Melvindale, Michigan
Looking for a Melvindale home inspector? We do certified home, commercial, mold and radon inspections in Melvindale, 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 Melvindale 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 Melvindale 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 Melvindale 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 reportMelvindale housing stock
Melvindale has roughly 4,811 housing units and about 69% 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 1940s, which accounts for 1,667 homes, around 35% of the housing stock.
The median owner-occupied home here is valued at $95,900.
Treat this as a starting list, not a diagnosis. A Melvindale 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 Melvindale was built
86% of homes here run on utility gas. Another 133 use bottled or LP gas.
Local knowledge
Melvindale operates the most comprehensive point-of-sale regime we have documented anywhere in this region, and it is written in unusually blunt language.
Under the City’s ordinance it is unlawful for anyone to occupy or reoccupy a building for any purpose until a Certificate of Occupancy has been issued. And separately, it is unlawful for any owner, real estate firm, broker or salesman to consummate a sale of real property until a Certificate of Occupancy has been issued to them.
That second sentence is worth reading twice. The prohibition names the agent as well as the owner — no other municipality in this project puts the broker inside the rule. It means everyone at the table has a reason to have this sorted out early.
And it produces the question that matters most here: what happens when the house is not in a condition to pass? Melvindale has a published answer, it involves two different documents, and choosing the wrong one means you cannot move into the house you just bought. That is covered below.
The housing is old and static. Of about 4,811 units, 1,667 were built in the 1940s — more than a third of the city, a share exceeded only by Berkley among the communities we cover — with 823 predating 1940 and 606 from the 1950s. Around 77% of the city was built before 1970, and nothing at all has been built here since 2009.
Before you buy
Buying as is
This is the part of Melvindale’s process that catches people, and the City sets it out plainly in its certificate of occupancy checklist.
To sell a property as is, the purchaser — not the seller — must request in writing, to the Department of Building and Engineering, permission to assume responsibility for making the required repairs. The department then grants one of two things.
A Temporary Certificate of Occupancy allows conditional occupancy: you may live in the house while you put it right. A Waiver of Certificate of Occupancy for Sale Only does not allow occupancy at all: the sale may complete, but nobody moves in until the work is done and re-inspected.
Either way the purchaser is granted a stated period to complete the repairs and re-inspections, and the maximum is six months. The cost of a temporary certificate or a waiver is $40 plus a $15 administrative fee, and an escrow deposit of at least $500 is also required.
So on an as-is purchase here, three things need to be settled before you commit: which instrument you are getting, what the repair list actually is, and whether six months is enough to do it. The first of those decides whether you have somewhere to live. This is also exactly the situation where an independent inspection earns its cost several times over — because the list you are assuming responsibility for is the City’s list, and the condition of the building is a separate and larger question.
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. Knowing what a house needs before you agree to a six-month clock is the difference between a plan and a surprise.
The published checklist
Melvindale publishes the list its inspector works through, which many point-of-sale municipalities do not. It is a good pre-viewing checklist for any older house here.
Outside: paved off-street parking where required, and concrete sidewalks, driveways and steps in good repair. Chimneys, foundation, porches and brickwork tuckpointed as needed. Hand and guard rails on porches and stairs over 30 inches high. All peeling paint scraped and repainted. Storm doors, windows and screens in place and working. No broken or boarded windows. Gutters, soffit, fascia and downspouts in place and in good repair. Ground sloped away from the house for positive drainage. Fences maintained, no junk, debris, high weeds or noxious trees. Address numbers at least four inches high with a half-inch stroke, legible from the street.
And one requirement we have not seen anywhere else in this project: a proper rat wall on sheds and garages. A rat wall is a below-grade barrier around the perimeter of an outbuilding on a slab, and it exists to stop things burrowing under and up. On a dense older city it is a sensible thing to require, and it is worth looking for on any detached structure you are inheriting.
Inside, the smoke alarm requirement is precise: alarms in each sleeping room, outside each separate sleeping area in the immediate vicinity of the bedrooms, and on each additional story including basements and cellars — though not crawl spaces or uninhabitable attics. Five-year lithium batteries are required.
Most of that overlaps with what we report anyway. Where an inspection goes further is on the things a compliance list does not reach: the remaining life in the roof covering, the age and condition of the furnace and water heater, what the foundation and the basement actually show, the electrical service and how it has been extended over eighty years, and the junctions where newer work meets original.
Permits and contractors
Three things from the Building Department are worth knowing, and one of them is genuinely humane.
First, every contractor doing work in the city must be registered — with or without a permit being needed — and registration requires a performance bond and proper insurance, which the City notes is there to help protect the homeowner. If someone is working on a Melvindale house without being registered, that protection does not exist.
Second, furnaces. Every furnace installation requires both a mechanical installation permit and an electrical hook-up permit, with a final inspection. But the City adds that emergency work may be done without a permit provided it is permitted within 48 hours, with weekends and holidays taken into consideration. That is a sensible rule — nobody should be without heat in January while an office is closed — and it means a furnace replaced in an emergency should still have paperwork behind it. The City also publishes a furnace safety test form.
Third, permits are good for six months from issuance. On a property with a history of part-finished projects, that is worth knowing: a permit that lapsed is not the same as work that was signed off.
Smaller work is tightly controlled too. Fences need preapproval by the inspector, then a post hole inspection and a final, and may not exceed six feet. Cement work needs preapproval plus form and final inspections. A sewer repair application may require escrow. Rental certificates of compliance and apartment complex inspections both run on a two-year cycle. And vacant properties must be registered within 30 days — a duty that, the ordinance says, does not require the city to give the owner prior notice.
On scheduling: general, permit and occupancy inspections happen in two blocks a week, Wednesday and Friday mornings, and fees must be paid before an inspection can be scheduled at all. On a closing timetable that is worth building in from the start.
The buried line
Melvindale is served through the Detroit water and sewer system, and the City publishes guidance on dealing with a sewer backup alongside a document on Public Act 222 of 2001, the state law governing municipal liability for sanitary sewer backups. A city that publishes that is a city where the question comes up.
The lateral running from a Melvindale house to the main went in with the house, which for most of this city means the 1940s. Eighty years is long enough for roots to find a joint, for ground movement to displace a section, or for a repair to have been made that nobody now remembers — and the street trees planted when these neighborhoods went up have had the whole time to work on it. We will not name a material from a build year, because no authoritative source establishes what Melvindale laterals are generally made of.
It is also the one thing the City’s occupancy checklist does not reach. The inspector checks the ground slopes away from the house; nobody checks what runs under it.
On the water side, the City’s water and sewer department notes that bills go to “Resident” rather than a named person, so service generally does not need transferring on a purchase — though it is worth asking whether the previous owner requested a final bill, which the department can tell you. It also explains the leak triangle on the meter: if it is moving when no water is being used, something in the house is leaking. Final readings are done Wednesdays and Fridays with two to three days notice.
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 — and on an as-is purchase with a six-month repair clock, knowing about the pipe before you sign is worth a great deal more than knowing afterwards. Alongside it, commercial building inspections follow the CCPIA standard, and radon testing or mold inspection and testing can be added to the same visit. Get in touch to talk through a particular property.
Local information from City of Melvindale — Building Department, permits, certificates and inspections · City of Melvindale — certificate of occupancy residential checklist and Ordinance 514 · City of Melvindale — water and sewer department. 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 on the state’s map Melvindale sits well away from the worst of it, and we are not going to dress that up into something it is not. 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. Zones are drawn around counties, not around addresses, which is why the only number that settles the question is the one from the house itself.
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 Melvindale 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
Yes, and the rule is unusually broad. The City’s ordinance makes it unlawful to occupy or reoccupy a building for any purpose until a Certificate of Occupancy has been issued, and separately makes it unlawful for any owner, real estate firm, broker or salesman to consummate a sale until one has been issued. The prohibition names the agent as well as the owner.
Yes, through a documented process. The purchaser must request in writing, to the Department of Building and Engineering, permission to assume responsibility for the required repairs. The department then grants either a Temporary Certificate of Occupancy, which allows conditional occupancy, or a Waiver of Certificate of Occupancy for Sale Only, which does not. The purchaser gets a stated period, maximum six months, to complete repairs and re-inspections.
Whether you can live in the house. A Temporary Certificate of Occupancy allows conditional occupancy while the work is done. A Waiver of Certificate of Occupancy for Sale Only lets the sale complete but does not allow occupancy until the repairs are finished and re-inspected. It is the single most important thing to establish before agreeing to an as-is purchase here.
The City states the cost of a temporary certificate or a waiver is $40 plus a $15 administrative fee, and that an escrow deposit of at least $500 is also required. Confirm current figures with the Building Department, and treat the escrow as the floor rather than the estimate — it secures the repairs, it does not price them.
The City publishes the list. Outside: paved off-street parking where required, concrete sidewalks and steps in good repair, tuckpointing to chimneys, foundation, porches and brickwork, hand and guard rails on porches and stairs over 30 inches, peeling paint scraped and repainted, storms and screens in place, no broken or boarded windows, gutters and downspouts in good repair, ground sloped away for positive drainage, a proper rat wall on sheds and garages, and four-inch address numbers. Inside, smoke alarms in every sleeping room, outside each sleeping area and on each story including basements, with five-year lithium batteries.
Not if it was permitted afterwards. The City requires both a mechanical installation permit and an electrical hook-up permit with a final inspection for every furnace installation, but allows emergency work to be done without a permit provided it is permitted within 48 hours, with weekends and holidays taken into account. Worth confirming that step actually happened.
Old, and the city has stopped growing. Of about 4,811 housing units, 1,667 were built in the 1940s — more than a third, a share exceeded only by Berkley among the communities we cover — with 823 predating 1940 and 606 from the 1950s. Around 77% was built before 1970, and nothing has been built here since 2009. Expect original-era structure behind whatever has been updated.
Yes, and especially on an as-is purchase. For most of the city the lateral went in with the house in the 1940s, with mature street trees over it for eighty years, and it is the one thing the City’s occupancy checklist does not reach. We will not guess a material from a build year. Putting a camera down the line documents roots, cracks, displaced joints, bellies or blockages where they exist, and is added to the same appointment — well before you take on a six-month repair clock.
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 Melvindale home inspector and not sure we reach you? Call 734-331-3269 and we will tell you.
From the blog
October 22, 2017
May 18, 2024
December 1, 2017
Your local Melvindale home inspector, seven days a week. Home inspection reports in 24 hours.
