Ida, Michigan
Looking for an Ida home inspector? We do certified home, commercial, mold and radon inspections in Ida, 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 Ida 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 Ida and across Monroe 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 an Ida 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 reportIda housing stock
Ida has roughly 272 housing units and about 97% of them are single-family detached. Homes built in a single stretch tend to wear out in the same places at the same time. That is why when somewhere was built is the first thing worth knowing about it.
The busiest stretch of building here was the years before 1940: 128 homes, about 47% of everything standing today. 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 $183,700. 89% are owner-occupied, which is high even for this area.
None of this says anything about the specific house you are buying. It is the shortlist an Ida home inspector works through in a home of this age, and every item on it gets photographed and written up whichever way it turns out.
Housing figures: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2022 five-year estimates.
When Ida was built
97% of homes here run on utility gas.
Local knowledge
Ida is served by Ida Township, and the township publishes something worth studying before you plan any work: a building page that names four different people, each with their own telephone number and their own hours.
There is a Building Inspector, reachable by phone Monday to Friday from 9am to 5pm, who handles the electrical, mechanical and plumbing permits. There is a Building Administrator on the township number, available Monday and Wednesday only, from 9am to 3pm. And then there are two more names: one person to call to schedule an electrical inspection, and a different person to call to schedule a mechanical or plumbing inspection.
That last part is the bit that catches people, and it is worth stating plainly. The person who issues the permit for a trade is not the person who inspects it. Those are separate calls to separate numbers, and nothing prompts you to make the second one.
So the failure mode here is not a permit that was never pulled. It is a permit that was pulled properly and then never inspected, because the paperwork went in and the follow-up call to a different person did not happen. On a purchase, that is exactly the kind of loose end worth asking the township about for a specific address.
A home inspection is not a code inspection or a permit search and we do not present it as one. What we establish is what is physically there and what condition it is in, and we flag work that looks as though it was done without the benefit of a permit — which gives you the specific thing to ask about.
Before you buy
Permits
To the township’s credit, the paperwork is all there and easy to find. Building, electrical, mechanical and plumbing permit applications are published together, and so is a building permit fee schedule — which we have not opened and will not quote figures from, but which means you can cost a project before you commit to it rather than after.
There is also a document headed fire department access suggestions. We have not read it and are not going to guess at what it recommends, but on a rural township it is the kind of thing worth reading if you are buying anything set back from the road.
The part that needs managing is the sequence. Apply through the right route, and then remember that scheduling the inspection for an electrical, mechanical or plumbing job is a separate call to a separate person. Write both numbers down at the start. A project that is built but not inspected is not finished, whatever it looks like.
For a buyer the same logic runs backwards. If a previous owner did work here under a permit, the question worth asking the township is not only whether a permit exists but whether each trade inspection was actually carried out and signed off. Given the structure, those are genuinely two different questions.
What a buyer’s inspection gives you is the evidence to make that call specific: what has been altered, which work looks professional and which does not, and where a trade has plainly been in the building.
The housing
Ida has roughly 272 housing units and about 97% of them are single-family detached, with a median build year of 1950. In practice that means an inspection here is a whole building every time, on a rural lot, and the land is a substantial part of the job rather than a backdrop to it.
Outbuildings come with the territory and they deserve proper attention rather than a glance. Pole barns, detached garages and workshops frequently carry their own electrical supply, their own roof and structural questions, and are very often where informal work has accumulated over decades. We inspect them as part of the property.
Long drives and setbacks matter too, and not only for access. Where a drive sheds its water, how the ground falls between the road and the house, and where surface water collects on the way are all part of how a building stays dry. On acreage those questions have more room to go wrong than they do on a village lot.
On the building itself, a 1950 median puts the usual pre-war questions in play: electrical systems that are the accumulated work of several decades with mixed wiring types meeting in the same enclosure, plumbing renewed in part rather than in whole so the material transitions are where trouble concentrates, heating equipment several replacements deep, and roof coverings on a third generation.
Foundations of that era are typically block, and their condition tracks water management far more closely than construction. 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
The township publishes an assessor, a board of review, a cemetery, elections and a building department. What we did not find is a water department page or a sewer department page, so we are not going to tell you what a property here is served by.
On rural land in this part of Monroe County it would be easy to assume a private well and a septic system, and easy to be wrong about a specific address. Get the answer in writing for the parcel you are buying, and take well and septic questions to the county health department.
That matters for timing as much as anything. A septic evaluation is specialist work carried out by or through the health department, and it answers questions no visual inspection can: whether a drainfield is failing, and the true condition of the tank. It runs to its own timetable, so on rural property it needs arranging early rather than in the last week. A water test on a private well belongs in the same conversation, and is worth repeating after any well work.
What we inspect is the building and everything from the house side of the system inward: the accessible supply and drain lines, the vent arrangements we can see, how fixtures behave when the system is loaded, and the visible condition of any pump, pressure tank and treatment equipment.
The line out from the building is the owner’s either way, and no visual inspection reaches inside it. A sewer camera inspection records what is actually there — 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, which is the stretch a septic evaluation does not examine and is nobody’s job by default. It goes on the same appointment, and we deliver a full written report with photographs, generally the same day. You can read what our clients say, browse answers to common questions, see the township board, or get in touch about a specific address in Ida.
Local information from Ida Township — building department, permits and inspection contacts · Ida Township — board of trustees · Ida Township — contact the township · Ida Township — township website. Municipal requirements change — verify current details with the municipality.
Radon in Monroe 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 · Monroe County radon and inspection coverage
Zone from the EPA Map of Radon Zones.
Why choose us
Five reasons people here pick us as their Ida 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
Mitch was great and thorough the our inspection. He provided explanations and suggestions throughout the service. Highly recommend!
Jaynie GMonroe, MII 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, MIWhat happens
Questions
Ida Township. It publishes a Building Inspector, who handles electrical, mechanical and plumbing permits and is reachable by phone weekdays from 9am to 5pm, and a Building Administrator available Monday and Wednesday from 9am to 3pm.
Two other named people. The township publishes one number to call to schedule an electrical inspection and a different number for a mechanical or plumbing inspection. The person who issues the permit is not the person who inspects the work.
Because it creates a specific loose end: a permit properly pulled but never inspected, when the follow-up call to a different person did not happen. Ask the township whether each trade inspection was actually carried out on any work at the address.
Yes. A building permit fee schedule sits alongside the application forms. We have not opened it and will not quote figures, but it means you can cost a project before committing to it.
The township publishes a set of fire department access suggestions with its building forms. We have not read it and will not guess at what it recommends, but it is worth reading if you are buying anything set back from the road.
We will not assume. We found no water or sewer department pages on the township site, so confirm it in writing for the specific parcel and take well and septic questions to the county health department.
Yes, as part of the property rather than as an afterthought. They often carry their own electrical supply and their own roof and structural questions, and they are frequently where informal work has built up.
On a median 1950 house the line out from the building is often the oldest untouched component on the property, and on a septic property the run from the house to the tank is nobody’s job by default. A camera inspection goes on the same visit.
More on cost, timing and what is included on the FAQ page.
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