Blackman Township, Michigan
Looking for a Blackman Township home inspector? We do certified home, commercial, mold and radon inspections in Blackman Township, 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 Blackman Township 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 Blackman Township and across Jackson 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 a Blackman Township 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 reportBlackman Township housing stock
Blackman Township has roughly 9,529 housing units and about 50% of them are single-family detached. Age is the most useful single fact about a house before anyone has seen it. It narrows down what is worth checking first, and it is why two places of much the same size can need quite different inspections.
It is also less detached-house territory than most of the area at 50%, 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 $143,500. Only 52% 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 1,050 manufactured and mobile homes in Blackman Township. Those are a different inspection — the questions are about the frame, the anchoring and the skirting rather than a basement. Around 589 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.
Treat this as a starting list, not a diagnosis. A Blackman Township home inspector checks these things early in a home of this age and then records what is genuinely there, which is often not what the era would suggest.
Housing figures: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2022 five-year estimates.
When Blackman Township was built
76% of homes here run on utility gas, and 13 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 183 use bottled or LP gas.
Local knowledge
Two things shape property here, and neither is obvious from a listing. Half the housing is not single-family detached, and an unpaid sewer bill attaches to the property rather than the person who ran it up.
On the first: of about 9,529 housing units, only around half are single-family detached. That is a striking figure for a township, and it means a large share of what changes hands here is attached or multi-unit — where the boundary between what you own and what an association owns is a question worth settling before closing rather than after.
On the second: the Township bills residential sanitary sewer at a flat rate, and states that delinquent bills not paid by 31 August of the current year are placed on winter taxes. An unpaid sewer balance therefore becomes a tax matter attached to the parcel. Ask the Utility Billing Office where the account stands before you buy.
The housing is spread unusually evenly across the decades — 1,568 units from the 1950s, 1,513 from the 1960s, 1,405 from the 2000s, and roughly a thousand from each of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s, with 586 predating 1940. There is no single era to generalize about here, which is its own kind of useful information.
Before you buy
Sewer and water
The utility arrangement here is split, and knowing which office to call saves a bad phone call at a bad moment.
Sanitary sewer is the Township’s. Its Utility Department publishes a flat residential quarterly rate rather than one based on metered use — so a household of five and a household of one pay the same for sewer. Water usage is a different matter entirely: the Township directs all questions about water bills to the City of Jackson Water Department, which is a separate municipality.
The line worth acting on is the collection one. The Township states that delinquent sewer bills not paid by 31 August of the current year are placed on winter taxes. Once a balance is on the tax roll it is attached to the parcel, and a buyer who did not ask can end up looking at a tax bill that includes somebody else’s unpaid sewer. It costs one phone call to establish where an account stands.
After-hours sewer emergencies here are handled by a consulting engineer under contract to the Township rather than an in-house crew, which is a common arrangement for a township this size and worth knowing before you need it at midnight.
On the inspection side, what we cover is the building and the ground immediately around it: accessible grading and how it falls away from the foundation, gutters and downspouts and where they discharge, foundation conditions, the basement or crawlspace, and any sump equipment and where it sends what it pumps. We do not test water — that is a separate discipline with its own certified laboratories, and on this side of the county the water report belongs to the City.
Altering an older building
Blackman Charter Township elected to take on administration and enforcement of the Stille-DeRossett-Hale Single State Construction Code Act within its own limits, rather than leaving it to the state. Its ordinance then makes specific revisions to the code as adopted, and one of them is worth understanding.
The Township’s code requires that existing structures in which there is work involving additions, alterations, or changes of occupancy be made to conform to the relevant provisions for existing buildings. The rule is written to apply to occupancies that will continue in, or are proposed to be in, the standard assembly, business, educational, factory, mercantile, residential and storage use groups, and not to high-hazard or institutional ones.
On a township where half the housing is attached or multi-unit and there is a substantial commercial corridor, a change-of-occupancy rule is not an abstraction. Converting a use, subdividing a building, or taking on a space that was something else last year can pull work into scope that a buyer assumed was grandfathered.
The Township backs the code with real consequences. A violation is a misdemeanor carrying up to 90 days in the county jail, a fine of up to $500, or both — and each day a violation continues after due notice has been served is treated as a separate offense. Continuing work after a stop-work order carries its own fine. There is a three-member Construction Board of Appeals with appeals heard within 30 days.
Commercial building inspections follow the CCPIA standard for offices, retail, multifamily and warehouse property, and on a building you are proposing to change the use of, knowing its actual condition before you commit is worth more than knowing it after. On the residential side, a buyer’s inspection covers the roof, structure, foundation, drainage, electrical, heating and cooling, plumbing and the accessible interior — including work that was never permitted and alterations that were never brought into conformity.
Four inspectors
The Building Department here runs on four separate inspectors — building, electrical, mechanical and plumbing — each with a direct phone line and email address, several with mobile numbers published alongside.
That is worth noting because it makes a genuine difference to how a project or a purchase question gets resolved. In a large jurisdiction, a question about whether a particular piece of work was permitted and inspected can take days to route. Here you can put it to the person who would have carried out the inspection.
The department publishes separate residential and commercial applications for each trade, along with a building permit application, a sign permit application, a site plan checklist, a zoning application and an address application. It also publishes something we have not seen elsewhere in this project: a contractor complaint form. A township that gives residents a formal route to complain about a contractor is making a reasonable admission that the problem exists.
For a buyer, the practical use of all this is verification. If a listing says the furnace was replaced, the basement was finished, or the electrical service was upgraded, there should be a permit and an inspection behind it, and there is a named person who would have signed it off. Asking is cheap.
What the permit record cannot tell you is condition. A furnace permitted and inspected in 2009 is a seventeen-year-old furnace today, and a basement finished correctly still hides whatever the foundation is doing behind the drywall. That is the part an inspection reports.
The buried line
Blackman Township’s housing is spread almost evenly across seven decades, and so are its sewer laterals.
On a 1950s house — 1,568 of them here — that pipe has been in the ground seventy years. On a 2000s house, twenty-odd, with the landscaping planted alongside it now mature. Either is long enough for 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 Blackman Township laterals are generally made of, and on a stock this varied more than one material is almost certainly present across the township.
The buried lead is the one component no visual inspection reaches, and it is not covered by the flat sewer charge either — that pays for the system, not for your pipe.
A sewer camera inspection records what is actually inside the line: roots, cracks, displaced joints, bellies or blockages where they exist, and a clear run where they do not. It is added to the same visit rather than booked separately. Alongside it, radon testing or mold inspection and testing can be added to a residential or commercial visit. Get in touch to talk through a particular property.
Local information from Blackman Charter Township — Building Department · Blackman Charter Township — building forms and applications · Blackman Charter Township — Utility Department, sewer rates and billing · Blackman Charter Township Code — Chapter 50, Building Construction. Municipal requirements change — verify current details with the municipality.
Why choose us
Five reasons people here pick us as their Blackman Township 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
Justin Frey was my Inspector. He was very nice, very professional, and made sure I had all my questions answered. If I had a business, I definitely would hire him!
Tonya HConcord, 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
It can, which is why it is worth one phone call before closing. The Township states that delinquent sewer bills not paid by 31 August of the current year are placed on winter taxes. Once a balance is on the tax roll it is attached to the parcel rather than to the person who ran it up. Ask the Utility Billing Office where the account for the address stands.
Different governments. Sanitary sewer is the Township’s, billed at a flat residential rate rather than by metered use. Water usage questions go to the City of Jackson Water Department, which is a separate municipality — the Township directs residents there explicitly. Township offices carry a Jackson mailing address, which adds to the confusion.
The Township does. Its ordinance records that Blackman elected to assume responsibility for administering and enforcing the Stille-DeRossett-Hale Single State Construction Code Act within Township limits, and it staffs four separate inspectors for building, electrical, mechanical and plumbing. That is not universal — some Michigan townships send some or all trades to the state instead — so it is worth confirming for any municipality you are researching.
Potentially quite a lot. The Township’s code requires existing structures in which there is work involving additions, alterations or changes of occupancy to be made to conform to the relevant existing-building provisions, across the standard assembly, business, educational, factory, mercantile, residential and storage use groups. Converting a use or taking on a space that was something else can pull work into scope that a buyer assumed was grandfathered. Establish this with the Building Department before you commit.
The Township treats it seriously. A violation of the building code is a misdemeanor carrying up to 90 days in the county jail, a fine of up to $500, or both, and each day a violation continues after due notice has been served is a separate offense. Continuing work after a stop-work order carries its own fine. There is a three-member Construction Board of Appeals, and appeals are heard within 30 days.
It changes what you are actually buying. In attached and multi-unit property, the roof, exterior walls, windows, utility runs and grounds may belong to an association rather than to you, and the division is not the same in every development. Establish the boundary from the governing documents, then have the building assessed on that basis — there is no point budgeting for a roof you do not own, or assuming somebody else is budgeting for one you do.
There is no single era here, which is unusual. Of about 9,529 housing units, 1,568 date from the 1950s, 1,513 from the 1960s and 1,405 from the 2000s, with roughly a thousand from each of the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s and 586 predating 1940. Around half is single-family detached. In practice that means the age and condition of a specific building tells you far more here than any generalization about the township.
On a public sewer, yes. The buried lateral is the one component no visual inspection reaches, and the flat sewer charge pays for the system rather than for your pipe. On a 1950s house that line has been in the ground seventy years. We will not guess a material from a build year. 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
November 23, 2017
Your local Blackman Township home inspector, seven days a week. Home inspection reports in 24 hours.
