Lapeer, Michigan
Looking for a Lapeer home inspector? We do certified home, commercial, mold and radon inspections in Lapeer, 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 Lapeer 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 Lapeer and across Lapeer 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 Lapeer 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 reportLapeer housing stock
Lapeer has roughly 3,882 housing units and about 49% 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 1970s: 885 homes, about 23% of everything standing today. It is also less detached-house territory than most of the area at 49%, 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 $147,900. Only 50% 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 326 manufactured and mobile homes in Lapeer. Those are a different inspection — the questions are about the frame, the anchoring and the skirting rather than a basement.
None of this says anything about the specific house you are buying. It is the shortlist a Lapeer 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 Lapeer was built
83% of homes here run on utility gas. Another 36 use bottled or LP gas.
Local knowledge
The City of Lapeer publishes the checklist its own building inspector works from. It is four pages long, it names specifics down to the type of fuse permitted in a panel, and it opens by saying it is a summary of what the inspector will be looking for.
It applies to rental property, and that matters here more than in most towns: of roughly 3,882 housing units in the city, only about 49% are single-family detached. Slightly over half of the housing in Lapeer is something else — duplexes, flats, apartments, converted houses — and a great deal of it falls under the City’s rental registration program.
For anyone buying here, that document is unusually useful even when the property is not a rental. It is a published, dated statement of what one municipality considers safe, decent and sanitary, written in plain enough terms that you can walk a house against it.
The housing is old. About 721 units predate 1940 and 885 date from the 1970s, with fewer than 50 built since 2010. That combination — old stock, heavily divided into rental units — produces a particular set of findings, and the City’s own checklist tells you which ones it expects to see.
Before you buy
A published standard
Most municipalities keep their inspection criteria internal. Lapeer publishes them, and the level of detail is what makes the rental registration program worth reading before you buy anything here.
On the electrical side it asks that every habitable space contain at least two separate and remote receptacle outlets; that the laundry area have a grounded receptacle with ground fault protection; that every bathroom have at least one ground-fault-protected outlet; and that kitchen outlets within six feet of the sink be ground-fault protected. And it states, flatly, that screw-in fuses must be type S only.
On egress it requires that doors be operable from the inside without keys, special knowledge or effort, and adds a parenthesis that leaves no room for interpretation: no keyed locks on the bedroom doors. Emergency escape openings must open from inside the room without keys or tools.
On heating it requires facilities capable of maintaining 68°F in all habitable rooms, bathrooms and toilet rooms, and states that cooking appliances shall not be used to provide space heating. Anyone who has inspected older divided housing knows exactly why that sentence is in there.
Elsewhere it sets numbers you can measure: address numerals at least four inches tall and contrasting with their background, legible from the center line of the street; handrails and guards capable of taking a 200 pound lateral load; a dryer vent in flexible or rigid metal, under 25 feet in total length; insect screens on every outside opening, with a self-closing device on every screen door.
A buyer’s inspection is not the City’s inspection and does not produce a certificate. But it covers the same building — roof, structure, foundation, drainage, electrical, heating and cooling, plumbing and the accessible interior — and on a property here it is reasonable to expect the report to speak to the items the City has already put in writing.
Combustion and alarms
Lapeer’s rental application asks for something most municipalities do not: a current furnace or boiler report. A licensed mechanical contractor cleans and tunes the appliance, checks its efficiency, and confirms that no trace of carbon monoxide is found. The original City form has to be submitted with the application.
The checklist adds that all fireplaces require a visual safety inspection by a licensed contractor, and that the City requires a minimum of one carbon monoxide detector per floor including the basement, though not a crawl space. One fire extinguisher rated 2A/10 BC has to be wall mounted in full view, as close as possible to an outside exit.
The smoke alarm requirement is changing right now. Starting with the 2026 rental renewal cycle, where more than one alarm is required within a dwelling unit, the City requires the devices to be interconnected so that one alarm sounding activates all of them, audible in all bedrooms over background noise with the doors closed. It notes that wireless alarms count as compliant where they meet the relevant NFPA standard, which makes the requirement achievable in an old house without opening walls.
That is worth knowing when you are pricing a property. On a divided older building, interconnection is the sort of item that is straightforward if the alarms are being replaced anyway and irritating if they are not.
On an inspection we operate the heating and cooling equipment in the normal way, look at the venting and combustion air arrangements, and note the presence, placement and apparent age of smoke and carbon monoxide alarms. We are not a substitute for the licensed contractor report the City requires, and we say so in the report.
Permits
The Building Department has moved permits and inspection scheduling online. Contractors working in the city must be registered with the City, and registration produces a unique PIN before an account can be linked.
Inspection requests can be submitted until 4:00pm the day before, and the City is explicit that requests are reviewed before being accepted and scheduled — a request can be denied, with email notification. That is a tighter arrangement than the call-us-by-noon systems common elsewhere, and it means the inspection calendar reflects work the City has agreed is ready.
Two lines in the City’s own material deserve emphasis for anyone buying. The first: work found to have been done without permits, no matter how long ago, will still require a permit and the appropriate inspections before the violation is removed. There is no point at which old unpermitted work quietly becomes acceptable.
The second: homeowner permits may not be issued for rental properties, and a licensed contractor is required for all permitted work on a rental unit. If you are buying a property here to let it, the do-it-yourself route to compliance is closed.
Neither of those makes a purchase a bad idea. They make the permit history worth pulling before you commit, and they make an honest description of what has been altered — and how well — more valuable than usual. Finished basements, added bedrooms, converted attics and divided units are the places where old undocumented work tends to sit, and they are exactly where we look hardest on a house of this age.
Water and drains
One of the stated goals of Lapeer’s Department of Public Works is to protect the water distribution system from contamination through a comprehensive cross connection program. Several items on the rental checklist are the household end of exactly that program.
Vacuum breakers are required on all exterior hose bibs and on the threaded laundry tray faucet. The dishwasher drain needs an air gap. Both exist to stop water that has left the clean system being drawn back into it, and both are small, visible fittings that are easy to check and easy to leave off.
The system behind them is substantial for a city of just over 9,000 people: about 70 miles of water main ranging from two to twenty inches, 3,806 water meters, 792 hydrants, and three connections with meter pits at a 72-inch Detroit main, with three backup wells behind them. Sanitary and storm are separate here — roughly 51.5 miles of sanitary main with 1,157 manholes, and about 47 miles of storm main, with 14 lift stations.
Separate systems are good news for basements, because roof and surface water is not competing for space in the sanitary sewer during a storm. It does not remove the ordinary reasons a basement takes water, and on an old house the ordinary reasons are usually the ones that matter: grading that falls toward the wall, downspouts discharging at the foundation, and a sump arrangement that has been added to rather than designed.
We report the drainage as we find it — the fall of the ground around the building, where the downspouts and any sump discharge appear to go, and what the foundation and basement show about water that has been there before.
The buried line
The sanitary line from the building to the main is the owner’s responsibility, and in this city a good deal of it is very old. On one of the 721 units predating 1940 that pipe has been in the ground for the best part of a century, under a mature lot with mature trees over it.
We will not name a material from a build year, because no authoritative source establishes what Lapeer laterals are generally made of, and guessing helps nobody.
On a divided property the question sharpens. Where a single house has been converted into two or three units, everything added since has usually been tied into one original lateral sized and laid for one household. That line does not fail politely; it fails in the lowest fixture in the building.
A sewer camera inspection records the actual condition of that 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 appointment rather than booked separately, and on a property of this age it is among the most useful things you can buy before closing.
Alongside it we offer radon testing, mold inspection and testing, and commercial building inspections to the CCPIA standard for offices, retail, multifamily and warehouse property — which in a city with this much divided housing is a regular request. You can read what our clients say, see answers to common questions, or get in touch about a particular address.
Local information from City of Lapeer — rental registration program and inspection checklist · City of Lapeer — Building Department, permits and inspection scheduling · City of Lapeer — Department of Public Works, water and sewer system. Municipal requirements change — verify current details with the municipality.
Why choose us
Five reasons people here pick us as their Lapeer 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
No. The City’s published inspection checklist belongs to its rental registration program, not to sales of owner-occupied property, and we found no point-of-sale requirement. The checklist is still worth reading before you buy, because it is a dated public statement of what this municipality considers safe, decent and sanitary.
Rental property must be registered with the Building Department, inspected, and issued a certificate with an expiration date. The application also requires a current furnace or boiler report from a licensed mechanical contractor confirming the appliance has been cleaned and tuned and that no trace of carbon monoxide is found. If violations are found, a re-inspection fee applies before it can be rescheduled.
Not where a permit is involved. The City states that homeowner permits may not be issued for rental properties and that a licensed contractor is required for all permitted work on a rental unit. That is worth factoring into the cost of any property you intend to let.
The City’s position is unambiguous: work found done without permits, no matter how long ago, will require a permit to be issued and the appropriate inspections completed before the violation is removed. There is no age at which it lapses, which is why the permit history is worth pulling on any property here with obvious alterations.
The City’s checklist states that screw-in fuses must be type S only. Type S fuses use an adapter that fixes the size, so a circuit cannot later be fitted with a fuse rated above the wiring. On a stock where 721 units predate 1940, fuse panels still turn up, and this is one of the more checkable items on the list.
Starting with the 2026 rental renewal cycle, where more than one smoke alarm is required within a dwelling unit, Lapeer requires the alarms to be interconnected so that one sounding activates all of them, clearly audible in all bedrooms with the doors closed. The City notes that wireless alarms meeting the relevant NFPA standard are compliant, which makes this achievable without opening walls.
Through the City’s online system, up to 4:00pm the day before. The City reviews every request before accepting it and will send email notification if a request is denied. Contractors must also be registered with the City, which issues a unique PIN before an account can be linked.
On this housing stock, usually yes. The lateral belongs to the owner, and on a prewar house it may have been in the ground close to a century under mature trees. On a converted property the risk is higher again, because added units are commonly tied into one original line laid for a single household. A camera inspection documents what is actually in there and is added to the same visit.
More on cost, timing and what is included on the FAQ page.
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Claim the Hero DiscountNeed a Lapeer home inspector and not sure we reach you? Call 734-331-3269 and we will tell you.
Permits, assessing and property records for Lapeer are handled by Lapeer, Michigan, not by us.
From the blog
October 22, 2017
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Your local Lapeer home inspector, seven days a week. Home inspection reports in 24 hours.
