Hamtramck, Michigan
Looking for a Hamtramck home inspector? We do certified home, commercial, mold and radon inspections in Hamtramck, 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 Hamtramck 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 Hamtramck 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 Hamtramck 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 reportHamtramck housing stock
Hamtramck has roughly 8,578 housing units and about 61% of them are single-family detached. Housing that went up mostly in one era has mostly one era’s problems — which is genuinely useful to know before you buy, because it tells you what to look at first.
Most of it went up in the years before 1940 — 4,917 homes, around 57% of the town.
The median owner-occupied home here is valued at $103,100. Around 2,082 homes sit in two-to-four unit buildings, where a shared roof, a shared wall and sometimes a shared furnace mean the report has to be clear about where one unit stops.
None of this is a prediction about a particular house. It is where a Hamtramck home inspector starts looking in a home of this age, and what we photograph and write up either way.
Housing figures: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2022 five-year estimates.
When Hamtramck was built
89% of homes here run on utility gas. Another 217 use bottled or LP gas.
Local knowledge
Hamtramck is the only community we write about whose median house predates the Second World War, and that single fact reorganizes everything else.
The median build year here is 1938. Of roughly 8,578 housing units, about 57% were built before 1940 and another 13% in the 1940s, with around 61% single-family detached. Nothing else in this region comes close on that measure — and it means a typical house here has been standing for ninety years or more.
A building of that age has outlived several complete generations of construction practice, wiring standards, heating technology and plumbing materials. Everything in it has been replaced, altered or worked around at least once, usually several times, and rarely with a complete record. We will not reason from the build year to what is installed, because on housing this old that reasoning tells you almost nothing.
The other thing a buyer here needs to know concerns the water service line, and it is more clear-cut than anywhere else we cover.
Before you buy
Water
Across this region most cities can tell you only that they are inventorying their service lines, or that none have been identified. Hamtramck is different, and its own water quality report is direct about it.
The City states that it is required by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy to replace 366 lead service lines annually, and that it will continue replacing them until all are done. The report also records what happened when it fell short: Hamtramck was out of compliance on 1 October 2022 having completed 286 of the required 366, completed the additional lines on 10 January 2023 and returned to compliance, and there were no known adverse health effects resulting from that violation.
We report all of that together deliberately. A mandated annual quota tells you lead service lines exist here in real numbers; the shortfall and its correction tell you the program is monitored and enforced. Leaving out either half would give a false impression.
What it means for a buyer is practical. The City carries out annual lead and copper tap testing with samples taken from homes that have lead service lines, as the state requires, and the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services runs a drinking water hotline offering free testing and service line inspection to Hamtramck customers. That is where the answer for one address comes from. A home inspection does not determine service line material and we will not imply otherwise.
Ninety years on
With a median build year of 1938, most of what we would inspect here was built before modern wiring, modern heating and modern insulation practice existed.
That does not make these bad houses — many are extremely well built, with framing and masonry of a standard that is expensive to reproduce now. It does mean that everything with a service life shorter than ninety years has been dealt with somehow: replaced, repaired, extended, or left running past its design life. Which of those applies to the roof, the heating, the electrical service and the plumbing of a particular house is exactly what an inspection establishes.
It also means alterations. Ninety years is long enough for a house to have been divided, reconfigured, added to and partly restored, sometimes by owners and sometimes by trades, and the paperwork rarely survives all of it. A home buyer inspection reports what is visible and accessible now, and says plainly what could not be reached.
Where dampness is a concern in an old basement, mold inspection and testing can be added to the same visit with samples going to an accredited laboratory, and radon testing fits the same appointment.
The buried line
The water service line is being addressed by the City. The sanitary lateral is a different pipe running the other way, and nobody is replacing that one for you.
It runs underground from the house to the public system and no visual inspection can see inside it. On a house from the 1930s it has been there for ninety years — ample time for tree roots to find a joint, for ground movement to displace a section, or for repairs to have been made and forgotten. We will not name a material from a build year, because no authoritative source establishes what Hamtramck laterals are generally made of.
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 the oldest housing stock in this region that is one of the few ways to replace an assumption with a picture. It is added to the same visit.
Alongside it, commercial building inspections follow the CCPIA standard for offices, retail, multifamily and warehouse property.
What the City does
The City operates a rental registration process with an application for a rental certificate, so if you are buying a let property or intending to let one, that registration is part of what you are taking on.
We did not find a residential point-of-sale inspection requirement in Hamtramck of the kind that Ecorse, Wyandotte or Lincoln Park operate. Confirm the position for a specific address with the City’s building department rather than relying on that — municipal requirements change, and this is exactly the sort of thing worth a phone call.
Where no municipal inspection happens at sale, the inspection you commission is the one examining the property on your behalf: roof, structure, foundation, drainage, electrical, heating and cooling, plumbing and the accessible interior, photographed and written up with how urgent each finding is.
On housing of this age that document does more work than usual. It is often the only systematic account anyone has produced of what is actually in the building.
Local information from City of Hamtramck — water quality report · City of Hamtramck — departments · City of Hamtramck — rental certificate application. 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. So Hamtramck is not where Michigan’s alarming radon numbers are, and we are not going to pretend otherwise. 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. A zone is a prediction of an average, and nobody lives in an average.
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 Hamtramck 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
Some do, and unlike most communities in this region that is not in doubt. The City’s water quality report states that Hamtramck is required by the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy to replace 366 lead service lines annually, and that it will continue until all of them are replaced. A mandated annual quota only exists where there are lines to replace. The City also carries out annual lead and copper tap testing with samples taken from homes that have lead service lines, as the state requires.
Through the City and the state, not through a home inspection. The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services runs a drinking water hotline offering free water testing and service line inspection to Hamtramck customers, and the City holds its own service line records. A home inspection does not determine service line material and we will not suggest otherwise. If lead is a concern on a property you are considering, use those routes and get the answer in writing before you commit.
It did once, and it corrected it. The City reports that it was out of compliance on 1 October 2022 having completed 286 of the required 366 replacements, that it completed the additional service lines on 10 January 2023 and returned to compliance, and that there were no known adverse health effects resulting from that violation. We report the whole sequence rather than part of it, because the shortfall on its own would give a misleading impression of a program that is monitored, enforced and back on track.
Older than anywhere else we cover. The median build year is 1938 — the only prewar median among the communities in this region we have looked at closely. About 57% of the roughly 8,578 housing units were built before 1940 and another 13% in the 1940s, with around 61% single-family detached. A typical house here has been standing for ninety years, which means everything with a shorter service life has been replaced, repaired or left running past its design life — and the build year cannot tell you which.
On this housing stock it is one of the more valuable things you can add. The City is addressing lead water service lines, but the sanitary lateral is a separate pipe running the other way and nobody replaces that for you. On a house from the 1930s it has been in the ground ninety years — ample time for roots to find a joint or for repairs to have been made and forgotten. We would not guess a material from a build year and no authoritative source establishes what Hamtramck laterals are generally made of. Putting a camera down the line replaces an assumption with a picture, and is added to the same appointment.
We did not find a residential point-of-sale inspection requirement of the kind Ecorse, Wyandotte or Lincoln Park operate. The City does run rental registration with an application for a rental certificate, which matters if you are buying a let property or intending to let one. Confirm the position for a specific address with the City’s building department rather than relying on our search — municipal requirements change, and this is the sort of thing worth a phone call before you plan a timeline.
Yes. You can book a Hamtramck home inspector with us seven days a week, and we cover the rest of Wayne County too.
A home inspection report reaches you within 24 hours. Commercial buildings are 24 to 72 hours depending on size, a radon result comes at the end of the 48-hour test, and mold samples come back from the lab in one to three business days.
More on cost, timing and what is included on the FAQ page.
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From the blog
October 22, 2017
May 18, 2024
Your local Hamtramck home inspector, seven days a week. Home inspection reports in 24 hours.
