Saint Clair Shores, Michigan
Looking for a Saint Clair Shores home inspector? We do certified home, commercial, mold and radon inspections in Saint Clair Shores, 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 Clair Shores 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 Clair Shores and across Macomb 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 Clair Shores 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 Clair Shores housing stock
Saint Clair Shores has roughly 28,365 housing units and about 81% of them are single-family detached. Housing that went up mostly in one era has mostly one era’s problems — which is genuinely useful to know before you buy, because it tells you what to look at first.
Most of it went up in the 1950s — 13,906 homes, around 49% of the town.
The median owner-occupied home here is valued at $181,300. Around 899 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.
None of this is a prediction about a particular house. It is where a Saint Clair Shores home inspector starts looking in a home of this age, and what we photograph and write up either way.
Housing figures: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2022 five-year estimates.
When Saint Clair Shores was built
89% of homes here run on utility gas, and 23 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 274 use bottled or LP gas.
Local knowledge
Two things, and the second one may be the single most useful fact on any of our city pages.
First, the housing. Of roughly 28,365 units, about 49% were built in the 1950s alone, with a median build year of 1958 and around 81% single-family detached — the highest detached share of any large community we have looked at closely. Half the city went up in one decade, and almost all of it is houses rather than apartments or condominiums. That makes it unusually uniform: your neighbor’s house is very likely the same age and often much the same design as yours.
Which cuts the usual way. When everything is the same age, the build year stops distinguishing one property from another, and roughly seventy years of individual maintenance decisions do it instead. What has been replaced, when, and what condition it is in now is the whole question.
The second thing is about the pipe under your lawn — and under the road. The City is clearer about it than most municipalities manage, and it is worth reading carefully before you buy here.
Before you buy
The buried line
Most cities in this region leave the private and public sewer boundary vague, and on those pages we say plainly that we could not source it. St. Clair Shores states it — and then adds a detail almost nobody expects.
The Sewer Division says the city is responsible for the main sewer line, and the homeowner is responsible for the line that leads from the home to the point where it attaches to the city’s main — which, in the City’s own words, may be across the street.
Think about what that means in practice. Where the main runs down the far side of the road, the privately owned run can extend from the house, across the front lawn, under the curb and under the roadway before it reaches city pipe. All of it is the owner’s to maintain, repair and replace. A failure out there is a different proposition from a failure beside the house, and it is the strongest argument we have seen anywhere for knowing the condition of that line before you own it rather than after.
The City adds two pieces of advice worth repeating. It suggests a routine annual maintenance plan for the sanitary sewer. And it is emphatic that under no circumstances should a resident contract to have a sewer line excavated without first obtaining a permit and arranging inspection from the Community Development Department — useful to know if anyone offers to start digging quickly.
We will not name a material from a build year, because no authoritative source establishes what St. Clair Shores 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 — along however much of that run the camera can travel. It is added to the same visit.
Water
This is the other thing a buyer here should check, and the City has already done the hard part.
The Sewer Division publishes a St. Clair Shores combined sewer area map, alongside a diagram of home sewer lines. A combined sewer is one pipe carrying both storm water and sanitary flow rather than two separate systems, which is a normal arrangement in cities built when much of this one was — and it is relevant to basements, because heavy rain and household waste share the same capacity.
We are not going to tell you which streets are in that area or what it means for a particular address. The City has mapped it; that map is the authority, and it is worth looking at for the property you are considering. What we can tell you is the condition of what is at the house: accessible grading, gutters and downspouts, foundation conditions, the basement or crawlspace, and sump equipment where it is present, documented as found.
If a backup does happen, the City sets out the route. Contact the Department of Public Works to report an overflow or backup of sewage or storm water — the City notes this is required under Michigan Public Act 222 — and a separate flood claim form goes to the Finance Department. Worth noting that every city in this region routes that claim differently, so check where this one wants it rather than assuming. We are relaying what the City publishes, not advising on it.
What the City does and does not check
St. Clair Shores does issue Certificates of Occupancy, so it is worth being precise about what they are for.
Read the City’s guidelines and the scope is clear: a Certificate of Occupancy is required alongside a business license, and the departmental review covers parking based on the zoning ordinance, parking lot striping and drainage, dumpster maintenance and enclosure, signage, and screen walls between the site and adjacent residential property. That is a commercial process. We found no residential point-of-sale requirement here — confirm for a specific address with Community Development and Inspections, but do not plan around a municipal inspection of the house.
Where none happens at sale, a home buyer inspection is the one working for you: roof, structure, foundation, drainage, electrical, heating and cooling, plumbing and the accessible interior, photographed and written up with how urgent each finding is.
The rest fits the same appointment — 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.
Seventy years on
A 49% concentration in the 1950s is remarkable even in a region full of postwar suburbs, and it changes how you should read a listing here.
When almost every house on a street went up within a few years of the others, age stops being a distinguishing feature. What separates two St. Clair Shores houses is what roughly seventy years of owners chose to do — which roofs were renewed and when, which furnaces and water heaters were replaced, what happened to the electrical service, whether windows were changed, what was done in the basement.
None of that is knowable from the build year, and we will not guess at it. Some 1956 houses here have been comprehensively updated; others have original components still running. The only way to tell them apart is to look at the house in front of you, which is what an inspection is.
With 81% of the housing single-family detached, that is what most buyers here are actually purchasing — a whole building and everything in it, with no association to share the roof or the envelope with. All of it yours, and all of it worth understanding first.
Local information from City of St. Clair Shores — Sewer Division · City of St. Clair Shores — file a flood claim · City of St. Clair Shores — Community Development & Inspections · City of St. Clair Shores — Certificate of Occupancy guidelines. Municipal requirements change — verify current details with the municipality.
Radon in Macomb County
Zone 3 is the lowest of the three EPA categories — the predicted average indoor level across the county is below 2 pCi/L. So Saint Clair Shores is not where Michigan’s alarming radon numbers are, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
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 · Macomb County radon and inspection coverage
Zone from the EPA Map of Radon Zones.
Why choose us
Five reasons people here pick us as their Saint Clair Shores 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 did our inspection for the sale of our home and he was professional, efficient and friendly. The report was sent to me and my agent in a timely fashion and I appreciated how quickly the appointment was made and everything was finished! Would recommend to others.
Kendra AllenRoseville, 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 homeowner, and further than most people expect. The City states that it is responsible for the main sewer line, while the homeowner is responsible for the line that leads from the home to the point where it attaches to the city’s main — which, in the City’s own words, may be across the street. Where the main runs down the far side of the road, the privately owned run can extend from the house, across the lawn and under the roadway before it reaches city pipe. The City also suggests a routine annual maintenance plan for the sanitary sewer.
This is one of the strongest cases anywhere in the region, because of how much of the line is yours. The City says the homeowner is responsible all the way to the connection with the main, which may be across the street — so a failure can occur under the roadway on your side of the ledger. The line is buried, no visual inspection can see inside it, and we would not guess a material from a build year; no authoritative source establishes what St. Clair Shores laterals are generally made of. Putting a camera down the line documents roots, cracks, displaced joints, bellies or blockages where they exist. It is added to the same appointment.
Part of the city does, and the City has mapped it. The Sewer Division publishes a St. Clair Shores combined sewer area map alongside a diagram of home sewer lines. A combined sewer carries storm water and sanitary flow in the same pipe rather than in two separate systems, which is a common arrangement in cities built when much of this one was, and it is relevant to basements because rainfall and household waste share the same capacity. We would not tell you which streets are affected — the City’s map is the authority, and it is worth checking for the property you are considering.
Strikingly uniform. About 49% of the roughly 28,365 housing units were built in the 1950s alone, with a median build year of 1958, and around 81% are single-family detached — the highest detached share of any large community we have looked at closely. Half the city went up in one decade. The practical consequence is that the build year distinguishes almost nothing: what separates two houses here is roughly seventy years of individual maintenance decisions, which only an inspection of the actual property can establish.
We found no residential point-of-sale requirement. The City does issue Certificates of Occupancy, which causes confusion, but its own guidelines require a business license alongside and the review covers parking lot striping and drainage, dumpster enclosures, signage and screen walls to adjacent residential property. It is a commercial process. Confirm for a specific address with Community Development and Inspections, and in the meantime plan on your own inspection being the one examining the house on your behalf.
Contact the Department of Public Works to report an overflow or backup of sewage or storm water — the City notes this is required under Michigan Public Act 222 — and after hours the police dispatch line will reach someone. A separate flood claim form goes to the Finance Department. Worth knowing that municipalities across this region route the same statutory claim to different offices, so check where this one wants it rather than assuming. We are relaying what the City publishes rather than giving legal advice.
Yes. You can book a Saint Clair Shores home inspector with us seven days a week, and we cover the rest of Macomb 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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