Burtchville Township, Michigan
Looking for a Burtchville Township home inspector? We do certified home, commercial, mold and radon inspections in Burtchville 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 Burtchville 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 Burtchville Township and across St Clair 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 Burtchville 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 reportBurtchville Township housing stock
Burtchville Township has roughly 1,982 housing units and about 75% of them are single-family detached. The year a house went up decides more about what an inspection turns up than almost anything else about it, which is why it is where we start rather than where we finish.
The median owner-occupied home here is valued at $163,200. 87% are owner-occupied, which is high even for this area. There are around 352 manufactured and mobile homes in Burtchville Township. Those are a different inspection — the questions are about the frame, the anchoring and the skirting rather than a basement.
This is not a forecast for any one address. It is where a Burtchville Township home inspector starts in a home of this age — and whatever we actually find, it goes in the report with photographs.
Housing figures: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2022 five-year estimates.
When Burtchville Township was built
79% of homes here run on utility gas. Another 174 use bottled or LP gas.
Local knowledge
Burtchville Township does something almost no municipality we work with does: it publishes an address-by-address list of what every water service line is made of.
The inventory runs to around 1,240 records. For each one it gives the service address, the year the connection was installed, and the material on both sides of the curb stop — the main-to-curb section, which is the utility’s, and the curb-to-meter section, which is the owner’s.
Across the whole document, the materials recorded are copper, plastic and a small number of ductile iron runs. There are no lead entries and no unknowns in it.
That is unusually good news, and it is unusually well evidenced. On almost every other community we write about, we refuse to guess at service line material because no reliable source exists. Here the source exists, it is public, and you can look up the specific address you are buying rather than taking anyone’s word for it — including ours.
One thing to keep straight: that inventory covers the water line coming in. It says nothing about the sewer lateral going out, which remains the invisible part of any property here.
The housing is spread evenly across the decades, with 306 units predating 1940 and 681 built since 1990.
Before you buy
The water line
The public works department is responsible for the water supplied to residents and for maintaining the township’s fire hydrants, and it publishes two documents worth a buyer’s attention: an annual water quality report and the service lines material list.
The material list is the remarkable one. Service line inventories exist because states now require water systems to identify what their lines are made of, but relatively few publish the result in a form a member of the public can simply open and read by address. This one does.
Reading it, two things stand out. The first is what the materials are: copper and plastic throughout, with a handful of ductile iron runs, and nothing recorded as lead, galvanized or unknown. The second is the install years, which begin in 1998 and continue through the following two decades.
That second point is worth pausing on, because it upends the usual assumption. This township has 306 houses that predate 1940, but the water connections date from 1998 onward. The age of a house here tells you nothing useful about the age of its water service line, because the system was built out long after most of the houses were.
We would still say: look it up yourself. The inventory is published as of May 2025, it is organized by service address, and checking the one you are buying takes a minute. That is better than relying on a summary, including this one.
For water quality as opposed to pipe material, the Township’s annual water quality report is the right source. We have not read it and we do not make water quality claims — that is not what a home inspection does.
The buried line
The water line coming in is documented. The waste line going out is not, and that asymmetry is worth understanding.
Wherever a property here drains to, the line running from the building outward belongs to the owner, and no visual inspection reaches inside it. There is no published inventory of sewer laterals, and unlike the water service, no reliable source establishes what they are made of or when they went in.
On one of the 306 houses predating 1940, that line could be very old indeed — and unlike the water connection, there is no reason to assume it was replaced in 1998.
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. On a township where the water side has already been answered, this is the remaining unknown, and it is the one worth spending on.
Where a property is on a septic system rather than a public sewer, the same camera documents the building drain out to the tank — the owner’s pipe, and the part a septic evaluation does not examine, since that looks at the tank and the field rather than the run between them and the house.
A camera inspection is added to the same appointment rather than booked separately.
The housing
Burtchville Township’s housing is unusually evenly distributed: 306 units predating 1940, 278 from the 1950s, 297 from the 1990s, 268 from the 2000s, 210 from the 1960s, 191 from the 1980s, 167 from the 1970s and 149 from the 1940s.
That means there is no useful generalization about a house here. The inspection has to start from what is actually in front of it, and two houses on the same road can be eighty years apart.
On the pre-1940 stock, expect the accumulated history of a long-lived building: electrical rebuilt in stages by different hands across eighty years or more, plumbing renewed in part rather than in whole with material transitions at the joins, four or five generations of roof covering, and heating equipment several replacements from the original, sometimes vented through arrangements that have not kept pace. Foundations of that era are typically stone or early block.
On the mid-century stock, service panels are often at or past the point where an upgrade is worth considering, roofs are on a second or third covering, and insulation and ventilation reflect the standards of the day — which usually leaves a worthwhile improvement available in the attic.
The 1990s and 2000s houses are at the first full round of replacements: original roof coverings reaching the end, water heaters on their second, and furnaces and condensers at the age where the next failure means replacement rather than repair. Decks from that period need ledger connections, flashing, fasteners and post bases genuinely examined.
About a quarter of units here are not single-family detached, which brings the usual questions about shared walls and roofs and what an association covers.
Radon testing and mold inspection and testing can be added to any visit, and commercial building inspections to the CCPIA standard are available for commercial property.
Drainage
Whatever the pipes are made of, the thing that causes most of what we report is water moving around the outside of a building rather than through it.
We record where the downspouts terminate and whether they carry water clear of the walls or drop it at the foundation, where any sump pump discharges and whether there is a backup arrangement, and how the ground falls away from the building.
On a house that has stood since before 1940, that fall is almost never what the builder intended. Eighty or ninety years of added paths, raised beds, new drives, landscaping and settled ground change how water moves, and the evidence turns up in the basement rather than in the garden.
Inside, we look for what water leaves behind: staining and tide lines on foundation walls, efflorescence and mineral deposits, replaced lower wall finishes, and corrosion at the base of mechanical equipment. Equipment raised up on blocks is usually a story about something that happened once, and it is always worth asking about.
Most of what we find on the drainage side is straightforward to correct and inexpensive relative to what it prevents. It is simply the difference between a dry basement and a recurring problem.
The Township
The Township publishes its forms and ordinances together, along with a master plan, a burn permit process, assessing information and details of its fire department. Public works keeps office hours Monday to Thursday with a separate after-hours number, which is worth noting somewhere findable on the day you move in.
We have not read the ordinances or the master plan, and we are not going to describe what they require. What we would say is that the Township is clearly willing to publish substantive documents rather than contact details — the service line inventory proves that — so if you have a question, the answer is more likely to be on the site than not.
The Township also runs occasional collection events, including scrap tire collections, which is more useful than it sounds when you are clearing out a property you have just bought.
A buyer’s inspection is not a permit search and does not assess ordinance compliance. What it does is establish what is actually there and what condition it is in, so the questions you take to the Township are specific ones. We deliver a full written report with photographs, generally the same day, while you still have room to act on what it says.
You can read what our clients say, look through answers to common questions, or get in touch about a specific address in Burtchville Township.
Local information from Burtchville Township — service lines material list, by address · Burtchville Township — department of public works and water quality reporting · Burtchville Township — forms and ordinances · Burtchville Township — fire department. Municipal requirements change — verify current details with the municipality.
Why choose us
Five reasons people here pick us as their Burtchville 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
I 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, MIThis is one of the finest companies I have come across - that means serious customer service and professionalism. Justin was the inspector and he was very thorough yet very kind to answers all the questions that came in my mind during inspection. He took enough time, no rush, and a very detailed inspection was conducted. Extremely competitive pricing and timing from the company. 100% recommend to anyone looking for any kind of property inspection!!
Chirag R MiyaniMichiganWhat happens
Questions
Yes, and that is unusual. The Township publishes an address-by-address service line material list covering around 1,240 records, giving the install year and the material on both the utility side and the owner side of the curb. Look up the specific address rather than relying on any summary.
The published inventory records copper, plastic and a small number of ductile iron runs, with no lead, galvanized or unknown entries in it. That is what the document says as published; check your own address on it, and take water quality questions to the Township’s annual water quality report.
No, and that is worth knowing here. The township has 306 houses predating 1940, but the water connection install years begin in 1998. The system was built out long after most of the houses were, so house age predicts nothing about service line age.
No. It covers the water service line coming in, split into the utility side and the owner side of the curb. The waste line going out is not inventoried, and no reliable source establishes what those are made of or when they went in.
The sewer lateral, because it is now the remaining unknown. A camera inspection records roots, cracks, displaced joints, bellies and blockages, and on a house predating 1940 there is no reason to assume that line was replaced when the water connection was.
No. A home inspection does not test water. The Township publishes an annual water quality report and that is the right source for those questions.
No, and that is worth knowing. The housing is spread almost evenly across every decade from before 1940 to the 2000s, so two houses on the same road can be eighty years apart and need entirely different inspections.
Electrical rebuilt in stages across eighty years or more, plumbing renewed in part with material transitions at the joins, four or five roof coverings, and heating equipment several generations from the original. Foundations are typically stone or early block, and their condition tracks how water has been managed around the building.
More on cost, timing and what is included on the FAQ page.
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Claim the Hero DiscountNeed a Burtchville Township home inspector and not sure we reach you? Call 734-331-3269 and we will tell you.
Permits, assessing and property records for Burtchville Township are handled by Burtchville Township, not by us.
From the blog
October 22, 2017
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November 23, 2017
Your local Burtchville Township home inspector, seven days a week. Home inspection reports in 24 hours.
