Ann Arbor, Michigan
Looking for an Ann Arbor home inspector? We do certified home, commercial, mold and radon inspections in Ann Arbor, seven days a week. Home inspection reports come back in 24 hours.
Schedule your inspectionCall 734-331-3269
Services
For buyers, sellers, and homeowners keeping an eye on the place they already own. On new construction we also do pre-drywall inspections and 11-month builder’s warranty inspections. Our certified inspectors walk every major system in your Ann Arbor home and tell you plainly what they found — then put it in a photo-rich digital report within 24 hours.
Following the InterNACHI Standards of Practice:
Included free with every home buyer inspection— and none of them require us to sell your information.
SatisfactionIf you are unhappy with your inspector on the day of the inspection, before you have seen your report, tell us and we will make it right — or you owe us nothing.
30-Day WarrantyA free 30-day Guard home warranty trial, negotiated for you with no obligation. Activate it whenever you are ready.
$100 OffThe buyer’s protection guarantee: if the first home we inspect for you does not make it to the closing table, for any reason, we take $100 off any further home buyer inspection within 30 days of the original.
Optional services at an additional cost — not part of a standard inspection. Tap one to see what it covers.
A camera down the main sewer line, watching its condition from the inside — roots, breaks, bellies and blockages no visual inspection can find. More about sewer scope inspections
The wood-destroying organism report VA buyers are typically asked to provide, on the federal NPMA-33 form. Carried out during the same visit. More about Veterans WDO inspections
Up to five air samples sent to an accredited laboratory, added to the same appointment rather than booked as a second visit. More about mold inspection and testing
View a sample report
Offices, retail, multifamily and warehouses in Ann Arbor and across Washtenaw County. Know what condition a building is in before you sign — or stay ahead of problems in the one you already own. Reports in 24 to 72 hours depending on size.
Following the CCPIA commercial standards:
Commonly added to a commercial inspection at additional cost.
Commercial laterals are longer, older and carry more. A camera is the only way to see the condition of the one you are buying. More about sewer scope inspections
Air samples to an accredited laboratory, which matters most in buildings that have sat empty or had a roof or plumbing leak. More about mold inspection and testing
View a sample report
Add either to an Ann Arbor home or commercial inspection, or book it on its own. We test and we never remediate, so there is nothing to sell you on the back of a result — the number you get is just the number.
Radon measured in house on a professional continuous monitor; mold samples to an accredited laboratory:
The other things worth testing while somebody is already there.
Carried out after remediation on the treated area and the areas next to it, to confirm what was found. More about mold inspection and testing
A damp basement can have several causes, and the buried sewer line is the one a visual inspection cannot check. A scope rules it in or out. More about sewer scope inspections
View a sample reportAnn Arbor housing stock
Ann Arbor has roughly 53,636 housing units and about 42% of them are single-family detached. Housing that went up mostly in one era has mostly one era’s problems — which is genuinely useful to know before you buy, because it tells you what to look at first.
Most of it went up in the 1960s — 9,783 homes, around 18% of the town. It is also less detached-house territory than most of the area at 42%, so condominiums, duplexes and small multi-family buildings are a bigger share of what we inspect here — and those bring their own questions about what is yours to maintain and what belongs to the association.
The median owner-occupied home here is valued at $416,500. Only 45% of occupied homes are owner-occupied, so a good share of what we inspect here is bought as a rental or sold with tenants in place — which changes what access on the day looks like. There are around 174 manufactured and mobile homes in Ann Arbor. Those are a different inspection — the questions are about the frame, the anchoring and the skirting rather than a basement. Around 5,801 homes sit in two-to-four unit buildings, where a shared roof, a shared wall and sometimes a shared furnace mean the report has to be clear about where one unit stops.
None of this is a prediction about a particular house. It is where an Ann Arbor home inspector starts looking in a home of this age, and what we photograph and write up either way.
Housing figures: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2022 five-year estimates.
When Ann Arbor was built
73% of homes here run on utility gas, and 49 still heat with oil. If yours is one of them, the tank is the thing to ask about — where it is, and whether it was ever buried. Another 804 use bottled or LP gas.
Local knowledge
There is one thing about Ann Arbor houses that catches out inspectors and buyers who learned the trade somewhere else, and it is worth knowing before you stand in a basement here.
The City states that over many decades, many structures in Ann Arbor were built with footing drains — pipes around or beneath the foundation that collect water and carry it away — and that these were then connected directly to the sanitary sewer system, mixing storm water and sewage. It goes further: code at one time even allowed sump pumps and similar systems to pump water from footing drains into the sewer as well.
Almost everywhere else, a sump discharging into the sanitary sewer is a defect you write up without hesitating. Here the City’s own page says the practice was once permitted, which makes what you find at the sump a question to take to the City rather than a verdict to reach on the spot.
The rest of the picture is a city of 53,636 housing units where only about 42% are single-family detached — more than half of the housing here is a condominium, a townhouse, a duplex or an apartment, and a great deal of it is rented.
Before you buy
The unusual one
This deserves its own section, because it is the local fact most likely to change what you do about a wet basement here.
On the City’s Developer Offset Mitigation page, Ann Arbor explains the history plainly: footing drains installed around or beneath structures were connected directly to the sanitary sewer, and code later allowed sump pumps or similar systems to pump footing drain water into the sewer as well. The consequence the City describes is that large storms or heavy rain can send a massive flow of stormwater — sometimes ten to twenty times normal — into sanitary sewer pipes through those connected drains, which can temporarily exceed the system’s capacity.
The City records what that produced historically: a number of times during the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, large rainstorms caused the sanitary sewer system to exceed capacity, causing sewage to back up in homes in some neighborhoods. That is the City’s account of the past, not a prediction about the house you are buying, and we are not going to turn it into one.
What it does mean is that two ordinary basement observations carry more weight in Ann Arbor than elsewhere. The first is where the sump discharges, if there is a sump. The second is whether there is any evidence of past water entry or backup at floor level. We document both as found — the equipment present, the discharge point where it is visible and traceable, staining, efflorescence, repairs, floor drain condition — and we say what we could not see, because a buried connection is not something a visual inspection resolves.
Where the line actually runs, and what the City’s position is on a particular property, is a question for the City. It is a good question to ask early rather than after closing.
If you are buying a rental
With most of Ann Arbor’s housing something other than a detached house, a large share of what changes hands here is income property — and the City has a program around it that buyers regularly discover late.
The City’s Rental Housing Services office inspects all rental units in the city every 30 months and issues a Certificate of Compliance to each property that passes. The municipal code is blunt about what happens without one: no person may lease or otherwise make a dwelling or rooming unit available for occupancy if a Certificate of Compliance is not in effect, and the City notes that this covers advertising and listing the property, not just occupying it.
The part that surprises buyers sits in the registration and inspection guidance: the license is not transferable when the property is sold, and new owners must register and apply for a new one. If the license is current at the time of the transfer, the inspection fee is waived. There is also a distance rule — an owner who does not live or have an office within 25 miles of the City must appoint a local agent, who can be a friend, a relative or a management company and need not be a licensed real estate agent.
A property that has never been rented before draws a longer first inspection, and the City notes it schedules a few weeks out. If your plan for the building depends on renting it in the first month, that timeline is worth confirming before you commit.
None of that is a condition report. The City inspects against its housing code so a unit can legally be rented. A buyer’s inspection is commissioned by you and reports what is failing, what is near the end of its service life and what to budget for — and on a multi-unit building the mechanical count alone changes the arithmetic.
A century of building
Ann Arbor was not built in one push, and it shows in what we find.
About 8,118 units — roughly 15% — predate 1940. The largest single decade is the 1960s at 9,783 units, with 8,460 more from the 1970s and 5,854 from the 1950s. Building has never really stopped: 6,004 units from the 1980s, 6,382 from the 1990s, and around 6,300 since 2000.
That range matters because it means no single assumption travels across the city. A prewar house near the older neighborhoods and a 1990s condominium are different inspections with different questions, and a 1960s house sits in the middle — old enough that the roof covering, furnace, air conditioning and water heater have all been renewed at least once, recent enough that nothing about it is automatic.
We will not tell you what a house contains from the decade it was built. Two properties of the same age on the same street can be entirely different sixty years on, and the only way to separate them is to look at each one.
On attached housing there is a second question worth asking before the inspection: which components are yours and which belong to the association. Roof, siding, windows, and sometimes the water heater or the furnace flue can sit on either side of that line depending on the documents, and it determines who pays for what we find.
The buried line
Everything above concerns water inside and around the building. The buried lateral running from the house to the public main is the part no visual inspection reaches, in Ann Arbor or anywhere else.
On a house from the 1960s that pipe has been in the ground sixty years or more, which is long enough for tree roots to find a joint, for ground movement to displace a section, or for a repair to have been made that nobody now remembers. We will not name a material from a build year, because no authoritative source establishes what Ann Arbor laterals are generally made of.
A sewer camera inspection records what is actually inside — roots, cracks, displaced joints, bellies or blockages where they exist, and a clear run where they do not — and it is added to the same visit rather than booked separately.
Alongside it, commercial building inspections follow the CCPIA standard for offices, retail, multifamily and warehouse property, which on a city with this much income housing comes up often. Radon testing and mold inspection and testing can be added to a residential or commercial visit.
Local information from City of Ann Arbor — Developer Offset Mitigation (footing drains) · City of Ann Arbor — Rental Housing Services · City of Ann Arbor — property registration and inspection information. Municipal requirements change — verify current details with the municipality.
Radon in Washtenaw County
Zone 1 is the highest of the three EPA categories — the predicted average indoor level across the county is above the 4 pCi/L action level. What a zone cannot tell you is anything about one house: 38% of tests actually run in Washtenaw County still came back at or above the EPA’s 4 pCi/L action level. A zone is a prediction of an average, and nobody lives in an average.
We place a continuous monitor for 48 hours and read the result on site — no mail-in kit, no lab wait. How radon testing works · Washtenaw County radon and inspection coverage
Zone from the EPA Map of Radon Zones. Elevated-result share from the Michigan Indoor Radon Program.
Why choose us
Five reasons people here pick us as their Ann Arbor home inspector.
Family owned since 2009, more than 16,000 inspections completed and over 2,000 five-star reviews across Michigan. We also handle home buyer inspections, commercial building inspections, mold testing and radon testing.
We do not sell mold remediation or radon mitigation, so there is nothing to gain from a result that comes back bad. The number you get is just the number.
Radon, mold, sewer scope and wood-destroying organism inspections go on the same appointment as the home inspection rather than costing you a second morning.
Most people do, and it is the most useful hour of the whole purchase. Ask anything while we are standing in front of it.
InterNACHI and CCPIA certified, with four Certified Master Inspectors and National Home Inspector Examination passes on the team — none of which Michigan requires. The standards we inspect to are published and you can hold the work against them.
Including weekends, because inspection windows sit on closing dates and closing dates do not care what day it is.
Reviews
Mr. Cahoon was very thorough inspecting the home I am interested in purchasing. He explained everything clearly as he went along. Went above and beyond crawling into the very small crawl space! Thank you!
Amy CaragayYpsilanti, MII recently hired Trademark for a full home inspection on a new purchase, including sewer scope and radon testing. It was a phenomenal experience from beginning to end. Our inspector, Mitch, did a fantastic job explaining all the findings, and the digital report with photos and videos was superb. Would definitely recommend without hesitation.
Salina HamiltonOak Park, MIWe had Mitch inspect our prospective house and he was amazing. He was thorough, patient to answer my questions and provide feedback on what areas he would recommend having a follow up expert and why. The office was responsive and I was able to book multiple services to be done in the same visit (inspection, radon test, sewer scope).
Chris PlaweckiOak Park, MIWhat happens
Questions
Because many of them are. The City states that over many decades many structures here were built with footing drains connected directly to the sanitary sewer, and that code at one time even allowed sump pumps and similar systems to pump footing drain water into the sewer. The City explains the consequence as well: heavy rain can push a flow sometimes ten to twenty times normal into sanitary pipes through those connections. Where a particular property stands is a question for the City, and worth asking early.
No, and we would not suggest it. The City’s account is historical: a number of times during the 1980s, 1990s and early 2000s, large rainstorms caused the sanitary sewer system to exceed capacity and sewage to back up in homes in some neighborhoods. That is a record of what happened, not a forecast for one address. What an inspection covers is the property itself — accessible grading, gutters and downspouts and where they discharge, foundation conditions, the basement or crawlspace, floor drains and any sump equipment, documented as found.
No. The City is explicit that the license is not transferable when the property is sold, and that new owners must register and apply for a new one — though if the license is current at the time of transfer, the inspection fee is waived. Rental units are inspected on a 30-month cycle, and the municipal code bars leasing, advertising or listing a unit without a Certificate of Compliance in effect. Build that into your timeline before closing rather than after.
No. The City inspects rental units against its housing code so that a unit can legally be rented, and issues a Certificate of Compliance when it passes. It is a compliance check carried out for the City. A buyer’s inspection is independent, commissioned and paid for by you, and reports the condition of the roof, structure, foundation, drainage, electrical, heating and cooling, plumbing and accessible interior — what is failing, what is near the end of its life and what to plan for. Neither does the other’s job.
Not a problem, but there is a rule to know. The City requires an owner who does not live or have an office within 25 miles of Ann Arbor to appoint a local agent. That agent can be a friend, a relative or a hired property management service, and does not have to be a licensed real estate agent. The City also notes that a property never previously rented draws a longer first inspection and that scheduling runs a few weeks out.
The range is wide, which is the point. Of about 53,636 housing units, roughly 8,118 predate 1940, the 1960s contributed the largest single decade at 9,783 units, and the 1970s added 8,460 more. Building never really stopped — around 6,000 units each from the 1980s and 1990s and about 6,300 since 2000. Only about 42% of the total is single-family detached. No single assumption about age or construction travels across the whole city.
Which components are yours. On attached housing the roof, siding, windows and sometimes the water heater or furnace flue can fall to either the owner or the association depending on the governing documents, and that line decides who pays for what an inspection finds. Get the documents before the inspection if you can — it changes how you read the report rather than what is in it.
It is worth considering, and here it answers the one drainage question nothing else can. Whatever you establish about footing drains and sump discharge, no visual inspection sees inside the buried lateral running from the house to the public main. On a house from the 1960s that pipe has been in the ground sixty years or more. We will not guess a material from a build year — no authoritative source establishes what Ann Arbor laterals are generally made of. Putting a camera down the line documents roots, cracks, displaced joints, bellies or blockages where they exist, and is added to the same appointment.
More on cost, timing and what is included on the FAQ page.
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From the blog
October 22, 2017
January 5, 2021
Your local Ann Arbor home inspector, seven days a week. Home inspection reports in 24 hours.
