Springfield Township, Michigan
Looking for a Springfield Township home inspector? We do certified home, commercial, mold and radon inspections in Springfield 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 Springfield 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 Springfield 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 Springfield 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 reportSpringfield Township housing stock
Springfield Township has roughly 5,728 housing units and about 82% of them are single-family detached. The year a house went up decides more about what an inspection turns up than almost anything else about it, which is why it is where we start rather than where we finish.
More of it dates from the 1990s than from any other decade — 1,579 homes, roughly 28% of the town.
The median owner-occupied home here is valued at $348,500. There are around 463 manufactured and mobile homes in Springfield Township. Those are a different inspection — the questions are about the frame, the anchoring and the skirting rather than a basement.
This is not a forecast for any one address. It is where a Springfield Township home inspector starts in a home of this age — and whatever we actually find, it goes in the report with photographs.
Housing figures: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2022 five-year estimates.
When Springfield Township was built
83% of homes here run on utility gas, and 21 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 252 use bottled or LP gas.
Local knowledge
Springfield Township publishes something most municipalities do not: a minimum house size, alongside a minimum lot size for every residential district. Read the two together and you learn what kind of place this is before you look at a single listing.
The house sizes are 1,000 square feet for a one-story, 1,250 for a one-and-a-half, and 1,500 for a two-story, with the note that private restrictions may require larger. The lot sizes run from half an acre in the R-3 district up to two and a half acres in R-1-A, with road frontage from 110 to 165 feet and rear setbacks of 35 feet across the board.
The smallest residential lot the Township’s own table contemplates is half an acre. That shapes everything an inspection deals with here — longer driveways, more grading to read, detached buildings on the parcel, and in many cases private water and waste systems rather than public ones.
The housing itself is largely modern. Of about 5,728 units, 1,579 were built in the 1990s, 1,027 in the 1970s, 893 in the 1980s and 819 in the 2000s; only 187 predate 1940. Around 82% is single-family detached. A house from the 1990s is now reaching the age where its first roof, first furnace and first water heater have all come due at roughly the same time.
Before you buy
The association gap
The single most useful sentence on the Township’s Building Department page is this: applications are not reviewed for, or held to, compliance with separate restrictions created by a development’s master deed and bylaws.
It is repeated elsewhere on the site — all requirements posted are Township requirements, and you should check with your subdivision or association for additional ones. The Township is being straightforward about the limits of its own review, which is more than many municipalities do.
For a buyer, the practical consequence is worth spelling out. If a previous owner added a deck, built a detached garage or finished a lower level, and the Township issued a permit and signed off the final inspection, that establishes the work was reviewed against Township ordinance and the Michigan Construction Codes. It does not establish that the association approved it, that it met an architectural control committee’s standards, or that it complied with the master deed. Those are separate questions with separate answers, and they can follow a property to a new owner.
The Township does note that applicants are encouraged to seek developer, homeowner association or architectural control committee approval before applying — but encouragement is not a gate, and nothing in the permit file records whether it happened.
What a buyer’s inspection contributes here is an independent read of the work itself: the roof, structure, foundation, drainage, electrical, heating and cooling, plumbing and the accessible interior, with attention to additions and alterations and how they were put together. We report the physical condition of what is there. Whether the paperwork behind it is complete is a question for the Township and for the association, and it is worth asking both.
Water, waste and the occupancy gate
Springfield Township’s permit requirements set a condition on the Certificate of Occupancy that tells you what most property here runs on: a final water test and septic approval, both required before the certificate is issued, with the advice to contact Oakland County at least a month before final inspections.
The permit application says the same thing from the other end — a valid septic permit and a valid well permit are part of what you file, along with two sets of plans, a scaled plot plan showing dimensions from lot lines, a driveway permit where the road is public, and a soil erosion permit where necessary.
On a property with a private well and septic system, you are taking on equipment as well as a building: the wellhead, pressure tank, pump and its electrical supply, and on the waste side the tank and the drainfield. All of it has a service life and a maintenance history, and the history is often the harder thing to reconstruct.
Testing water and evaluating septic systems are separate disciplines with their own credentials. We do not take water samples, we do not analyze them, and we do not evaluate septic systems — the county health department is where those belong, and on a large lot you will want them arranged alongside a building inspection rather than instead of one.
What we do cover on the water side is the building and the ground immediately around it: accessible grading and how it falls away from the foundation, gutters and downspouts and where they discharge, foundation conditions, the basement or crawlspace, and any sump equipment and where it sends what it pumps. On half-acre-and-larger lots that story runs well past the foundation wall, and we record what is accessible.
How inspections run
Three practical points from the Township’s inspector schedules and permit pages are worth carrying into a project of your own.
The first is ordering. Electrical, mechanical and plumbing inspections must be approved before the building inspection can be done. On a renovation with several trades running at once, that sequence decides how fast you get to a final, and getting it wrong costs weeks rather than days.
The second is access. A sign with the property address must be posted and visible from the road before any inspection will be done, the site must be ready when the inspection is requested, and the department requires 24 hours notice without setting specific appointment times. On rural frontages of 110 feet and more, a visible address is not a formality.
The third is the accessory building cap: all attached and detached accessory buildings on a parcel are counted together against maximum lot coverage and floor area limits set by parcel size. On lots this size, detached garages, pole barns and workshops are common, and what is already there affects what you can add. Existing outbuildings are also worth looking at on their own merits — roof, structure, and electrical supply in a detached building are frequently older and less well maintained than in the house.
The Township also notes that new additions increase taxable value, and that mechanical inspections here include fireplace and gas pressure. Commercial buildings require slab inspections, and inspectors may require additional third-party inspections. The Building Department is open Monday through Thursday and closed Fridays, and the Civic Center carries a Davisburg mailing address — one more place where the postal name and the municipality are not the same word.
The buried line
Where a property here is connected to a public sewer, the buried lateral running from the building to the main is the one component no visual inspection reaches.
On a house from the 1990s — the single largest slice of the township’s stock at 1,579 units — that pipe has been in the ground about thirty years, with landscaping planted alongside it now fully mature. On a 1970s house it is fifty. Either is long enough for roots to find a joint, for ground movement to displace a section, or for a repair to have been made that nobody now remembers. We will not name a material from a build year, because no authoritative source establishes what Springfield Township laterals are generally made of.
On a property with a septic system — which the Township’s own occupancy requirements suggest is common here — the question is a different one, and it belongs to a county evaluation rather than to us.
A sewer camera inspection records what is actually inside the line: 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 rather than booked separately. 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 Springfield Township — Building Department · Springfield Township — building permit requirements, zoning and inspections · Springfield Township — inspector schedules. 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. The zone describes a county. The only result that describes your basement is the one measured in it.
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 Springfield 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
No, and the Township says so directly: applications are not reviewed for or held to compliance with separate restrictions created by a development’s master deed and bylaws. A permit and a passed final inspection establish that the work was reviewed against Township ordinance and the Michigan Construction Codes. Association approval is a separate question with a separate answer, and it can follow a property to a new owner.
The Township publishes minimum house sizes for all residential districts: 1,000 square feet for a one-story, 1,250 for a one-and-a-half-story and 1,500 for a two-story, noting that private restrictions may require larger. Minimum lot sizes run from half an acre in R-3 to two and a half acres in R-1-A, with road frontage between 110 and 165 feet.
Establish it early. The Township requires a final water test and septic approval before a Certificate of Occupancy is issued, and advises contacting Oakland County at least a month before final inspections. We do not test water and we do not evaluate septic systems — both are separate disciplines with their own credentials, and the county health department is where they live. On a property with private systems you will want those arranged alongside a building inspection.
Subject to a cap you should check first. All attached and detached accessory buildings on a parcel are counted together against maximum lot coverage requirements and floor area restrictions based on parcel size, and the Building Department asks for the square footage of your property to work out what is allowable. What is already on the lot affects what you can add.
Electrical, mechanical and plumbing inspections must be approved before the building inspection can be done. The department requires 24 hours notice, does not set specific appointment times, and expects the site to be ready when the inspection is requested. A sign with the property address must be posted and visible from the road before any inspection takes place.
Mostly modern. Of about 5,728 housing units, 1,579 were built in the 1990s, 1,027 in the 1970s, 893 in the 1980s and 819 in the 2000s, with only 187 predating 1940. Around 82% is single-family detached. A 1990s house is now reaching the point where its first roof, first furnace and first water heater all come due within a few years of each other.
If the property is on a public sewer, yes. The buried lateral is the one component no visual inspection reaches, and on a 1990s house it has been in the ground thirty years with mature landscaping alongside it. 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. On a septic property the question belongs to a county evaluation instead.
A municipal inspection checks work against the code at the time it was done, one trade at a time, and only where a permit was pulled. A buyer’s inspection looks at the whole building as it stands today — roof, structure, foundation, drainage, electrical, heating and cooling, plumbing and the accessible interior — including work that was never permitted, components that have simply worn out, and outbuildings on the parcel. Get in touch to talk through what a particular property needs.
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 Springfield Township home inspector and not sure we reach you? Call 734-331-3269 and we will tell you.
From the blog
April 5, 2024
October 22, 2024
Your local Springfield Township home inspector, seven days a week. Home inspection reports in 24 hours.
