diff --git a/.travis.yml b/.travis.yml
index 2cb1f7752484..aeade7f75dc8 100644
--- a/.travis.yml
+++ b/.travis.yml
@@ -28,6 +28,8 @@ install:
     - if [ "$CHECK_UTF8" = true ]; then time sudo apt-get install -qq moreutils; fi
 script: 
     - if [ "$CHECK_UTF8" = true ]; then time ./utils/travis/check_utf8.sh; fi
+    - ! time grep -qorHbm1 "^`echo -ne '\xef\xbb\xbf'`" po/ src/ data/ 
+# UTF8 checks are the previous two lines. the second one checks po src data for UTF8, this takes less than a second.
     - scons cxxtool=$CXX --debug=time strict=$STRICT_COMPILATION $TARGETS
     - "export DISPLAY=:99.0"
     - "sh -e /etc/init.d/xvfb start"
@@ -36,6 +38,7 @@ script:
 after_failure:
     - if [ -f "errors.log" ]; then echo -e "\n*** \n*\n* Errors reported in wml unit tests, here is errors.log...\n*\n*** \n"; fi
     - if [ -f "errors.log" ]; then cat errors.log; fi
+    - if [ grep -qorHbm1 "^`echo -ne '\xef\xbb\xbf'`" po/ src/ data/ ]; then echo "Found a UTF8 BOM, see above."; fi
 notifications:
     email: false
     irc: