Lyon Township, Michigan
Looking for a Lyon Township home inspector? We do certified home, commercial, mold and radon inspections in Lyon Township, 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 Lyon Township 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 Lyon Township and across Oakland 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 Lyon Township 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 reportLyon Township housing stock
Lyon Township has roughly 8,298 housing units and about 79% 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 2010s: 2,666 homes, about 32% of everything standing today.
The median owner-occupied home here is valued at $426,900. 89% are owner-occupied, which is high even for this area. There are around 672 manufactured and mobile homes in Lyon Township. 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 Lyon Township 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 Lyon Township was built
87% of homes here run on utility gas, and 16 still heat with oil. If yours is one of them, the tank is the thing to ask about — where it is, and whether it was ever buried. Another 123 use bottled or LP gas.
Local knowledge
Lyon Township has the newest housing of any community we cover. About 33% of it was built in 2010 or later — 2,666 units in that decade alone, out of roughly 8,298 — which is more than double the next town on our list.
And a great many of those new houses are on a private well and a private septic system.
That combination catches people out. A buyer moving from an older suburb assumes new construction means municipal everything, and a buyer who has owned a well before assumes an old farmhouse. Here you can have a 2016 house with a well in the yard and a drainfield behind it, and the Township puts the test in one sentence: if you are not on the Township municipal sewer system you have a private septic system, and if you are not on the Township municipal water system you have a private well.
So the first question on any property here is which of the four combinations you are buying — and it is not something you can tell by looking at the house.
Before you buy
Wells and septic
Most municipalities leave a buyer to work out what a property is connected to. Lyon Township answers it in two sentences on its well and septic page: if you are not on the Township municipal sewer system, you have a private septic system; if you are not on the Township municipal water system, you have a private well.
On the septic side, the Township points to Oakland County’s Environmental Health Unit, which issues permits and conducts construction and final inspections for on-site sewage disposal systems and reviews site evaluations for proposed subdivisions and site condominium projects. The County reports over 80,000 on-site sewage disposal systems across residential and commercial property.
On the well side, the Township carries a quotation from the county health officer that is worth reading twice: homeowners are strongly encouraged to test their drinking water, because the Health Division does not monitor private wells. Nobody is checking it for you.
The Health Division recommends testing annually for bacteria — total coliform — plus nitrate and nitrite, and recommends additional testing where there are known water problems in the area; after flooding, land disturbance or issues near waste disposal sites; when any part of the well system has been repaired or replaced; where the well has a history of bacterial contamination; when the septic system has recently malfunctioned; where household members or guests have recurrent gastrointestinal illness; or where an infant is living in the home. Specific Health Division sample bottles must be used, and it publishes the prices — $6 for bacteria and $5 for a partial chemical panel covering nitrate, nitrite, chloride, fluoride and sulfate — available at its Pontiac and Southfield offices. The State drinking water laboratory offers further tests including arsenic and lead.
To be plain about our own limits: a home inspection does not test water. We do not take samples and we do not analyze them. Well and septic evaluation is a separate discipline with its own credentials, and on a property with private systems you will want that arranged alongside — not instead of — the building inspection.
New houses are not unquestioned houses
There is a persistent idea that a recently built house does not need inspecting. In a township where a third of the stock went up since 2010, it is worth addressing directly.
A house built in 2011 is fifteen years old. The water heater is at or past the end of its typical service life. The air conditioning condenser is approaching it. The roof covering is halfway through. The furnace has years left but is no longer new. That is the first round of replacements arriving, and it arrives all at once on a house whose components all went in together.
Newer construction also has its own recurring findings, and they are not the ones people expect. Grading that settled after backfill and now falls back toward the foundation is the single most common source of water in a newer basement. Flashing at complicated roof geometry, attic ventilation, and how a finished lower level was framed, insulated and ventilated are the others. Deck ledger attachment and egress from below-grade sleeping rooms come up regularly.
For reference, the Township publishes the codes currently in effect: residential building, electrical and plumbing under the Michigan Residential Code 2015, with the 2021 International Fire Code and the Michigan Energy Code 2015, while the commercial set runs newer — the Michigan Building Code 2021, the Rehabilitation Code for Existing Buildings 2021, and the Michigan Electrical Code 2023.
A buyer’s inspection reports the roof, structure, foundation, drainage, electrical, heating and cooling, plumbing and accessible interior as found — what is failing, what is near the end of its service life, and what to plan for. On new construction that last column is the useful one.
Water quality
The Township maintains a page headed PFAS — the forever chemicals — carrying a flyer on health impacts, what the Township is doing and how the public can help, alongside a video on compliance and challenges.
We are pointing you at it rather than summarizing it. The material sits in a document and a video rather than in text we could read, and we are not going to characterize anyone’s water on the strength of a page heading. If water quality matters to your decision — and on a property with a private well it should — the Township’s own material and the Oakland County Health Division are the right sources, in that order.
What an inspection does cover on the water side is the building: the accessible supply and drain plumbing and the materials visible at it, the water heater, functional flow and drainage, evidence of leaks or past repairs, and any treatment equipment installed — softeners, filters and the like are common on well water and their type, age and condition are worth recording.
Outside, we record accessible grading and how the ground falls away from the foundation, gutters and downspouts and where they discharge, foundation conditions, the basement or crawlspace, floor drains and any sump equipment. Where a line disappears underground we say so rather than guessing.
The buried line
On a property connected to municipal sewer, the buried lateral running to the main is the one component nothing visual reaches.
Newer housing gets a pass on this and should not. A house built in 2011 has a lateral that has been in the ground fifteen years, and the landscaping planted with it has had the same fifteen years to grow. Construction-era damage is the other consideration on new subdivisions: heavy equipment, deep excavation and backfill are hard on buried pipe, and a defect from installation does not announce itself for years. We will not name a material from a build year, because no authoritative source establishes what Lyon Township 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 — and it is added to the same visit rather than booked separately. On a property with a septic system the question is different and belongs to the county evaluation, not to us.
Alongside it, commercial building inspections follow the CCPIA standard for offices, retail, multifamily and warehouse property, and radon testing or mold inspection and testing can be added to a residential or commercial visit.
Local information from Lyon Township — well and septic, and Oakland County well testing guidance · Lyon Township — PFAS information · Lyon Township — Building Department and codes in effect. Municipal requirements change — verify current details with the municipality.
Radon in Oakland County
Zone 2 is the middle EPA category — the predicted average indoor level across the county sits between 2 and 4 pCi/L. What a zone cannot tell you is anything about one house: 29% of tests actually run in Oakland County still came back at or above the EPA’s 4 pCi/L action level. A zone is an average taken across a whole county, and no house is 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 · Oakland 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 Lyon Township 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, MIExcellent sums up the entire experience, from the initial call to set up the appointment with staff that was informative and helpful, up until the actual inspection that was very professional and thorough with any and all questions I had answered. I would highly recommend Trademark to anyone who needs inspection services. Thanks again Curt, my inspector, for an excellent job.
Johnny Thomas JrSouthfield, MIWhat happens
Questions
Not necessarily, and that surprises people. A third of the township’s housing was built in 2010 or later and plenty of it is on a private well and septic system. The Township puts the test simply: if you are not on the Township municipal sewer system you have a private septic system, and if you are not on the Township municipal water system you have a private well. It is not something you can tell by looking at the house, so establish it early.
You do. The Township carries a quotation from the Oakland County health officer making the point directly: homeowners are strongly encouraged to test their drinking water because the Health Division does not monitor private wells. The recommendation is annual testing for bacteria — total coliform — plus nitrate and nitrite, using Health Division sample bottles, priced at $6 for bacteria and $5 for a partial chemical panel.
The Health Division lists the triggers: known water problems in the area; flooding, land disturbance or issues near waste disposal sites close to the well; any part of the well system being repaired or replaced; a history of bacterial contamination; a septic system that has recently malfunctioned; recurrent gastrointestinal illness among household members or guests; or an infant living in the home. The State drinking water laboratory offers further tests including arsenic and lead.
No to both. We do not take water samples and we do not analyze them, and septic evaluation is a separate discipline with its own credentials. Oakland County’s Environmental Health Unit permits and inspects on-site sewage disposal systems. On a property with private systems you will want those arranged alongside a building inspection rather than instead of one.
The newest of any community we cover. Of about 8,298 housing units, 2,666 were built in the 2010s alone — roughly a third of the whole township — with 1,525 from the 2000s and 1,430 from the 1990s. Fewer than 1,100 units predate 1970. Around 79% is single-family detached.
Yes, and the reasons are specific rather than general. A 2011 house is fifteen years old: the water heater is at or past its typical service life, the air conditioning condenser is approaching it, and the roof covering is halfway through. Newer construction also has its own recurring findings — grading that settled after backfill and now falls toward the foundation, flashing at complicated roof geometry, attic ventilation, how a finished lower level was framed and ventilated, deck ledger attachment, and egress from below-grade sleeping rooms.
It publishes a page on the subject with a flyer covering health impacts, what the Township is doing and how the public can help, plus a video on compliance and challenges. We are pointing you at that material rather than summarizing it, because it sits in a document and a video rather than in text we could read, and we are not going to characterize anyone’s water on the strength of a page heading. The Township’s material and the Oakland County Health Division are the right sources.
If the property is on municipal sewer, yes. A house built in 2011 has a lateral that has been in the ground fifteen years with landscaping growing beside it the whole time, and new subdivisions carry a second risk — heavy equipment, deep excavation and backfill are hard on buried pipe, and an installation defect does not announce itself for years. 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.
More on cost, timing and what is included on the FAQ page.
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From the blog
April 5, 2024
October 22, 2017
Your local Lyon Township home inspector, seven days a week. Home inspection reports in 24 hours.
