In the item list, j and k move between items. The mouse still works; the keyboard is just quicker.

AI can do the first pass, if you want. "Draft report with AI" sorts the photos along the order you walked, reads data plates into the styles and materials fields, and drafts comments from your library. Drafts arrive as pending suggestions. Nothing you have already decided is overwritten, and every comment needs your acceptance before it reaches the report. Plenty of inspectors never use it; the manual workflow is complete on its own.

Export is versioned and runs in the background. Hit export, keep working, download when it is done. Each export keeps its version number, so you can always find the exact PDF a client received.

Billing is per month plus per AI draft. The subscription covers the software. Inspections you draft with AI carry the AI cost to the cent plus a small per-inspection fee. See pricing.

What to have ready

1. Five to ten recent report PDFs. The more variety in the houses, the more of your wording and picklist values we can bring across, and the better we can match your section and item numbering.
2. Your logo as a PNG or SVG, and the business details you print on reports.
3. The photo folder from one past inspection. Rebuilding a report you already delivered is the quickest way to learn the workflow and to check the output against what your client got.

A sensible first week

• Day 1: sign in, set your branding under My account, add a passkey, and open the library to see your comments in place.
• Day 2: rebuild one past inspection from its photo folder. Compare the PDF with the original. Tell us about anything that does not match; this is where most of the small fixes happen.
• Day 3 onward: run your next real inspection through Plumb Report. Keep HomeGauge available until you have delivered two or three reports and are happy.

Things people ask

Can I keep using HomeGauge in parallel? Yes. There is nothing to uninstall and no data is moved out of HomeGauge. Many inspectors run both for a few weeks.

What about my old reports? They stay in HomeGauge. The PDFs you send us are used only to build your comment library and picklists; they do not become inspections in Plumb Report. Keep your HomeGauge account or download your archive before closing it.

Does it work on a phone or tablet on site? Plumb Report is a web app and runs in any modern browser. The photo sorting and report writing is designed for a laptop or desktop with a keyboard, which is where that work tends to get done anyway.

Who sees my photos? Your photos and reports belong to your account. If you use AI drafting, the photos for that inspection are sent to the AI provider to be analyzed, as described in the privacy policy. Inspections drafted by hand are never sent anywhere.

Ready?

Request access and mention that you are coming from HomeGauge. We will reply with an invite code and tell you how to send your past reports.