Shelby Township, Michigan
Looking for a Shelby Township home inspector? We do certified home, commercial, mold and radon inspections in Shelby 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 Shelby 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 Shelby Township 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 Shelby 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 reportShelby Township housing stock
Shelby Township has roughly 33,169 housing units and about 63% 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 1990s — 7,979 homes, around 24% of the town.
The median owner-occupied home here is valued at $316,400. There are around 1,613 manufactured and mobile homes in Shelby Township. Those are a different inspection — the questions are about the frame, the anchoring and the skirting rather than a basement. Around 1,610 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 Shelby Township 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 Shelby Township was built
91% of homes here run on utility gas, and 27 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 241 use bottled or LP gas.
Local knowledge
Almost everything written about inspecting homes in this region assumes a postwar suburb. Shelby Township is not one, and starting from that assumption would get it wrong.
The median build year here is 1989. Of roughly 33,169 housing units, the largest single group — about 24% — dates from the 1990s, followed by 16% from the 2000s, 15% from the 1980s and 14% from the 1970s. Only around one unit in five predates 1970. About 63% are single-family detached, so there is a meaningful amount of attached and multi-unit housing as well.
That changes what an inspection is looking for. A house built in 1992 is not dealing with sixty-year-old wiring or a chimney from another era. What it is dealing with is a different and equally real list: a roof covering now on its second life or overdue, an original furnace and air conditioning condenser well past typical service life, a water heater that has almost certainly been replaced at least once, and thirty-odd years of whatever each owner decided to do about it.
Shelby Township also runs one municipal inspection program that reaches into houses — and it is not about buying or selling. More on that below.
Before you buy
Water
Most municipal inspection programs in this region are triggered by a sale or a tenancy. Shelby Township runs one that is triggered by neither, and it is worth understanding as a homeowner rather than just as a buyer.
Under the direction of Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy, the Township carries out inspections on residential properties for cross connections. A cross connection is an actual or potential link between the safe drinking water supply and a source of contamination, and state plumbing codes require approved backflow prevention at every point of potable water connection and use.
What makes this genuinely useful is that the Township publishes what it means in an actual house. Its examples of potential cross connections in a residence are lawn irrigation systems, water-assisted backup sump pumps, unprotected hose bibs, hard-piped pool or pond fills, and a boiler used for heating. Its guidance includes fitting a hose bibb vacuum breaker on threaded faucets, making sure a water softener has an air gap of at least an inch above any drain, ensuring a water backup sump pump has backflow protection, and keeping a physical disconnection between municipal water and any well or lake used for irrigation.
Every item on that list is a physical thing in a real house. During an inspection we are already looking at the plumbing, the sump equipment, the exterior hose connections and the heating system, and we report what we find. The compliance judgment belongs to the Township — we are not the cross connection inspector — but a buyer who knows the list is a buyer who knows what to ask about.
What the Township does and does not check
Buyers arriving from Westland or Garden City often expect a municipal certificate before closing. We found no such requirement in Shelby Township.
The Building Department describes its role as obtaining compliance with national, state and local construction codes through permit issuance, plan review and onsite inspections of work performed, along with enforcing ordinance provisions on fences, sidewalks, tree and woodland preservation, unsafe buildings and zoning. That is a permit-and-code function, not a resale certificate. Confirm the position for a specific address with the department, but do not plan around an inspection that may not exist.
Two current details worth knowing if a seller has work in progress. Since 1 September 2025 permits are valid for an initial period of 180 days. And since 15 July 2025, permits for gas piping, tankless water heaters, generators, pool heaters and tankless or combination boilers require the Township’s gas pipe and gas meter sizing worksheet to be completed and on file before inspections can be scheduled. Those are exactly the upgrades a house from the nineties tends to acquire, so an unfinished permit is a real possibility.
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 Township also publishes permit and inspection results online, which is worth a look, with the usual caution: a permit is not evidence the work is in good condition today, and nothing on file is not evidence it was done badly.
The buried line
It is tempting to assume a 1990s house does not need anyone looking at its sewer line. That is not quite right.
The private lateral runs underground from the house to the public system, and no visual inspection can see inside it whatever the build year. Thirty years is plenty of time for tree roots to find a joint, for ground movement to displace a section, or for a belly to develop where backfill settled. Newer does not mean unexamined — it means fewer decades of opportunity, not none.
We will not name a material from a build year here any more than anywhere else: no authoritative source establishes what Shelby Township laterals are generally made of, and we are not going to guess. 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. On a newer property it quite often confirms a clean line, which is itself worth knowing. It goes on the same visit.
What a 1990s house asks about
The mistake with a newer township is assuming newer means nothing has reached the end of its life. The arithmetic says otherwise.
A house built in 1990 is now around thirty-five years old. Asphalt shingle roofs, furnaces, air conditioning condensers and water heaters all have expected service lives shorter than that, so each has either been replaced once already or is running beyond its design life. Windows, exterior finishes and decks are in the same territory. None of that is alarming; it is simply the stage this housing stock is at.
What matters is which of those two situations applies to the house in front of you, and that is not something the build year can tell you. Two houses finished the same year on the same street can be completely different by now. The inspection establishes what is actually installed, what condition it is in, and 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.
Local information from Shelby Township — Department of Public Works · Shelby Township — Building Department · Shelby Township — view permits and inspection results. 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 Shelby Township 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 Shelby 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
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
Newer than almost anywhere else in this region. The median build year is 1989, and of roughly 33,169 housing units about 24% date from the 1990s, 16% from the 2000s, 15% from the 1980s and 14% from the 1970s. Only around a fifth of the township predates 1970. That means the postwar-suburb concerns that dominate places like Warren or Garden City largely do not apply here — but a 1990s house is still thirty-five years old, which is past the expected service life of an original roof, furnace, air conditioner and water heater.
The Township’s answer is the most definite we have found anywhere in this region. Under the Michigan Safe Drinking Water Act it maintains a Complete Distribution System Materials Inventory covering service line materials on both public and private property, and it states that through a variety of sources including records, ordinances, invoices, plans, testimonies and visual inspections, it has been proven that Shelby Township does not have any lead service lines. As always, a home inspection does not determine service line material — the Township and its inventory are the authority on that.
It applies to residential properties in Shelby Township, and it is separate from anything to do with buying or selling. Under the direction of Michigan’s Department of Environment, Great Lakes and Energy, municipalities carry out inspections on residential properties for cross connections — actual or potential links between the drinking water supply and a source of contamination. The Township lists lawn irrigation systems, water-assisted backup sump pumps, unprotected hose bibs, hard-piped pool or pond fills and heating boilers as examples found in homes, and recommends measures such as hose bibb vacuum breakers, a proper air gap on water softener drains and backflow protection on a water backup sump pump.
We found no residential point-of-sale requirement. The Building Department’s role is described as obtaining compliance with construction codes through permit issuance, plan review and onsite inspections of work performed, plus enforcing ordinances on fences, sidewalks, tree and woodland preservation, unsafe buildings and zoning. That is a permit and code function rather than a resale certificate. Confirm for a specific address with the Building Department, and in the meantime plan on your own inspection being the one examining the property for you.
It is worth considering, and the reason is that age helps less than people assume. The private lateral is buried and no visual inspection can see inside it regardless of when the house was built. Thirty years is ample time for roots to reach a joint, for ground movement to displace a section, or for a belly to form where backfill settled. We would not guess a material from a build year and no source establishes what Shelby Township laterals are generally made of. Putting a camera down the line answers it directly, and on a newer house it often confirms a clean run — which is worth knowing too. It is added to the same appointment.
Two current ones are worth checking if a seller has work under way. Since 1 September 2025, Shelby Township permits are valid for an initial period of 180 days. And since 15 July 2025, permits for gas piping, tankless water heaters, generators, pool heaters and tankless or combination boilers require the Township’s gas pipe and gas meter sizing worksheet to be completed and on file before inspections can be scheduled. Those are common upgrades on houses of this age, so an open or expired permit is a realistic thing to find. The Township publishes permit and inspection results online.
Yes. You can book a Shelby Township 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.
Police, fire, rescue, military and educators — our way of saying thank you for your service. Enter code HERO at checkout.
Claim the Hero DiscountNeed a Shelby Township home inspector and not sure we reach you? Call 734-331-3269 and we will tell you.
From the blog
February 24, 2026
October 22, 2017
October 22, 2024
Your local Shelby Township home inspector, seven days a week. Home inspection reports in 24 hours.
