Franklin, Michigan
Looking for a Franklin home inspector? We do certified home, commercial, mold and radon inspections in Franklin, 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 Franklin 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 Franklin and across Oakland 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 Franklin 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 reportFranklin housing stock
Franklin has roughly 1,057 housing units and about 100% 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 1950s than from any other decade — 330 homes, roughly 31% of the town. At 100% 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 $710,700. 93% are owner-occupied, which is high even for this area.
This is not a forecast for any one address. It is where a Franklin 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 Franklin was built
83% of homes here run on utility gas, and 1 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.
Local knowledge
Franklin is one of a small handful of communities we cover where every housing unit is a detached house — roughly 1,057 of them, and no apartments, townhouses or attached units at all.
It is the only one we know of that requires an owner to prove they have looked after their septic system. The Village states that homeowners with septic systems must pump and inspect their tanks once every three years, and submit a septic operating permit with proof of the pumping.
That is genuinely unusual. Almost everywhere else we work, a septic system is a county health department matter that surfaces only when a property changes hands. Here there is a continuing, documented obligation attached to the property — which means a buyer should be able to see the evidence, and should expect to take the duty on.
Not every property is on septic. The county water resources commission oversees and maintains the Village sewer system, bills for it quarterly, and handles grinder pump questions — so part of the village sits on a pressure sewer with a pump at each house instead. The Village publishes a map of the pressure sewer system.
Establishing which of those two a particular address is on is the first practical question here, and it changes what you need to line up before closing.
Before you buy
Septic
The Village’s sewer and septic page states the requirement in two sentences: homeowners with septic systems must pump and inspect their tanks once every three years, and a septic operating permit must be submitted along with proof of the pumping.
For a buyer that is a gift, because it means there should be a paper trail. On any septic property here, ask when the tank was last pumped, ask to see the operating permit, and work out where in the three-year cycle you are arriving. A property that has kept up with it is a different proposition from one that has not.
It is also a recurring cost and duty that transfers with the house, and one that is easy to forget in the first year of ownership when there is a great deal else going on.
We should be clear about our own limits. We do not evaluate septic systems and we do not test water. A septic evaluation is a specialist inspection carried out by or through the county health department, and it answers questions no visual inspection can — whether a drainfield is failing, and what condition the tank is actually in.
What we inspect is the building and everything from the house side of the system inward: the accessible plumbing, the drain and vent arrangements we can see, how fixtures behave under load, and the visible condition of pump and pressure equipment.
Surface water matters more on a septic property than most buyers expect. A drainfield working under ground that is also taking every downspout and a sump discharge is a drainfield working against you, and on the wooded, generously sized lots typical here the grading and the discharges are the whole story. We report the fall of the ground around the building and where the downspouts and any sump discharge appear to go.
Pressure sewer
Where a property is not on septic, it is likely to be on the pressure sewer system, and the Village publishes a grinder pump information page with a brochure, an installation and connection schedule of events, and a map of the system.
On a pressure sewer each house has its own grinder pump in a tank, grinding waste and pushing it into a pressurized main rather than letting gravity do the work. It follows that when the power is off, the pump does not run.
The county water resources commission maintains the system and bills for it quarterly, and the Village directs both sewer billing questions and grinder pump concerns to the county rather than to the Village office. That is worth knowing before you need it.
For a buyer, three questions are worth asking on any property on the pressure system: where the tank and the control panel are, what the age and service history of the pump is, and what happens to the household during a long winter power cut.
On an inspection we report the sewer equipment that can be seen — whether there is a control panel and where it is, whether the tank lid and any riser are accessible, and whether anything has been planted or built over the run. We do not open, dismantle or test the pump; that is specialist work and, here, the county’s system.
The historic district
Franklin has a historic district commission of seven residents which reviews applications for improvements or alterations within the district, and which follows and interprets the federal Secretary of the Interior’s standards for rehabilitation, as required by the state historic preservation office and the National Park Service.
What matters most to a buyer is not the standards but the timetable. The commission meets on the first Wednesday of each month in the evening, applications are due about two weeks beforehand by late morning, and the Village asks for the original application plus fourteen copies, with an electronic copy as well.
Fifteen copies and a monthly meeting is a real lead time. If an inspection reports that a porch is failing, a roof is due or windows are past saving, the route to acting on that inside the district is measured in months rather than weeks — and it starts with paperwork rather than a contractor.
That is not a reason to avoid the district. Franklin’s character is precisely what the commission exists to protect, and it is a large part of why people buy here. But it is a reason to raise anything substantial early, ideally before closing rather than after.
The Village publishes design guidelines and a historic district map, and both are available through the Village clerk. Whether a particular address falls inside the district is a question worth settling before you plan any exterior work.
A buyer’s inspection reports the condition of what is actually there — whether siding has rot behind paint, whether a porch is settling or simply weathered, the state of sashes and frames rather than just glazing, and what the roof structure shows under the covering. Those are the facts you need in order to judge whether repair is still realistic, which inside a historic district is usually the better route anyway.
Permits
The building department is small and the Village says so plainly: a part-time building official issues permits, carries out inspections, and enforces the building code, the zoning ordinance, the code of ordinances and the historic district requirements. Part-time electrical, plumbing and mechanical inspectors work alongside, and inquiries for any of them are left with the building clerk at the Village offices.
One person wearing four hats, part-time, is efficient but it is not fast. Combined with a monthly commission meeting, it means anything requiring approval here needs planning rather than improvising.
For anyone researching a property, the flip side is that a single office holds a great deal. One records request should cover the building permits, the zoning history and any historic district approvals — and on a house in the district, the certificate history is as worth having as the permit history.
A buyer’s inspection is not a permit search and does not assess historic district compliance. What it does is tell you which parts of a property to ask about, so the search you make is targeted rather than hopeful.
One small local courtesy worth knowing: the Village publishes a vacation home inspection application, so residents going away can have their house checked while they are gone. It is the kind of thing a village of a thousand houses can offer and a city cannot.
The housing
The largest single group here is the 330 units built in the 1950s, with 183 from the 1960s, 136 predating 1940 and 116 from the 1940s. Fewer than seventy houses were built across the whole of the 1970s and 1980s, and 226 have gone up since 1990.
On the 1940s and 1950s stock the electrical service was sized for a very different household. Nearly all have been upgraded, but upgrades range from a genuine rewire to a new panel with original distribution behind it, and circuits added in stages by different hands are common. Plumbing has usually been renewed in part rather than in whole, leaving material transitions worth examining. Roofs are on their third or fourth covering, and heating equipment has turned over two or three times, with venting arrangements that do not always keep pace with a newer appliance.
Insulation and ventilation reflect the standards of the day, which on a house of that era usually leaves a worthwhile improvement available in the attic.
On a wooded lot the exterior deserves particular attention: limbs over the roof, shade keeping a slope permanently damp, debris in gutters that never quite clears, and roots at the foundation and the drive. Those are ordinary findings, and on the generously planted lots typical here they are more common than average.
The 226 houses built since 1990 are a different proposition — first-round replacements, settled grading, and deck ledger connections and fasteners worth a proper look.
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.
The buried line
Whether a property here connects to the pressure sewer or to a septic tank, the line running out from the building belongs to the owner, and no visual inspection reaches inside it.
On a 1950s house that pipe has been in the ground seventy years, under a lot whose planting has had exactly that long to mature. On one of the 136 units predating 1940, longer still. We will not name a material from a build year, because no authoritative source establishes what Franklin 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 pumping and inspection cycle does not examine.
That last point is worth emphasizing here. The Village requires the tank to be pumped and inspected every three years. It does not require anybody to look inside the pipe leading to it, and on a wooded lot with seventy-year-old planting, that is where roots go.
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 Franklin.
Local information from Village of Franklin — sewer and septic tank information and the septic operating permit · Village of Franklin — grinder pump information and the pressure sewer system map · Village of Franklin — building department. Municipal requirements change — verify current details with the municipality.
Radon in Oakland County
Zone 2 is the middle EPA category — the predicted average indoor level across the county sits between 2 and 4 pCi/L. What a zone cannot tell you is anything about one house: 29% of tests actually run in Oakland County still came back at or above the EPA’s 4 pCi/L action level. The zone describes a county. The only result that describes your basement is the one measured in it.
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 · Oakland County radon and inspection coverage
Zone from the EPA Map of Radon Zones. Elevated-result share from the Michigan Indoor Radon Program.
Why choose us
Five reasons people here pick us as their Franklin 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, MIExcellent sums up the entire experience, from the initial call to set up the appointment with staff that was informative and helpful, up until the actual inspection that was very professional and thorough with any and all questions I had answered. I would highly recommend Trademark to anyone who needs inspection services. Thanks again Curt, my inspector, for an excellent job.
Johnny Thomas JrSouthfield, MIWhat happens
Questions
Yes. The Village states that homeowners with septic systems are required to pump and inspect their tanks once every three years, and that a septic operating permit must be submitted along with proof of the pumping. That obligation transfers with the property.
The pumping records and the operating permit, and where in the three-year cycle the property currently sits. A property that has kept up with the requirement is a different proposition from one that has not, and the paperwork exists precisely so it can be shown.
No. A septic evaluation is a specialist inspection carried out by or through the county health department, and it answers questions no visual inspection can. We inspect the building and the accessible plumbing inside it, report how fixtures behave under load, and note the visible condition of pump and pressure equipment.
It could be either. The county water resources commission maintains the Village sewer system and bills for it quarterly, and part of the village is on a pressure sewer with a grinder pump at each house. The Village publishes a pressure sewer system map, and it is a parcel-by-parcel question worth settling early.
The county water resources commission. The Village directs both sewer billing questions and grinder pump concerns to the county rather than to the Village office. It also publishes a grinder pump information brochure and an installation and connection schedule.
Plan in months rather than weeks. The commission meets on the first Wednesday of each month in the evening, applications are due about two weeks beforehand by late morning, and the Village asks for the original application plus fourteen copies together with an electronic copy.
A part-time building official, who also carries out inspections and enforces the building code, zoning ordinance, code of ordinances and historic district requirements. Part-time electrical, plumbing and mechanical inspectors work alongside, and inquiries are left with the building clerk at the Village offices.
Yes, and on a septic property it covers something the pumping cycle does not. The Village requires the tank to be pumped and inspected; nobody is required to look inside the pipe running to it. On a 1950s house on a wooded lot that pipe has been in the ground seventy years with mature roots around it. A camera inspection documents its actual condition and is added to the same visit.
More on cost, timing and what is included on the FAQ page.
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Permits, assessing and property records for Franklin are handled by Franklin, Michigan, not by us.
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October 22, 2017
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