China Township, Michigan
Looking for a China Township home inspector? We do certified home, commercial, mold and radon inspections in China 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 China 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 China 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 China 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 reportChina Township housing stock
China Township has roughly 1,367 housing units and about 97% 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.
More of it dates from the 2000s than from any other decade — 295 homes, roughly 22% of the town. At 97% single-family it is almost entirely detached houses, so the inspection is nearly always of a whole building rather than one unit inside one.
The median owner-occupied home here is valued at $289,800. 92% are owner-occupied, which is high even for this area.
This is not a forecast for any one address. It is where a China 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 China Township was built
70% of homes here run on utility gas, and 9 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 178 use bottled or LP gas.
Local knowledge
China Township’s permit list runs further than most, and two items on it are worth knowing about because almost nobody expects them: generators and driveway gates.
Those sit alongside the more usual sunrooms, decks, pools, sheds and structural alterations, plus demolition and new construction for both residential and commercial work, and signs larger than two feet square. The Township’s own advice is blunt and sensible: work should not begin until a permit has been issued, so contact the building department to ask whether one is needed before starting.
The second thing to know is unusual enough that it catches out people who have built elsewhere. If the property is in a subdivision or an area with a homeowners association, the Township states you may be required to obtain the association’s approval before a permit can be approved.
So on some properties here there are three gates rather than two: the association, then the Township, then the permit itself. If you are buying into a subdivision with any intention of altering the property, read the association’s restrictions before you close, not after.
The Township also publishes residential sewage disposal and residential well permit applications, which tells you what to expect on the utilities side, along with pond permits, sprinkler applications and a county driveway release application.
The housing is mostly recent: 567 of roughly 1,367 units were built between 1990 and 2009, with 187 predating 1940 and only 12 added since 2010.
Before you buy
Permits
The building and zoning department enforces the building, electrical, mechanical, plumbing and barrier free codes, and oversees construction activity requiring permits under both township ordinances and the state construction codes.
Its guidance on obtaining a permit sets out a sequence worth following. Building plans and other documents are needed for review before a permit can be approved. Where a permit needs approval from another source — a variance from the board of appeals, for example — the applicant is responsible for obtaining that first. And where the work is in a subdivision or an area with a homeowners association, association approval may be required before the permit can be approved.
That last one is the reason to read the subdivision documents during a purchase rather than afterwards. Private covenants and public permitting usually run on separate tracks; here the Township tells you they can intersect. A restriction you did not know about can stop a project before the Township ever looks at it.
Applications can be brought into the office during business hours or posted in with the fees. The Township publishes both its own schedule of fees and the state construction code fee schedule, so the cost side is knowable in advance rather than a surprise — we have not read either and will not quote figures.
The building official keeps Tuesday and Thursday mornings, by appointment only. That "appointment only" matters: this is not an office to drop into on the way past.
A buyer’s inspection is not a permit search and cannot tell you whether a permit was pulled. What it does is tell you what was actually done to a property, so the records request you make is targeted. We deliver a full written report with photographs, generally the same day.
The unexpected items
A driveway gate needing a permit is the kind of detail that only surfaces when somebody has already installed one. If a property here has an automatic gate at the drive, it is worth asking whether it was permitted — and worth having somebody look at it.
On an inspection we report what is visible and accessible on gate installations: the electrical supply run to it and how it is protected, the condition of posts and their bases, and the visible condition of the operator and its safety arrangements. We do not commission or performance-test automated gate systems; that is specialist work and we say so.
Standby generators are on the same list. We report the unit and its general condition and siting, clearances around it, how it is connected, whether there is a transfer switch and where it is, the visible condition of wiring and conduit, the fuel supply arrangement where it can be seen, and where the exhaust discharges relative to windows, doors and intakes. We do not load-test, verify capacity or certify the installation.
The most useful thing you can do about a generator you are inheriting is ask for its documentation and its service history. One that has sat unexercised for years is a very different proposition from a maintained one, and neither state is visible from outside.
Sprinkler systems also have their own application here. If a property has irrigation, ask when it was last serviced and whether it has been properly winterized each year. We note whether a system is present and the visible condition of what we can see, along with hose bibs and whether they have backflow protection.
Water and waste
The Township publishes a residential sewage disposal permit application and a residential well permit application among its forms, which tells you that private wells and septic systems are a normal part of the picture here.
On any property with either, the specialist work comes first. A septic evaluation is carried out by or through the county health department. It answers questions no visual inspection can — whether a drainfield is failing, and the true condition of the tank — and it needs arranging early because it takes its own time. A water test on a private well belongs in the same conversation, and is worth repeating after any well repair.
What we inspect is the building and everything from the house side of the system inward: the accessible supply and drain lines, the vent arrangements we can see, how fixtures behave when the system is loaded, and the visible condition of any pump, pressure tank and treatment equipment.
Surface water matters more on a septic property than most buyers expect. A drainfield working in ground that is also receiving every downspout and a sump discharge is being asked to do two jobs at once. We report where the downspouts terminate, where any sump pump discharges, whether there is a backup arrangement, and how the ground falls away from the building.
Ponds are on the permit list too, and they are worth thinking about in the same breath. A pond changes how water sits and moves across a parcel, and on a property that also has a drainfield the two need considering together. If a property has one, ask whether it was permitted.
The housing
About 567 of the roughly 1,367 units here were built between 1990 and 2009 — 272 in the 1990s and 295 in the 2000s. There are 187 units predating 1940 and 185 from the 1970s, and only 12 units have been added since 2010.
The 1990s and 2000s houses are now twenty to thirty-five years old, which is exactly when the first full round of replacements arrives. Original roof coverings reaching the end of their service life. Water heaters on their second or third. Furnaces and air conditioning condensers at the point where the next failure means replacement rather than repair.
Windows and exterior doors from that period are usually the original units, and their seals and hardware are where wear shows first. Failed seals in double glazing appear as clouding or deposits between the panes, and we note them individually.
Decks built with those houses need ledger connections, flashing, fasteners and post bases genuinely examined rather than glanced at — and given that decks are on the Township’s permit list, there should be a record behind any that were added later.
On the 187 pre-1940 houses the questions are entirely different: electrical rebuilt in stages by different hands across eighty years or more, plumbing renewed in part with material transitions at the joins, several generations of roof covering, and foundations of stone or early block whose condition tracks how water has been managed around the building.
At 97% detached housing, outbuildings and accessory buildings are common — and the Township publishes accessory building regulations with a permit requirement, so those should have records too.
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.
Ground works
Two of the forms the Township publishes concern the ground rather than the buildings, and both are easy to overlook.
The first is a county road commission driveway release application. A new or altered driveway connection to a public road needs county sign-off, not just township approval. On a rural property where you are planning a second access, a wider apron or a relocated entrance, that is a separate approval with its own criteria.
The second is soil erosion and sedimentation control. The Township publishes both the county soil erosion information and the permit application itself. If you are planning work that moves ground — a pond, regrading, a building pad, a new drive — that is a question to raise early, particularly on a sloping site or near water.
On the inspection side, what we report is what the ground is currently doing. How it falls away from the building. The condition of the driveway surface and any culvert or drainage crossing at the road where they are visible. Erosion at banks and edges. Where water appears to move across the site.
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.
The buried line
Whatever a property here drains to, the line running out from the building belongs to the owner, and no visual inspection reaches inside it.
On a 1990s or 2000s house that pipe is twenty to thirty-five years old, which is young enough that people assume it is fine and old enough that it often is not. On one of the 187 houses predating 1940, considerably older. We will not name a material from a build year, because no authoritative source establishes what China Township laterals are generally made of, and a guess in a report is worse than no statement at all.
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 septic property it documents the building drain out to the tank — the owner’s pipe, and the part a septic evaluation does not examine.
That gap is the whole point. A septic evaluation looks at the tank and the field. The run between the house and the tank is nobody’s job by default, and on a lot with mature trees it is exactly where roots go.
On the newer stock there is a second reason to look: a line laid during a 1990s or 2000s build can carry construction debris or a settled section from the day it went in, and nothing about the house above it suggests anything is wrong.
A camera inspection is added to the same appointment rather than booked separately. You can read what our clients say, look through answers to common questions, or get in touch about a specific address in China Township.
Local information from China Township — building and zoning: what needs a permit and the approval sequence · China Township — forms and applications, including well and sewage disposal permits · China Township — office hours and information · China Township — community profile. Municipal requirements change — verify current details with the municipality.
Why choose us
Five reasons people here pick us as their China 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
The Township lists driveway gates among the alterations, modifications and additions requiring permits, alongside sunrooms, decks, pools, sheds and generators. If a property already has one, it is worth asking whether it was permitted.
Effectively yes. The Township states that where the work is in a subdivision or an area with a homeowners association, you may be required to obtain the association’s approval before the permit can be approved. Read the restrictions before you close.
Demolition and new construction, both residential and commercial; alterations, modifications and additions including sunrooms, decks, pools, sheds, generators and driveway gates, or any structural change; and signs larger than two feet square.
Tuesday and Thursday mornings, by appointment only. The township office keeps wider hours through the week and closes Fridays, but the building official is not someone to drop in on.
Quite possibly. The Township publishes both a residential sewage disposal permit and a residential well permit application, which tells you private wells and septic systems are normal here. Confirm the arrangement for the specific address and arrange the specialist work early.
We report the visible and accessible parts: the unit and its siting, clearances, how it is connected, whether there is a transfer switch and where, the condition of visible wiring and conduit, the fuel arrangement and where exhaust discharges. We do not load-test, verify capacity or certify the installation.
More than township approval. The Township publishes the county road commission’s driveway release application, so a new or altered connection to a public road needs county sign-off with its own criteria.
Yes, and on a septic property it covers a real gap. A septic evaluation examines the tank and the field; the run between the house and the tank belongs to nobody by default. On the newer stock it also catches construction debris or a settled section from the original build. A camera inspection is added to the same visit.
More on cost, timing and what is included on the FAQ page.
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