Howell, Michigan
Looking for a Howell home inspector? We do certified home, commercial, mold and radon inspections in Howell, 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 Howell 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 Howell and across Livingston 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 Howell 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 reportHowell housing stock
Howell has roughly 4,988 housing units and about 39% 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 years before 1940, which accounts for 982 homes, around 20% of the housing stock. It is also less detached-house territory than most of the area at 39%, so condominiums, duplexes and small multi-family buildings are a bigger share of what we inspect here — and those bring their own questions about what is yours to maintain and what belongs to the association.
The median owner-occupied home here is valued at $234,900. Only 48% of occupied homes are owner-occupied, so a good share of what we inspect here is bought as a rental or sold with tenants in place — which changes what access on the day looks like. There are around 274 manufactured and mobile homes in Howell. Those are a different inspection — the questions are about the frame, the anchoring and the skirting rather than a basement.
Treat this as a starting list, not a diagnosis. A Howell 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 Howell was built
77% of homes here run on utility gas. Another 82 use bottled or LP gas.
Local knowledge
Howell is not a city of single-family houses. Of about 4,988 housing units, only around 39% are single-family detached — which means roughly three in five homes here are attached, in a duplex, or in a multi-unit building. For a county seat that is not unusual, but it changes what buying here involves.
It also means the City’s rental housing certification program touches a large share of the stock. And the checklist behind that program is the most directly useful document the City publishes — not because most buyers will be landlords, but because every item on it is measurable in any house.
One of them is a number we have not seen any other municipality in this project set: hot water must be at least 110 degrees and no more than 120 degrees at the tap. A minimum is common. A maximum is scald protection, and it is a genuine safety requirement that almost nobody checks in their own home.
The housing is also old at one end and modern at the other: 982 units predate 1940 — a fifth of the city — while 842 date from the 1990s and 600 from the 2000s. There is no single Howell house to generalize about.
Before you buy
The checklist
The City’s rental housing inspection guidelines set out safety requirements that read like a good pre-purchase list for any property, and we would run through most of them on any inspection.
Smoke alarms inside every room used for sleeping, outside the sleeping areas in the hallway, and at least one on every floor including the basement. A carbon monoxide alarm near the sleeping areas wherever there are fuel-fired appliances — and also wherever there is an attached garage with a door into the house, which is the part people forget. Combination alarms are acceptable.
Then the hot water window: at least 110 degrees and no more than 120 at the tap. The floor is about hygiene and comfort; the ceiling is about scalding, and it matters most in exactly the households least able to react quickly. Water heaters are frequently left at whatever the last person set them to, and it is a two-minute check with a thermometer that almost nobody does.
Heating must be capable of maintaining 68 degrees in all habitable rooms, bathrooms and toilet rooms. Extension cords used as permanent wiring are prohibited — a small phrase covering one of the most common improvised fixes in older housing, and one that tells you there are not enough outlets where people actually need them.
And the furnace: a clean and check by a licensed mechanical contractor is required, though it may be waived depending on the age of the equipment, and the City states that its inspector will verify a permit was obtained for newer installations. The certification form the contractor completes asks for make, model, serial number and — unusually — a carbon monoxide reading, before certifying that the furnace or boiler with its required fire dampers is clean and safe to operate.
What a buyer’s inspection does with all this is report the condition as found: the heating equipment, its age and apparent condition, venting and combustion air where visible, the water heater and its installation, alarms and their placement, and the electrical service and how it has been added to. We report; a licensed mechanical contractor servicing and certifying the appliance is a different and complementary piece of work.
Where the water goes
One line on the same checklist is worth a section of its own: stormwater, surface water, groundwater and roof run-off are prohibited from being discharged to the public sanitary sewer, and basement sump pumps and other devices found in violation will be ordered to be corrected.
That is not a suggestion. It is a City that inspects, finds and requires the fix — and on a housing stock where a fifth of the buildings predate 1940, sump pumps plumbed into a convenient nearby drain are exactly the kind of arrangement that gets made and forgotten.
The reason it matters is the same everywhere: a sanitary system sized for sewage cannot also carry a neighborhood’s groundwater. When it rains, everybody’s sump runs at once, the line surcharges, and the water comes back up through the lowest fixture in somebody’s basement. It is a shared problem created by individual plumbing.
On an inspection we report the sump equipment we find — the pit, the pump, whether there is a backup arrangement — and we follow the discharge as far as it can be traced, noting where it appears to go. A discharge line that disappears into a floor drain or an unexplained buried connection is worth raising before closing, because here it is the City that will eventually raise it.
The City runs both its own water treatment plant and its own wastewater treatment plant, which for a city this size is worth knowing: the same government is accountable for what arrives at the tap and what leaves the drain. We do not test water — that is a separate discipline with its own certified laboratories.
If you are buying to let
Howell’s rental certification is governed by ordinance and administered by the Community Development Department, and two of its rules catch out-of-town buyers.
The first is the local agent. An owner living more than 30 miles from the City must designate a responsible local agent who lives within 30 miles, and that agent is responsible for operating the property and providing access. Critically, official notices from the City may be issued to the agent, and a notice so issued is deemed to have been issued to the owner. If you are buying a rental here from a distance, that appointment is not a formality — it is who the City will talk to instead of you.
The second is the utility account. If the tenant maintains the water and sewer account, the owner must sign an affidavit and post a $200 bond to ensure the account is kept current. Unpaid utility accounts have a habit of attaching to property rather than to people, and the bond is the City protecting itself against exactly that.
The City also requires the owner or the local agent to be present for inspections; the tenant may attend but is not required to, and an owner may ask in writing that the City schedule directly with the tenant instead.
The forms and documents library carries the applications for single-family and duplex properties and for multifamily, the fee schedule, corporate ownership reporting, change of ownership or agent, and the water and sewer affidavit, alongside the City’s engineering and construction standards.
A note on scope, because it is easy to over-read: what the City publishes here is a rental certification regime, not a point-of-sale inspection. Nothing we found requires an inspection simply because a house is being sold. Confirm your own situation with the department rather than assuming either way.
Two Howells, and a buried line
Before anything else, establish which Howell you are buying in. The City of Howell and Howell Township are separate governments with their own ordinances, their own inspectors and their own utilities — the City runs its own treatment plants, while the township’s municipal water comes from a four-township joint authority. A Howell postal address does not settle it.
Once that is clear, the buried lateral running from the building to the sewer main is the one component no visual inspection reaches. On one of the 982 units here that predate 1940, that pipe has been in the ground the best part of a century. On a 1970s house, fifty years. On a 1990s house, thirty, with mature landscaping alongside it.
Any of those 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. We will not name a material from a build year, because no authoritative source establishes what Howell laterals are generally made of — and on a city with a century of building in it, more than one material is certainly in the ground.
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 — relevant in a city where most of the housing is not single-family — 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 Howell — Community Development, building, zoning and code enforcement · City of Howell — rental housing inspection checklist and safety requirements · City of Howell — forms, applications and documents. Municipal requirements change — verify current details with the municipality.
Radon in Livingston 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 · Livingston County radon and inspection coverage
Zone from the EPA Map of Radon Zones.
Why choose us
Five reasons people here pick us as their Howell 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, MIThis is one of the finest companies I have come across - that means serious customer service and professionalism. Justin was the inspector and he was very thorough yet very kind to answers all the questions that came in my mind during inspection. He took enough time, no rush, and a very detailed inspection was conducted. Extremely competitive pricing and timing from the company. 100% recommend to anyone looking for any kind of property inspection!!
Chirag R MiyaniMichiganWhat happens
Questions
The City sets both ends for rental properties: at least 110 degrees and no more than 120 degrees at the tap. The floor is about hygiene and comfort; the ceiling is scald protection, and it matters most for young children and older adults. Water heaters are commonly left at whatever the last person set, so it is worth checking with a thermometer in any house, rental or not.
Not into the sanitary sewer. The City prohibits stormwater, surface water, groundwater and roof run-off from being discharged to the public sanitary system, and states that basement sump pumps and other devices found in violation will be ordered to be corrected. We follow the sump discharge as far as it can be traced and report where it appears to go — a line disappearing into a floor drain is worth raising before closing.
Smoke alarms inside every room used for sleeping, outside the sleeping areas in the hallway, and at least one on every floor including the basement. A carbon monoxide alarm near the sleeping areas wherever fuel-fired appliances are in use, and also wherever there is an attached garage with a door into the dwelling — which is the trigger people forget. Combination alarms are acceptable.
Nothing the City publishes says so, and we will not tell you otherwise. What Howell operates is a rental housing certification program, with its own ordinance, applications and fee schedule. If you are letting a property, or are unsure which requirements apply to your situation, the Community Development Department is the place to confirm it.
Two things. An owner living more than 30 miles from the City must designate a responsible local agent living within 30 miles, who provides access and operates the property — and official notices issued to that agent are deemed issued to you. And if the tenant maintains the water and sewer account, the owner must sign an affidavit and post a $200 bond to keep the account current.
No. They are separate governments with their own ordinances, inspectors and permit records, and different utility arrangements — the City runs its own water and wastewater treatment plants, while the township’s municipal water comes from a four-township joint authority. A Howell postal address does not tell you which, so confirm before relying on anything you have read.
Split between old and modern. Of about 4,988 housing units, 982 predate 1940 — a fifth of the city — while 842 date from the 1990s, 748 from the 1970s and 600 from the 2000s. Around 39% is single-family detached, so roughly three in five homes are attached or in multi-unit buildings. There is no single Howell house to generalize about.
Yes. On a prewar house the lateral has been in the ground close to a century; even on a 1990s house it is thirty years old with mature landscaping over it. We will not guess a material from a build year, and on a city with this much building history more than one material is certainly present. 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 Howell home inspector and not sure we reach you? Call 734-331-3269 and we will tell you.
Permits, assessing and property records for Howell are handled by Howell, Michigan, not by us.
From the blog
October 22, 2017
February 24, 2026
Your local Howell home inspector, seven days a week. Home inspection reports in 24 hours.
