Saint Charles, Michigan
Looking for a Saint Charles home inspector? We do certified home, commercial, mold and radon inspections in Saint Charles, 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 Saint Charles 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 Saint Charles and across Saginaw 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 Saint Charles 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 reportSaint Charles housing stock
Saint Charles has roughly 833 housing units and about 80% 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: 212 homes, about 25% of everything standing today.
The median owner-occupied home here is valued at $99,700.
None of this says anything about the specific house you are buying. It is the shortlist a Saint Charles 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 Saint Charles was built
90% of homes here run on utility gas. Another 7 use bottled or LP gas.
Local knowledge
In most places, two different people answer the two questions that matter when you buy a property you intend to change. One office tells you whether you may do it — zoning. A different office tells you whether it has been done correctly — building inspection. The two frequently give answers that do not quite line up.
In Saint Charles they are the same person. The village states that its building inspector also answers questions about zoning regulations, with the village manager as an alternative. That is a genuine advantage, and it is worth using: one call can settle both halves of a question that usually takes two.
His formal office window is small — Wednesday mornings, eight until half past ten — but the village publishes that he can be reached at any time on his mobile, and that permits can be obtained either by downloading them from the website or by speaking to him directly. So the narrow counter hours matter less here than they would elsewhere.
The village also publishes a zoning ordinance dated 2023, which is more recent than most of the zoning text we come across, alongside a 2018 master plan and its code of ordinances online.
On the housing, about 212 of roughly 833 units predate 1940 and another 176 date from the 1970s. Unusually for a village this size, it is still adding a few houses — there are units recorded in both the 2010s and the 2020s.
Before you buy
Permits and zoning
The village’s building permits page publishes six permit documents — building, electrical, mechanical, plumbing, sign and zoning — and names one inspector as the contact for all of them, and for zoning questions as well.
That matters more than it sounds. The classic small-purchase disaster is discovering that something was built correctly but should never have been built there, or that a use is permitted but the structure enabling it was never inspected. When the same person holds both files, you can ask about a specific address once and get an answer that covers both.
So make the list before you call: what does the zoning permit for this parcel, what permit history exists for the building, and is there anything on the property that looks like it was done without one.
That last question is where an inspection earns its place. A home inspection is not a permit search or a zoning opinion and we do not present it as one. What it does is establish what is physically present and in what condition, and flag work that appears to have been done without the benefit of a permit — which turns a vague inquiry into a specific one.
The village publishes a separate zoning permit alongside the building permit, so the two are distinct pieces of paper even though the same person deals with them. If you are planning anything, establish which you need.
A buyer’s inspection is the usual starting point, and commercial building inspections to the CCPIA standard are available where a building is commercial.
Public works
The village’s public works department is three full-time staff — two crew members and a superintendent — and between them they cover street maintenance, park maintenance, water and sewer operations and maintenance, yard waste collection and whatever special projects the village manager assigns.
That is a very broad remit for three people, and it is worth knowing when you are deciding how quickly a non-urgent request is likely to move. It also means the person who knows the water and sewer system is the person who knows the streets, which can be genuinely useful when a question spans both.
The village publishes a sanitary and water utilities financial report under the SAW program. The copy on the website did not yield readable text when we looked, so we cannot tell you what is in it — we are naming it rather than paraphrasing, because a utilities asset report is exactly the kind of document a buyer would want and exactly the kind we should not guess at.
On the drainage an inspection does cover, we record where the downspouts terminate and whether they carry water clear of the walls or drop it at the foundation, where any sump pump discharges and whether there is a backup arrangement, and how the ground falls away from the building on every elevation.
Inside, we look for what past water has left behind: staining and tide lines on foundation walls, efflorescence and mineral deposits, replaced lower wall finishes, and corrosion at the base of mechanical equipment. On a house eighty years old the original arrangement has usually been altered more than once.
The housing
The two big groups here are the 212 units predating 1940 and the 176 from the 1970s, and they need quite different attention.
On the older stock the inspection reads eighty or more years of accumulated change. Electrical rebuilt in stages by different hands, with mixed wiring types meeting in the same box, ungrounded receptacles, undersized or overfilled panels and overfused circuits. Plumbing renewed in part rather than in whole, so material transitions where old meets new are where problems concentrate. Several generations of roof covering.
Foundations of that era are usually stone or early block, and their condition depends far more on how water has been managed around the building than on how they were originally built.
On the 1970s houses, now past fifty, aluminum branch wiring is a live question and we report it wherever we find it. Original service capacity is often the practical limit on modern electrical loads, and roofs, furnaces and water heaters will be two or three replacements deep. How well each replacement was fitted and vented matters more than how new the current one looks.
Windows on the 1970s stock are a mixed picture — some original, some replaced once, occasionally both on the same house. Failed seals in double glazing show as clouding or deposits between the panes and we note them individually.
At 80% detached housing, garages, sheds and workshops are normal parts of a property here and we inspect them as part of it. Radon testing and mold inspection and testing can be added to any visit.
Governance
Saint Charles uses the council and manager form of government: the village manager is a professionally trained appointed executive running day-to-day operations, the budget and the staff, while the elected council acts as the legislative body.
For a buyer that is mostly useful as a routing question. Policy and ordinance matters sit with the council; operational ones — a utility issue, a service request, a question about how something is actually done — sit with the manager and the departments.
The manager is also named as an alternative contact for zoning questions, so if the inspector is out on inspections there is a second route to an answer.
The village clerk holds the records: minutes, licenses, permits, contracts and the official record of what the council has enacted, under a formal retention program. If you need the documented history of a decision affecting a property, that is the office to ask.
None of this is inspection business. It is included because knowing who does what saves time, and in a village of this size the difference between calling the right person and the wrong one can be a week.
The buried line
The line running out from the building belongs to the owner, and no visual inspection reaches inside it. Under a pre-1940 house it is often the oldest untouched component on the whole property; under a 1970s house it is past fifty.
We will not name a material from a build year. Nothing published establishes what Saint Charles lines are generally made of, and with the village’s own utilities report unreadable to us, a guess would be worse than no statement at all.
A sewer camera inspection records what is actually in there: roots, cracks, displaced joints, bellies or blockages where they exist, and a clear run where they do not. In an old platted village with mature street trees, roots are the common finding, and they give no warning until the day the drains back up.
With a three-person public works department, a blockage that turns out to be on the private side is your problem to solve on your own timetable — which is a further argument for knowing the condition of the line before you own it.
A camera inspection is added to the same appointment rather than booked separately, 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, or get in touch about a specific address in Saint Charles.
Local information from Village of Saint Charles — building permits, the inspector and zoning · Village of Saint Charles — Department of Public Works · Village of Saint Charles — Village Manager and form of government · Village of Saint Charles — departments. Municipal requirements change — verify current details with the municipality.
Why choose us
Five reasons people here pick us as their Saint Charles 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
A shout out to Noah for the inspection of our new house. He was very professional and thorough. He is also accessible after the fact — I have called him twice for clarification on our roofing issue and he has been so friendly and answered all of my questions.
Susan LawhonBridgeport, 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
The building inspector, who the village states also answers zoning questions, or the village manager as an alternative. Having both answers from one person is unusual and genuinely useful.
His published office hours are Wednesdays from eight until half past ten, but the village states he can be reached at any time on his mobile, and that permits can be downloaded from the website or obtained from him directly.
Six: building, electrical, mechanical, plumbing, sign and zoning. The zoning permit is separate from the building permit, so establish which you need before starting.
The village publishes a zoning ordinance dated 2023, which is more recent than much of the zoning text we encounter, alongside a 2018 master plan and its code of ordinances online.
The village public works department, which is three full-time staff covering water and sewer operations alongside streets, parks and yard waste. The village also publishes a sanitary and water utilities financial report.
We cannot tell you. The copy on the village website did not yield readable text when we looked, so we are naming it rather than paraphrasing it. Ask the village office.
It splits. About 212 of roughly 833 units predate 1940 and 176 date from the 1970s. The village is also still adding a little housing, with units recorded in both the 2010s and the 2020s.
Yes. Under a pre-1940 house the line is often the oldest untouched component on the property, and mature street trees make roots the common finding. A camera inspection goes on the same visit.
More on cost, timing and what is included on the FAQ page.
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From the blog
October 22, 2017
May 18, 2024
Your local Saint Charles home inspector, seven days a week. Home inspection reports in 24 hours.
