Rochester Hills, Michigan
Looking for a Rochester Hills home inspector? We do certified home, commercial, mold and radon inspections in Rochester Hills, 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 Rochester Hills 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 Rochester Hills 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 Rochester Hills 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 reportRochester Hills housing stock
Rochester Hills has roughly 30,721 housing units and about 66% 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 1980s, which accounts for 8,121 homes, around 26% of the housing stock.
The median owner-occupied home here is valued at $359,800. There are around 1,325 manufactured and mobile homes in Rochester Hills. Those are a different inspection — the questions are about the frame, the anchoring and the skirting rather than a basement. Around 959 homes sit in two-to-four unit buildings, where a shared roof, a shared wall and sometimes a shared furnace mean the report has to be clear about where one unit stops.
Treat this as a starting list, not a diagnosis. A Rochester Hills 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 Rochester Hills was built
89% of homes here run on utility gas, and 29 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 346 use bottled or LP gas.
Local knowledge
Rochester Hills is a 1980s city, and it has an unusually clear answer to the question most communities leave vague.
Of roughly 30,721 housing units, about 26% date from the 1980s, 22% from the 1970s and 17% from the 1990s, with a median build year of 1983 and around 66% single-family detached. Only about a fifth of the city predates 1970. So the postwar concerns that dominate Warren, Royal Oak or Garden City largely do not apply here.
What does apply is the arithmetic of a forty-year-old house. Roof coverings, furnaces, air conditioning condensers and water heaters all have expected service lives shorter than that, so on a 1983 house each has been replaced at least once or is running well past its design life. Which of those is true for a particular property is what an inspection establishes.
The clear answer is on the water side, and it is worth reading before you buy.
Before you buy
Water
Across the towns we write about, two questions come up constantly and are almost never answered clearly. Rochester Hills answers both in the same paragraph.
The first is lead. Michigan adopted some of the strictest lead and copper provisions in the country in 2018, requiring every water system to inventory its service lines. Rochester Hills did the work using a Drinking Water Asset Management grant from the state, stating that no expense would be incurred by its water customers. Its conclusion is that following a multi-year effort to identify water service lines, the Department of Public Services can report the city lead-free for service line pipe material used in its distribution system.
The second is ownership, and this is the part worth writing down. The City specifies that its finding covers both the publicly-owned portion, which it defines as running from the water main to the curb stop, and the privately-owned portion, from the curb stop to the meter inside the building. That is the boundary most municipalities in this region leave you to guess at — and on other pages we have had to say plainly that we could not source it.
Our position does not change: a home inspection does not determine water service line material, and the age of a house does not answer it. But in Rochester Hills the City has already done that work and published the result, which is a better answer than most buyers get anywhere.
Cross connections
This one surprises new residents, and it is worth knowing what it is when it lands.
Under Michigan’s Safe Drinking Water Act the City runs a cross connection control program, and it has contracted the inspections to an outside firm, with letters going out to residents in phases across the city rather than all at once. A cross connection is an arrangement of piping that could let undesirable water, sewage or chemical solutions enter the drinking water system through backflow, and the City is explicit that they can be present in a residential water system, not only a commercial one.
In an ordinary house the usual candidates are things people install without much thought — a lawn irrigation system, a water-driven backup sump pump, a hose left submerged, a water treatment system plumbed straight to a drain. Participation in the program is required, so the letter is not optional correspondence.
We are not the cross connection inspector and we do not issue findings under that program. But during an inspection we are looking at the plumbing, the exterior hose connections and any sump equipment anyway, and we report what we see. Knowing the City’s program exists means a buyer is not caught out by it later.
What the City does and does not check
We found no residential point-of-sale requirement in Rochester Hills. Confirm the position for a specific address with the Building Department, but do not plan around a municipal inspection of the house that may not exist.
What the City does offer is research. Property information including permits and outstanding or past violations is searchable by address through the City’s online property lookup, so you can see the paper history of a house before you commit. Treat it the way you should treat any permit record: a permit does not establish that work is in good condition today, and nothing on file does not establish that it was done badly.
Where no municipal inspection happens at sale, a home buyer inspection is the one looking at the property on your behalf — roof, structure, foundation, drainage, electrical, heating and cooling, plumbing and the accessible interior, photographed and written up with how urgent each finding is.
The buried line
It is worth being clear about the difference, because the City’s good work on one does not extend to the other.
The lead-free finding and the curb-stop boundary describe the water service line — the pipe bringing clean water in. The sanitary sewer lateral is a separate pipe running the other way, and there is no equivalent published inventory of what those are made of or what condition they are in. We will not name a material from a build year, because no authoritative source establishes what Rochester Hills laterals are generally made of.
A forty-year-old lateral has had time for tree roots to reach a joint, for ground to settle around backfill and leave a belly, or for damage during later work in the yard. 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. It is added to the same visit.
The rest fits that appointment too: commercial building inspections to the CCPIA standard for offices, retail, multifamily and warehouse property, and radon testing or mold inspection and testing added to a residential or commercial visit.
Local information from City of Rochester Hills — DPS Water and Sewer · City of Rochester Hills — Building Department · City of Rochester Hills — building FAQs. 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. 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 · 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 Rochester Hills 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
The City reports not. After a multi-year effort to identify water service lines under Michigan’s strengthened lead and copper rule, the Department of Public Services reports the city lead-free for service line pipe material used in its distribution system — and unusually it specifies that this covers both the publicly-owned portion, from the water main to the curb stop, and the privately-owned portion, from the curb stop to the meter inside the building. The work was funded by a state Drinking Water Asset Management grant with no expense to water customers. A home inspection does not determine service line material; the City has already published the answer.
Rochester Hills defines it more clearly than most communities in this region. The City describes the publicly-owned portion of a water service line as running from the water main to the curb stop, and the privately-owned portion as running from the curb stop to the meter inside the building. Note that this describes the water supply line. The sanitary sewer lateral is a separate pipe and we did not find an equivalent published statement for it, so we are not going to invent one — the Department of Public Services is the place to confirm that for a specific address.
Because Rochester Hills runs a cross connection control program under Michigan’s Safe Drinking Water Act, and it contracts the inspections to an outside firm that writes to residents in phases across the city. A cross connection is piping that could allow undesirable water, sewage or chemical solutions into the drinking water system through backflow, and the City is explicit that these can be present in a residential system. Common household examples are lawn irrigation systems, water-driven backup sump pumps, submerged hoses and water treatment equipment plumbed directly to a drain. Participation is required.
Newer than most of the region. The median build year is 1983, and of roughly 30,721 housing units about 26% date from the 1980s, 22% from the 1970s and 17% from the 1990s, with only around a fifth predating 1970. Roughly 66% are single-family detached. A 1983 house is now about forty years old, which is past the expected service life of an original roof covering, furnace, air conditioning condenser and water heater — so the useful question is which have been renewed, not what the build year was.
We found no residential point-of-sale requirement. The Building Department handles permits, plan review and inspections of permitted work rather than resale certificates. What the City does provide is useful for a buyer: property information including permits and outstanding or past violations is searchable by address online. Confirm the position for a specific address with the Building Department, and in the meantime plan on your own inspection being the one examining the property on your behalf.
It is worth considering, and the reason is that the City’s good documentation covers the water line rather than the sewer one. The lead-free finding and the curb-stop boundary describe the pipe bringing water in; the sanitary lateral is a different pipe with no equivalent published inventory. It is buried, no visual inspection sees inside it, and we would not guess a material from a build year. Forty years is ample time for roots to reach a joint or for settlement to leave a belly. Putting a camera down the line answers it directly and is added to the same appointment.
Yes. You can book a Rochester Hills home inspector with us seven days a week, and we cover the rest of Oakland County too.
A home inspection report reaches you within 24 hours. Commercial buildings are 24 to 72 hours depending on size, a radon result comes at the end of the 48-hour test, and mold samples come back from the lab in one to three business days.
More on cost, timing and what is included on the FAQ page.
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Claim the Hero DiscountNeed a Rochester Hills home inspector and not sure we reach you? Call 734-331-3269 and we will tell you.
Permits, assessing and property records for Rochester Hills are handled by Rochester Hills, Michigan, not by us.
From the blog
October 22, 2017
Your local Rochester Hills home inspector, seven days a week. Home inspection reports in 24 hours.
