Columbus Township, Michigan
Looking for a Columbus Township home inspector? We do certified home, commercial, mold and radon inspections in Columbus 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 Columbus 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 Columbus 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 Columbus 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 reportColumbus Township housing stock
Columbus Township has roughly 1,563 housing units and about 81% 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.
If the town has a defining decade it is the 1990s, which accounts for 316 homes, around 20% of the housing stock.
The median owner-occupied home here is valued at $268,500. 88% are owner-occupied, which is high even for this area. There are around 282 manufactured and mobile homes in Columbus Township. Those are a different inspection — the questions are about the frame, the anchoring and the skirting rather than a basement.
Treat this as a starting list, not a diagnosis. A Columbus 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 Columbus Township was built
57% 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 273 use bottled or LP gas.
Local knowledge
Columbus Township publishes one distinction that matters enormously if you are buying a property with a barn or a pole building on it, and it is not one most buyers have heard of.
The Township states that state building code requirements apply to buildings and structures except those that are agriculturally exempt — but that even where a building is agriculturally exempt, zoning, mechanical, plumbing and electrical permits are still required.
Read that carefully, because it cuts two ways. An agriculturally exempt building has not been inspected against the building code, so nobody in an official capacity has looked at its structure. But its wiring, its plumbing and any mechanical installation should still have been permitted, and zoning approval should exist for it.
For a buyer, that turns a large outbuilding from a vague question into two specific ones: is there a zoning record for this building, and are there electrical, plumbing and mechanical permits for what is in it? The answers are obtainable from the Township, and the absence of them tells you something.
The Township is straightforward about the rest of its process too. Typical permits here are for barns, homes, garages, additions, decks and ponds. A $75 application fee is payable when a building permit is turned in, credited against the permit fees.
The housing is mostly modern — 811 of roughly 1,563 units built since 1990 — with a small older core of 186 units predating 1940 and very little from the 1950s and 1960s.
Before you buy
Outbuildings
The Township’s building page draws the line plainly: the state building code applies to buildings and structures other than those that are agriculturally exempt, and even an exempt building still requires zoning, mechanical, plumbing and electrical permits.
We are not going to explain what qualifies for the exemption — that is a state matter with its own criteria, and we have not read them. Ask the Township. But the practical consequence is worth spelling out.
A building erected under the exemption has not been through building code plan review or structural inspection. That does not make it unsound; a great many farm buildings are perfectly well built. It does mean nobody official has checked, and that on a property you are buying, the only assessment of that structure may be the one you commission.
So on properties with barns, pole buildings and large outbuildings we look at them properly rather than in passing. We report the visible structural condition — posts and their bases, framing and connections, roof structure and covering where accessible, door tracks and headers, and evidence of movement or deflection. On older pole buildings the base of the posts is where deterioration starts, and it is usually the first thing to check.
We also report the electrical supply running to and within an outbuilding, which is where informal work most often turns up: how it is run, whether it is protected, what the panel or subpanel arrangement is, and whether wiring methods suit the environment. Where there is plumbing or a heating appliance, we report those too.
Then take the permit question to the Township. Between what we find and what they hold, you will know whether a building was done properly or simply done.
Permits
Columbus Township is unusually candid about how its permit process works and why it sometimes stalls.
A $75 application fee is payable when a building permit application is submitted, credited against the eventual permit fees, and the Township asks for a check to be enclosed if the application is posted. Inspections for building and for all three trades are called in to the Township office during business hours, written up, and passed to the inspector.
One charge is entirely avoidable and worth knowing about: if you are not ready when the inspector arrives at the time you requested, a re-inspection fee is charged. On a project with several trades that is easy to trip over, and it costs nothing to avoid.
The Township also explains why delays happen, which is more helpful than most: applications stall because the proper building plans and site plan drawings have not been submitted, or because the plans lack the detail needed for review. Its own advice is to get the building packets early and read them thoroughly.
On sequencing, the zoning department is clear that most development other than individual single-family homes requires site plan approval first, and that the building permit follows the site plan approval. Site plan review goes to the planning commission, which meets monthly on the first Tuesday.
So if you are buying with anything beyond an ordinary house in mind, build a monthly meeting cycle into your timeline. A buyer’s inspection is not a permit search and cannot tell you whether a permit was pulled, but it tells you what was actually done, so the questions you take to the Township are specific.
The housing
About 811 of the roughly 1,563 units here have been built since 1990 — 316 in the 1990s, 308 in the 2000s and 187 in the 2010s. There are 289 units from the 1970s and 186 predating 1940, but only 76 across the whole of the 1950s and 1960s.
The mistake with newer housing is assuming it needs less looking at. A house from the mid-1990s is now thirty 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, and 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. Decks built with those houses need ledger connections, flashing, fasteners and post bases genuinely examined rather than glanced at.
The 2000s and 2010s houses are younger, which shifts the focus onto how well they were built: flashing and weather sealing details, grading and drainage set at handover and how it has settled since, attic ventilation and insulation coverage, and the quality of finish work. Problems found early on a newer house are still within reach of the people who built it.
On the 186 pre-1940 houses the questions are entirely different: electrical rebuilt in stages 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.
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.
Water and waste
The Township publishes no water or sewer department at all, and nothing about wells or septic systems. So we are not going to state whether any address here is on a public system or on a well and a septic system.
Get the answer in writing for the specific parcel, and take well and septic questions to the county health department. A septic evaluation is specialist work carried out by or through them. It answers questions no visual inspection can — whether a drainfield is failing, and the true condition of the tank — and on rural property it needs arranging early because it takes its own time. A water test on a private well belongs in the same conversation.
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.
Ponds are worth a mention here, because the Township lists them among its typical permits. If a property has one, ask whether it was permitted. A pond changes how water sits and moves on a site, and on a parcel that also has a septic drainfield, the two need to be considered together.
Outside more generally, we report where the downspouts terminate and whether they carry water clear of the walls, where any sump pump discharges and whether there is a backup arrangement, and how the ground falls away from the building.
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 house that pipe is around thirty years old, which is young enough that people assume it is fine and old enough that it often is not. Roots find joints where trees have matured around a lot, and a section that settled during the original backfill is still settled today.
We will not name a material from a build year, because no authoritative source establishes what Columbus 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.
On a township built largely in one push since 1990, a line laid during that build-out can also carry construction debris from the day it went in, and nothing about a thirty-year-old house suggests it.
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 Columbus Township.
Local information from Columbus Township — building department: the agricultural exemption, fees and inspections · Columbus Township — zoning and site plan approval · Columbus Township — maps, codes and forms · Columbus Township — planning commission. Municipal requirements change — verify current details with the municipality.
Why choose us
Five reasons people here pick us as their Columbus 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
A building exempt from state building code requirements. We are not going to explain what qualifies — that is a state matter with its own criteria — but the Township is clear that even an exempt building still requires zoning, mechanical, plumbing and electrical permits.
Because a building erected under the exemption has not been through building code plan review or structural inspection. That does not make it unsound, but it does mean nobody official has checked — and the only assessment of that structure may be the one you commission.
Two things: is there a zoning record for it, and are there electrical, plumbing and mechanical permits for what is inside it? Both should exist even where the building itself was exempt, and their absence tells you something.
Yes, properly rather than in passing. We report visible structural condition — posts and their bases, framing and connections, roof structure and covering, door tracks and headers, evidence of movement — along with the electrical supply running to and within the building, which is where informal work most often turns up.
A $75 application fee is payable when a building permit application is turned in, credited against the eventual permit fees. If you post the application, the Township asks for a check to be enclosed.
A charge that applies if you are not ready when the inspector arrives at the time you requested. It is entirely avoidable and easy to trip over on a project involving several trades.
For most development other than an individual single-family house, yes — and the building permit follows the site plan approval rather than running alongside it. Site plan review goes to the planning commission, which meets monthly on the first Tuesday.
Yes. On a township built largely since 1990, a thirty-year-old lateral is old enough to have taken root intrusion or kept a settled section from the original backfill, and young enough that people assume it is fine. 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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From the blog
October 22, 2017
November 23, 2020
Your local Columbus Township home inspector, seven days a week. Home inspection reports in 24 hours.
