Erie, Michigan
Looking for an Erie home inspector? We do certified home, commercial, mold and radon inspections in Erie, 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 Erie 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 Erie and across Monroe 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 Erie 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 reportErie housing stock
Erie has roughly 1,879 housing units and about 85% of them are single-family detached. Homes built in a single stretch tend to wear out in the same places at the same time. That is why when somewhere was built is the first thing worth knowing about it.
The busiest stretch of building here was the years before 1940: 374 homes, about 20% of everything standing today.
The median owner-occupied home here is valued at $192,600. 93% are owner-occupied, which is high even for this area. There are around 171 manufactured and mobile homes in Erie. Those are a different inspection — the questions are about the frame, the anchoring and the skirting rather than a basement.
None of this says anything about the specific house you are buying. It is the shortlist an Erie home inspector works through in a home of this age, and every item on it gets photographed and written up whichever way it turns out.
Housing figures: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2022 five-year estimates.
When Erie was built
68% of homes here run on utility gas, and 30 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 326 use bottled or LP gas.
Local knowledge
Erie Township takes a stricter line on permits than most, and for a buyer that works in your favor.
The township states that most improvement projects require a permit and inspections, including most roofing, window and siding jobs. Those are the three most visible exterior replacements a house gets, and plenty of municipalities exempt at least one of them. Here all three should leave a record.
That turns a records request into a genuine check rather than a formality. If a property visibly has a newer roof, replacement windows or newer siding, there should be paperwork behind it — and if there is not, that is a specific and answerable question.
The township also runs a sensible two-tier system for smaller work. Sheds and fences need a zoning permit rather than a building permit, checked for setback, height and size. So placement is regulated even where construction is not.
The other threshold worth knowing is about ground rather than buildings. A soil erosion and sedimentation control permit or waiver may be required for any earth change of an acre or more, or for any earth change within 500 feet of a lake or stream.
That 500-foot figure is worth measuring before you plan a drive, a pond, significant grading or a new outbuilding. It catches a lot of properties that are nowhere near an acre of disturbance.
The housing is spread widely: 374 units predate 1940 and 343 date from the 1970s, with the rest distributed fairly evenly across the decades in between.
Before you buy
Permits
The building and zoning department sets its position out plainly: most improvement projects require a permit and inspections, including most roofing, window and siding jobs. It publishes a "when do you need a permit" information sheet for the specifics, and notes that large projects may require a special inspection program under the state building code.
The value of a strict regime, from a buyer’s point of view, is that absence means something. In a township that exempts siding, a missing siding permit tells you nothing. Here it tells you the work was done another way — not necessarily badly, but unverified.
That matters most on the exterior envelope, because roofing, windows and siding are exactly the areas where poor workmanship hides behind a tidy finish. New siding installed over existing cladding conceals whatever was underneath. A replacement window is only as good as its junction with the wall. A roof looks the same from the ground whether or not the flashing was done properly.
So on a property here we look hard at those three. On roofs: the visible condition of the covering, evidence of layering, the state of flashing at walls, chimneys and penetrations, valley condition, and what the structure and sheathing show from inside the attic where it is accessible. On windows: whether openings appear altered, how units have been fitted and finished, trim and visible flashing, sills and the framing below them, and how the units operate and seal. On siding: the condition and fixing of the cladding, and the detailing around openings, eaves and penetrations where workmanship shows.
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 and how well, so the records request you make is targeted. We deliver a full written report with photographs, generally the same day, while you still have room to act on what it says.
Ground works
Soil erosion permits are one of the more commonly overlooked requirements in Michigan, and Erie Township publishes both of its triggers rather than just the obvious one.
The first is size: an earth change of one acre or more. That is the threshold most people know about, and most domestic projects fall well under it.
The second is proximity: an earth change within 500 feet of a lake or stream, regardless of how large it is. That is the one that catches people, because 500 feet is a long way, and a modest project on a property near water can fall inside it without anybody thinking to check.
The permit or waiver is administered through the county drain commissioner’s office rather than the township. If you are buying with plans that involve moving ground — a new drive, a pond, regrading, a pole barn pad — and there is any water nearby, that is a call worth making before you commit.
On the inspection side, what we report is what the ground is currently doing. How it falls away from the building, where the downspouts terminate and whether they carry water clear of the walls, where any sump pump discharges and whether it has a backup, and the condition of the driveway and any culvert or drainage crossing that is visible.
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.
Inspections
Erie Township books its trade inspections directly with each inspector rather than through a central desk, and each has its own arrangement.
Plumbing and mechanical inspections are carried out on Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays, scheduled directly with the inspector. Electrical inspections are scheduled directly too, and require 48 hours’ notice. The building official and building inspector keep their own hours, with Wednesdays closed and a reduced Friday through part of the year.
That is workable, but it is not something you can improvise on a Friday afternoon. If you are buying with work planned, or if a seller is completing work as a condition of sale, build the notice periods into the timeline rather than assuming inspections can be arranged at short notice.
It also means a specific question can go straight to the person who can answer it, which is genuinely convenient once you know the structure. Be clear which trade your question belongs to before you ring.
One small local note: the township publishes open burning restrictions that prohibit burning household trash containing plastic, rubber, foam, chemically treated wood, textiles, electronics, chemicals or hazardous materials, and sets out the health reasoning behind it. Worth knowing if you are clearing a property you have just bought.
The housing
Erie Township has 374 units predating 1940 — a fifth of the housing — and 343 from the 1970s, with the remaining decades fairly evenly represented and 229 units from the 1990s.
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, where the gap between a genuine rewire and a newer panel in front of original distribution is what matters. Plumbing renewed in part rather than in whole, leaving material transitions at the joins. Four or five generations of roof covering. 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, and their condition depends far more on how water has been managed around the building over eighty years than on how they were originally built.
On the 1970s 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. Windows are commonly on their second set, and given the permit requirement here, that replacement should have a record behind it.
The 1990s 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.
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 a good deal about permits and very little about utilities. There is no water or sewer department page on the services listing, so we are not going to state whether an address is on public water and sewer or on a well and a septic system.
Get the answer in writing for the specific parcel. If there is a septic system, a septic evaluation is specialist work carried out by or through the county health department, and it needs arranging early because it takes its own time. If there is a private well, a water test belongs in the same conversation, and it 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.
On flat ground near water, the interaction between surface drainage and a septic drainfield deserves particular attention. A drainfield working in ground that is also receiving every downspout and a sump discharge is being asked to do two jobs at once, and where there is little natural fall the water has nowhere obvious to go.
That connects back to the 500-foot rule: on this ground, water, land and buildings are the same problem, which is presumably why the township publishes the threshold as plainly as it does.
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 one of the 374 houses predating 1940, that pipe may have been in the ground for eighty years or more, through more than one era of drain material. We will not name a material from a build year, because no authoritative source establishes what Erie 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 flat ground a belly matters more than it would elsewhere, because there is less fall available to carry waste past a low spot.
On a septic property 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. You can read what our clients say, look through answers to common questions, or get in touch about a specific address in Erie.
Local information from Erie Township — building and zoning: permit requirements, inspections and the soil erosion thresholds · Erie Township — services and open burning regulations · Erie Township — township home page · Erie Township — departments and contacts. Municipal requirements change — verify current details with the municipality.
Radon in Monroe County
Zone 2 is the middle EPA category — the predicted average indoor level across the county sits between 2 and 4 pCi/L.
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 · Monroe County radon and inspection coverage
Zone from the EPA Map of Radon Zones.
Why choose us
Five reasons people here pick us as their Erie 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
Mitch was great and thorough the our inspection. He provided explanations and suggestions throughout the service. Highly recommend!
Jaynie GMonroe, 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
Yes. The township states that most improvement projects require a permit and inspections, including most roofing, window and siding jobs. That makes the three most visible exterior replacements checkable against the permit record.
Because absence means something. Where a township exempts siding, a missing siding permit tells you nothing. Here it tells you the work was done another way — not necessarily badly, but unverified.
A zoning permit rather than a building permit, checked for setback, height and size requirements. So placement is regulated even where construction is not.
Two things. An earth change of one acre or more, or an earth change within 500 feet of a lake or stream regardless of size. The second catches far more properties than people expect, and it is administered through the county drain commissioner rather than the township.
Directly with each inspector rather than through a central desk. Plumbing and mechanical inspections run Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays; electrical inspections require 48 hours’ notice. Build those notice periods into any timeline.
The junction with the wall rather than the window itself. That is where water gets behind trim or into a poorly sealed head detail, and on an older house it finds framing with no tolerance for it. We also check whether openings appear to have been altered.
Ask, and get it in writing. The township publishes a great deal about permits and nothing about utilities, so we will not assume. If it is septic, arrange the evaluation early through the county health department.
Yes, and flat ground is part of the reason. A belly in the line matters more where there is less fall to carry waste past a low spot. On a house predating 1940 the pipe may have been in the ground eighty years or more. 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
February 24, 2026
Your local Erie home inspector, seven days a week. Home inspection reports in 24 hours.
