Tecumseh, Michigan
Looking for a Tecumseh home inspector? We do certified home, commercial, mold and radon inspections in Tecumseh, 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 Tecumseh 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 Tecumseh and across Lenawee 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 Tecumseh 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 reportTecumseh housing stock
Tecumseh has roughly 3,962 housing units and about 65% 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.
The median owner-occupied home here is valued at $188,100. Around 512 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 Tecumseh 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 Tecumseh was built
81% of homes here run on utility gas. Another 57 use bottled or LP gas.
Local knowledge
Tecumseh publishes a rule about sewer backups that we have not seen anywhere else in this region, and it puts a price on not knowing the condition of your own drain.
During business hours, if you report a backup, a crew comes out and investigates. If the problem is in the City’s sewer main, the City clears the main. If the problem is in your sewer line — the run from the building to the main — you are told to call a private sewer cleaning company.
Out of hours it is different. You call emergency services, they contact the on-call crew, and the crew investigates. But if the problem turns out to be in the customer’s sewer line, the customer is charged for the overtime call.
That is a genuinely unusual provision, and it is entirely reasonable. But look at what it means in practice. At two in the morning, with water coming up through a basement floor drain, nobody knows which side of the connection the blockage is on. You call anyway, because you have to. And if it turns out to be your pipe, the callout is billed to you on top of the work itself.
The only way to shorten those odds in advance is for somebody to have looked inside the pipe while the sun was up.
Before you buy
Whose pipe is it
The City’s procedures for sanitary sewer issues set out a clean division of responsibility, and it is the same one this project finds almost everywhere: the main is the City’s, the line from the building to the main is the owner’s.
What Tecumseh adds is the consequence of finding out the hard way. Out of hours, the crew still comes — and if the fault is on your side, the overtime is charged to you.
It is worth being clear about why this is fair rather than harsh. A crew turning out at night to clear a City main is the City doing its job. A crew turning out at night to establish that a private lateral is blocked has done work that benefits one household, and somebody has to pay for it. The provision simply makes explicit what most municipalities leave unstated.
But it changes the arithmetic on knowing in advance. A buried lateral is the one component no visual inspection reaches. You cannot see it, you cannot test it by running a tap, and the first time most people learn anything about theirs is during a backup — which here is also the most expensive moment to learn it.
On an inspection we report what can be seen and operated: whether drains run and clear when used, whether there is evidence of past backup at a floor drain or on a basement floor, whether there is a sump and where its discharge goes, and whether there is any accessible cleanout. What we cannot do without a camera is tell you the condition of the pipe along its length. That is what a camera is for, and in Tecumseh it has a specific and quantifiable value.
Associations
Whether a municipality cares about your homeowners association is a real disagreement between Michigan communities, and this project now has both positions in writing.
Tecumseh’s permit guidance tells applicants to check the master deed or covenants and restrictions, notes that an association may have an architectural review committee acting as the review board for projects affecting the property, and asks that once that committee grants approval, the approved drawing with signatures is brought back to the Development Services Department.
Springfield Township in Oakland County states the opposite: applications there are not reviewed for, or held to, compliance with separate restrictions created by a development’s master deed and bylaws.
Both are defensible. Tecumseh treats the association approval as part of the file; Springfield keeps public and private rules separate. What matters for a buyer is which one you are in, because it changes what a permit proves.
In Tecumseh, a permit issued for work in an association development should have that signed architectural approval behind it. In a municipality that declines to look, a permit proves nothing about the association at all — and association restrictions run with the land, so an unapproved deck or fence becomes the new owner’s problem.
Either way, the physical work is a separate question again. A buyer’s inspection covers the roof, structure, foundation, drainage, electrical, heating and cooling, plumbing and the accessible interior, and reports the condition of what was actually built — which no committee signature addresses.
Utilities
The City’s Utilities Department runs drinking water treatment and distribution, wastewater collection and treatment, and utility billing, with a reporting line staffed around the clock.
Its published policies contain two things worth carrying into a purchase.
The first is the final reading. When occupants move, the City states it is their responsibility to notify the Utilities Department so a final meter reading can be scheduled and obtained. That is the obligation sitting on the outgoing occupant rather than on the City — which means if nobody does it, nobody does it. As a buyer, it is worth confirming that a final reading was actually requested rather than assuming the account closed itself.
The second concerns estimates. Where a meter cannot be read, usage is estimated by averaging the previous four actual reads — and the City reserves the right to increase estimates incrementally, at its discretion, where a request for response from a customer goes unanswered. An estimated account that has been drifting upward is not the same as a real one, and it is worth knowing which you are inheriting.
On high bills, the City names the usual culprit: a leak. That is squarely inspectable. Running toilets, dripping fixtures, a softener cycling too often, an outside spigot left barely open, and irrigation running longer than anyone realizes are all things a report picks up — and the City has recently begun a citywide meter replacement program and launched a customer water-use portal, both of which make a leak easier to catch early.
The City also publishes a short guide to understanding your meter, which is worth reading whether you are buying or already living here.
An even spread
Tecumseh has no dominant building decade. Of about 3,962 units, 696 date from the 1990s, 665 from the 1970s, 498 from the 1950s and 483 from before 1940, with 466 from the 2000s and 390 from the 1980s. No decade accounts for more than about a fifth of the city.
That matters because it means no generalization about “houses in Tecumseh” is worth much. A prewar house and a 1990s house on the same street present entirely different inspection questions, and the answer for either comes from looking at that building rather than from the postcode.
On the prewar and mid-century stock, the questions are about what has been replaced and how well: services upgraded at the panel with some original branch wiring behind plaster, supply plumbing past the end of any normal service life, heating that has moved through two or three generations of technology in the same chimney, foundations of stone or unreinforced masonry with the drainage arrangements of their day.
On the 1990s and 2000s stock, the questions are the opposite: first-generation components installed at construction and now reaching the end of a normal service life at roughly the same time — the original roof covering, furnace, water heater and air conditioning, all bought in one year and wearing out within a few years of each other.
Around 65% of the housing is single-family detached, leaving a substantial share in attached and multi-unit buildings — which is also where the association question above becomes live.
The buried line
Everything on this page comes back to one pipe: the run from the building to the City main, which is yours, and which nobody can see.
On a 1970s house it has been in the ground fifty years. On one of the 483 units here predating 1940, close to a century, under streets whose trees are the same age. On a 1990s house, thirty years, with subdivision landscaping now fully mature above it. Any of those 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 Tecumseh laterals are generally made of — and across a city with this even a spread of building eras, more than one material is certainly in the ground.
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 rather than booked separately. In a city that will bill you for an out-of-hours callout when the fault turns out to be on your side, knowing beforehand is worth more than usual.
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. Get in touch to talk through a particular property.
Local information from City of Tecumseh — procedures for sanitary sewer issues · City of Tecumseh — obtaining a permit, and association architectural review · City of Tecumseh — Utilities Department and published water and sewer policies. Municipal requirements change — verify current details with the municipality.
Why choose us
Five reasons people here pick us as their Tecumseh 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, MIThis is one of the finest companies I have come across - that means serious customer service and professionalism. Justin was the inspector and he was very thorough yet very kind to answers all the questions that came in my mind during inspection. He took enough time, no rush, and a very detailed inspection was conducted. Extremely competitive pricing and timing from the company. 100% recommend to anyone looking for any kind of property inspection!!
Chirag R MiyaniMichiganWhat happens
Questions
It depends where the blockage is. During business hours a City crew investigates; if the problem is in the City’s main, the City clears it, and if it is in your line from the building to the main, you are told to call a private sewer cleaning company. Out of hours the on-call crew still comes — but if the problem turns out to be in the customer’s line, the customer is charged for the overtime call.
By looking inside the pipe before there is a problem. At two in the morning with water rising, nobody knows which side of the connection a blockage sits on — you call anyway, and in Tecumseh the answer can arrive with an overtime charge attached. A sewer camera inspection documents the condition of the line along its length and is added to the same visit as a building inspection.
Yes, more than most. Tecumseh advises checking the master deed or covenants and restrictions, notes that an association architectural review committee may act as the review board for projects affecting a property, and asks that the approved drawing with signatures be brought back to the Development Services Department. Not every municipality does this — Springfield Township, for one, states that its applications are not reviewed against a development’s master deed and bylaws at all.
Because it changes what a permit proves. Where the City takes in the signed association approval, a permit for work in an association development should have that approval behind it. Where a municipality declines to look, a permit proves nothing about the association — and association restrictions run with the land, so unapproved work becomes the new owner’s problem.
The occupant. The City states that when occupants move it is their responsibility to notify the Utilities Department so a final reading can be scheduled and obtained. That means if nobody does it, nobody does it — so as a buyer it is worth confirming a final reading was actually requested rather than assuming the account closed itself.
The City names a leak as the most common cause, and that is squarely inspectable: running toilets, dripping fixtures, a water softener cycling too often, an outside spigot barely open, or irrigation running longer than anyone realizes. The City has also begun a citywide meter replacement and launched a customer water-use portal, both of which make a leak easier to catch early. Note too that estimated readings are averaged from the previous four actual reads and can be increased at the City’s discretion where a customer does not respond.
Evenly spread, with no dominant decade. Of about 3,962 housing units, 696 date from the 1990s, 665 from the 1970s, 498 from the 1950s and 483 from before 1940, with 466 from the 2000s. Around 65% is single-family detached. No generalization about houses here is worth much — a prewar house and a 1990s house on the same street present entirely different questions.
Yes, and Tecumseh gives it a price. The line from your building to the City main is yours, and an out-of-hours callout that turns out to be on your side is billed to you. On a 1970s house that pipe has been down there fifty years; on a prewar house, close to a century. 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.
More on cost, timing and what is included on the FAQ page.
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