Grosse Pointe Farms, Michigan
Looking for a Grosse Pointe Farms home inspector? We do certified home, commercial, mold and radon inspections in Grosse Pointe Farms, 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 Grosse Pointe Farms 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 Grosse Pointe Farms and across Wayne 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 Grosse Pointe Farms 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 reportGrosse Pointe Farms housing stock
Grosse Pointe Farms has roughly 4,263 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 years before 1940 than from any other decade — 1,470 homes, roughly 34% 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 $409,200. 96% are owner-occupied, which is high even for this area.
This is not a forecast for any one address. It is where a Grosse Pointe Farms 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 Grosse Pointe Farms was built
94% of homes here run on utility gas. Another 36 use bottled or LP gas.
Local knowledge
Two numbers the City publishes, side by side, explain more about property here than any description of the housing would.
The Water Department maintains 4,128 residential and commercial meters. And it operates the Kerby Road Sewage Pumping Station, which the City gives a rated maximum capacity of 358 million gallons a day, along with three storm sewer overflows.
Ordinary daily sewage from a few thousand households is a tiny fraction of that figure. A station rated in the hundreds of millions of gallons is not sized for what people flush; it is sized for what arrives when it rains. That is the drainage reality behind a city of large old houses with basements, and it is why what happens at an individual property — where the downspouts go, where the sump discharges, whether there is any backflow protection — matters as much as it does.
The City is still building capacity. A new stormwater sewer is currently under construction in Tonnancour Place, Kercheval Avenue and through the Country Club of Detroit, with monthly notices published as the work proceeds.
The housing itself is unusually uniform. At 97% single-family detached, this is the most consistently detached community of its size we cover. And 3,674 of about 4,263 homes — 86% — were built before 1960, with only 187 added since 1989.
Before you buy
Water and stormwater
The Water and Sewer Department runs a 10 million gallon a day rated filtration plant that supplies drinking water not only to Grosse Pointe Farms but to the City of Grosse Pointe as well, across roughly 44 miles of water main.
That is unusual and worth knowing. For a city this size to treat its own water — and somebody else’s — means the same government is accountable for the supply, the mains and the meters. It also means the annual water quality reporting for two municipalities traces back to one plant.
On the other side of the house, three storm sewer overflows and a pumping station rated at 358 million gallons a day describe a system built around storm flow. The current sewer enhancement project is adding new stormwater sewer through several streets and the country club grounds.
None of that changes what you can do about it as an owner, which is the part worth concentrating on. On an inspection we report accessible grading and which way the ground actually falls away from the foundation, gutters and downspouts and where they discharge, foundation conditions, the basement or crawlspace and what its walls and floor show about past water, and any sump equipment — the pit, the pump, whether there is a backup arrangement, and where the discharge line goes as far as it can be traced. We also note floor drains and any access covers in a basement slab, which is where a backwater device would sit if one has been fitted.
A dry basement on a dry day proves very little. What a report can do is lay out the evidence — staining and how high it runs, efflorescence, the state of stored belongings, whether anything is kept up off the floor, the equipment that is there and the equipment that is not — and let you weigh it. Ask the seller what the basement does in a heavy summer storm, and ask the neighbors too.
Nobody else is checking
There are five separate cities sharing the Grosse Pointe name, each with its own ordinances, its own inspectors and its own permit records. They do not agree with each other, and the difference matters most at the point of sale.
Grosse Pointe Park requires a Certificate of Occupancy on every change of ownership of a home or business, with violations corrected before it issues. We found no equivalent requirement published by Grosse Pointe Farms.
That is not a criticism of either approach — but it changes what a buyer should assume. In the Park, a municipal inspector will look at the property whether you arrange anything or not. In the Farms, if you do not commission an inspection, nobody inspects the building at all before you own it.
On this housing stock that is a significant gap to leave open. Nearly nine in ten homes here predate 1960, and 1,470 of them predate 1940 altogether. Everything modern in those houses — the wiring, the plumbing, the heating, the cooling, the roof — was added later by different people at different times to different standards.
The recognizable pattern in prewar housing is that services have usually been upgraded at the panel while some original branch wiring survives behind plaster, so what the panel suggests and what the circuits are can differ. Original supply plumbing has passed the end of any normal service life. Heating has often moved through two or three generations of technology in the same chimney, which is where venting arrangements get interesting. Foundations are frequently stone or unreinforced masonry, with the drainage arrangements of their day.
A buyer’s inspection covers the roof, structure, foundation, drainage, electrical, heating and cooling, plumbing and the accessible interior, and reports to you with photographs and plain language. On large old houses the useful findings are almost always at the junctions rather than in the original construction, which was generally very good indeed.
Permits
The Building Department describes its work as issuing permits, examining plans and conducting inspections throughout the construction and occupancy process. Permits can be applied for in person or online, and submissions can be emailed.
On a house that has stood since the 1920s or 1930s, the permit file is worth searching, but it is worth being realistic about what it will contain. Municipal record-keeping varies over that kind of timescale, and much of what was done to these houses in the middle of the last century will not appear in a searchable form. What the file is good for is the recent decades — the roof, the mechanical replacements, the additions and alterations that happened within living memory of the current filing system.
That is exactly where a physical inspection and a paper trail complement each other. The file can tell you a roof was permitted in a given year. It cannot tell you how many layers are up there now, whether the flashings were renewed or reused, or what the attic shows underneath. We look at the covering and its condition, the flashings, penetrations, edges and ventilation, and the attic where it is accessible — staining on sheathing, daylight where there should be none, insulation that has been wetted and matted, and whether bathroom and kitchen fans terminate outside or simply into the roof space.
On a large house, one more practical point. Grosse Pointe Farms is 97% single-family detached — the highest share of any community of its size we cover — and these are substantial buildings. More roof, more wall, more window openings, more mechanical plant and more foundation than a typical suburban house, all of it aging at once. That is not a reason for alarm; it is a reason to have the whole thing looked at properly rather than spot checked.
The City’s ordinances and charter carry the local requirements in full.
The buried line
On 1,470 houses in this city the sewer lateral went in before 1940. On another 1,294 it went in during the 1950s. It is the one component no visual inspection reaches, and in the Farms there is no municipal transfer inspection that would look at anything else either.
Ninety years is long enough for anything. Roots find joints, and the mature street trees that give these neighborhoods their character have had the whole time to do it. Ground moves. Sections get repaired and forgotten. We will not name a material from a build year, because no authoritative source establishes what Grosse Pointe Farms laterals are generally made of — and across a century of building here, more than one material is certainly in the ground, sometimes within a single run.
It also connects directly to the drainage picture above. A system built to move storm flow, with overflows, is a system that is under real pressure in a heavy rain — and a lateral in poor condition is one more weakness at exactly the wrong moment. Resolving it is a single afternoon.
A sewer camera inspection records what is actually inside the line: roots, cracks, displaced joints, bellies or blockages where they exist, and a clear run where they do not. It is added to the same visit rather than booked separately. Alongside it, commercial building inspections follow the CCPIA standard for offices, retail, multifamily and warehouse property, and radon testing or mold inspection and testing can be added to a residential or commercial visit. Get in touch to talk through a particular property.
Local information from City of Grosse Pointe Farms — Water and Sewer Department · City of Grosse Pointe Farms — Building Department · City of Grosse Pointe Farms — code of ordinances and city charter. Municipal requirements change — verify current details with the municipality.
Radon in Wayne County
Zone 3 is the lowest of the three EPA categories — the predicted average indoor level across the county is below 2 pCi/L. That puts Grosse Pointe Farms at the calmer end of Michigan’s radon picture, which is worth saying out loud rather than glossing over. What a zone cannot tell you is anything about one house: 17% of tests actually run in Wayne County still came back at or above the EPA’s 4 pCi/L action level, which is about one in six. 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 · Wayne 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 Grosse Pointe Farms 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
Ora from Trademark did an incredible job with the inspection and sewer scope of the home I am in the process of buying. He was very thorough, explained everything to me from the start, and made it all super easy to understand which definitely helped to put me at ease a bit more. Highly recommend this company!
Mariah HartmanWestland, MIJim was prompt and thorough during the mold testing. Clearly gave us an explanation about mold and testing process he was going to conduct. Testing was followed by a written report. I would recommend everyone use a third party to test mold, independent from the company conducting remediation work. I would hire Trademark again and strongly recommend them.
Alberto PicconeNorthville, MICowboy “Jim” just did Mold Testing in my parents’ basement. He was Professional, explained the what, how and yet of everything to my Senior parents. Our results came back super quick. He even referred us to the resources on the Trademark website for me to use to fix the leaky basement. It’s 1 stop shopping with Trademark.
Becky JohnsonWayne, MIWhat happens
Questions
We found no such requirement published by the City, and we are not going to invent one. That matters because neighboring Grosse Pointe Park does require a Certificate of Occupancy on every change of ownership. Five separate cities share the Grosse Pointe name and they do not agree with each other — so confirm which one an address is in, and if it is the Farms, assume nobody inspects the building before you own it unless you arrange it.
From the City’s own plant. Grosse Pointe Farms operates a 10 million gallon a day rated filtration plant that supplies drinking water to both Grosse Pointe Farms and the City of Grosse Pointe, across roughly 44 miles of water main and 4,128 metered connections. We do not test water — that is a separate discipline with its own certified laboratories — and the City’s annual reporting is the authoritative source.
Because it is sized for storm flow rather than sewage. The City gives the Kerby Road station a rated maximum capacity of 358 million gallons a day and also operates three storm sewer overflows. Set that against 4,128 metered connections and the arithmetic is plain: ordinary daily sewage is a tiny fraction of that capacity. It is a system built around what arrives when it rains.
The sump above all — the pit, the pump, whether there is any backup arrangement, and where the discharge line goes as far as it can be traced. Also floor drains and any access covers in the slab, which is where a backwater device would sit if one is fitted, and evidence of past water at the wall-floor joint or on stored belongings. Outside, how the ground falls away from the building and where the downspouts discharge.
Very old, and almost nothing is new. Of about 4,263 housing units, 1,470 predate 1940 and 1,294 date from the 1950s, with 910 from the 1940s — 86% of the city built before 1960 — and only 187 units added since 1989. Around 97% is single-family detached, the highest share of any community of its size we cover.
The junctions rather than the original construction, which was generally very good. Services have usually been upgraded at the panel while some original branch wiring survives behind plaster. Original supply plumbing has passed the end of any normal service life. Heating has often moved through two or three generations of technology in the same chimney, which is where venting gets interesting. Foundations are frequently stone or unreinforced masonry with the drainage arrangements of their day.
Generally yes, and it is worth planning for. This is the most consistently single-family detached community of its size we cover, and the houses are substantial — more roof, more wall, more window openings, more mechanical plant and more foundation, much of it aging together. That is a reason to have the whole building looked at properly rather than spot checked.
Yes, and this is one of the strongest cases in the region. On most houses the lateral went in before 1960 and on 1,470 of them before 1940, with mature street trees over it the whole time. There is no municipal transfer inspection here to catch anything, and a lateral in poor condition is an extra weakness in a system already built around storm flow. Putting a camera down the line documents roots, cracks, displaced joints, bellies or blockages where they exist, and is added to the same appointment.
More on cost, timing and what is included on the FAQ page.
Police, fire, rescue, military and educators — our way of saying thank you for your service. Enter code HERO at checkout.
Claim the Hero DiscountNeed a Grosse Pointe Farms home inspector and not sure we reach you? Call 734-331-3269 and we will tell you.
Permits, assessing and property records for Grosse Pointe Farms are handled by the City of Grosse Pointe Farms, not by us.
From the blog
October 22, 2017
May 18, 2024
February 1, 2023
Your local Grosse Pointe Farms home inspector, seven days a week. Home inspection reports in 24 hours.
