Thetford Township, Michigan
Looking for a Thetford Township home inspector? We do certified home, commercial, mold and radon inspections in Thetford 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 Thetford 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 Thetford Township and across Genesee 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 Thetford 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 reportThetford Township housing stock
Thetford Township has roughly 2,918 housing units and about 88% 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 1970s: 770 homes, about 26% of everything standing today.
The median owner-occupied home here is valued at $162,200.
None of this says anything about the specific house you are buying. It is the shortlist a Thetford Township 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 Thetford Township was built
71% of homes here run on utility gas, and 55 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 388 use bottled or LP gas.
Local knowledge
If you want the full permit history of a house in Thetford Township, you need to ask two different municipalities for it.
The Township handles building permits, inspections and zoning itself. But it states plainly that it contracts with Vienna Township for mechanical, electrical and plumbing permit issuance and inspection services — a separate office, at a separate address, with a separate phone number.
So the record of when a furnace was replaced, when a house was rewired, or whether a bathroom addition was ever properly permitted does not sit in the same filing system as the record of the addition itself. Both are obtainable. They are just obtainable from two places, and a buyer who asks only one office will come away with half the picture.
That matters more here than it might elsewhere, because the housing is mostly of an age where mechanical and electrical work has certainly been done. About 770 units date from the 1970s, and 1,707 — nearly six in ten — were built between 1950 and 1979.
On a fifty to seventy-year-old house, the question is rarely whether the systems have been worked on. It is whether the work was permitted, inspected and done properly, and the answer to that lives in two buildings.
Before you buy
Permits
The Township’s building department issues building permits and carries out building inspections, and the same office covers zoning administration. It publishes a building fee schedule and a permit application, and keeps office hours Monday to Thursday, eight to five.
For mechanical, electrical and plumbing work, the Township contracts with Vienna Township, which issues those permits and carries out those inspections from its own offices on the other side of Vienna Road.
This is a sensible arrangement for a township of this size and it is published openly. The only thing a buyer needs to do about it is remember it. When you make a records request, make two — and be specific about which trades each office covers, so nothing falls between them.
It is worth doing properly. Unpermitted mechanical and electrical work is one of the more consequential things to inherit, not because it is necessarily dangerous but because it is unverified. A furnace swapped out by a neighbor with a van, a subpanel added for a workshop, or a bathroom plumbed into an existing stack are all common and all invisible in a listing.
A buyer’s inspection is not a permit search and cannot tell you whether a permit was pulled. What it does is tell you what was actually done to the house, which is what makes a records request worth making — you know what to ask about instead of asking generally.
The Township also has a code enforcer who takes complaints by form, fax, email or voicemail, and who, in the Township’s own description, may be seen driving the township vehicle on his rounds checking on residents and carrying out vacation checks on homes in the area.
The housing
The largest single group here is the 770 units from the 1970s, with 473 from the 1950s and 464 from the 1960s. Together those three decades account for 1,707 of roughly 2,918 units. Almost nine in ten are single-family detached.
Electrical is where an inspection here usually earns its keep. A house built in the 1950s or 1960s was wired for a household with a fraction of today’s demand, and one built in the 1970s was not far ahead of it. Most have been upgraded, but there is a wide gap between a genuine rewire and a newer panel fitted in front of original distribution. We report what the panel actually contains, how the accessible wiring is arranged, and where work looks to have been added in stages.
Plumbing follows a similar pattern. Partial renewals are the norm, which leaves transitions between materials at the joins, and those transitions are where problems concentrate. A house described as having had the plumbing done frequently means part of it.
Roofs on this stock are on a second or third covering. Heating equipment is two or three generations from the original, and a newer high-efficiency appliance fitted into an older chimney or vent arrangement is a common and specific thing we look at.
Insulation and ventilation reflect the standards of the day, which on a house of this era usually means a worthwhile improvement is still available in the attic. Windows are commonly on their second set, and the quality of that replacement work varies enormously.
Radon testing and mold inspection and testing can be added to any visit, and commercial building inspections to the CCPIA standard are available for commercial property.
New to the township
Thetford publishes a page for new residents, which is more useful to a buyer than most municipal pages and worth reading before you move rather than after.
On burning: a burn permit has not been required since May 2019, but residents must call before each burn and follow the regulations, and violations carry a $500 fine. That is an easy thing to get wrong if you assume that "no permit required" means no obligation.
On schools: five separate districts serve parts of the township — Clio Area, Mount Morris, Genesee, Millington and Lakeville Community. The Township invites residents to get in touch if they need help working out which one an address falls in, and on a township split five ways that is a question genuinely worth confirming rather than assuming from a mailing address.
On waste: trash is collected weekly on Thursdays. Recycling bins are available from Township Hall, the first free and additional bins at a charge. Residents who pay the garbage assessment on their winter tax bill receive one free dump permit per month for the local landfill.
The Township also lists utility providers for electricity, gas, propane, cable, satellite, telephone and internet, while noting that not all services are available everywhere and that it does not guarantee, recommend or take responsibility for any of them. On a rural township, checking what actually reaches a specific address is worth doing before you commit.
Water and drainage
The Township bills for sewer — payment deadlines are posted publicly — but it does not publish a page describing the system, its extent, its rates or where responsibility for a line begins and ends. We are not going to describe a system we have not been able to read about. Ask the Township directly whether a specific address is on township sewer or on a septic system, and get the answer in writing.
The same applies to water. Whether an address is on a public supply or a private well is a parcel-level question here, and the answer changes what you need to arrange before closing. A septic evaluation and a water test are specialist work carried out separately from a home inspection, and on a rural township they are worth arranging early because they take their own time.
What a home inspection contributes is the part of the picture that is actually visible. We report the accessible plumbing inside the building, how fixtures behave under load, and the visible condition of any pump or pressure equipment.
Outside, we report the things that determine whether a basement stays dry: where the downspouts terminate and whether they carry water clear of the walls, where any sump pump discharges and whether it has a backup, and how the ground falls away from the foundation. On a lot that has been landscaped over fifty or seventy years, that fall is often no longer what the builder intended.
Inside, we look for the evidence water leaves: staining, efflorescence, mineral deposits, replaced lower wall finishes and corrosion at the base of mechanical equipment. Those are ordinary findings, mostly straightforward to address, and much better known before you own the house than after.
The buried line
Whether a property here drains to a township sewer or to a septic tank, the line running out from the building belongs to the owner, and no visual inspection reaches inside it.
On a house from the 1950s or 1960s, that pipe has been in the ground sixty or seventy years, under a lot whose trees have had exactly that long to mature. On one of the 191 units predating 1940, longer again. We will not name a material from a build year, because no authoritative source establishes what Thetford Township laterals are generally made of, and a guess in a report is worse than no statement at all.
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 septic property it documents the building drain out to the tank — the owner’s pipe, and one that a septic evaluation does not examine.
It is one of the few significant components of a house that is invisible, not covered by a standard inspection, and largely unknown to the seller. On housing of this age it is among the most useful things you can add.
A camera inspection goes on the same appointment rather than being booked separately. You can read what our clients say, look through answers to common questions, or get in touch about a specific address in Thetford Township.
Local information from Thetford Township — building department and the Vienna Township contract for mechanical, electrical and plumbing permits · Thetford Township — new to town: burning, schools, trash and utilities · Thetford Township — code enforcement · Thetford Township — ordinances. Municipal requirements change — verify current details with the municipality.
Radon in Genesee County
Zone 2 is the middle EPA category — the predicted average indoor level across the county sits between 2 and 4 pCi/L.
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 · Genesee County radon and inspection coverage
Zone from the EPA Map of Radon Zones.
Why choose us
Five reasons people here pick us as their Thetford 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
Outstanding precision and attention to detail! Helps being able to make a truly informed decision about a home! Also, they are very veteran-friendly! No complaints here!
Desmond SheppardFlint, MINoah Scott was very thorough and explaining things to us, especially in regard to a possible mold problem.
Claudette GranvilleFlint, 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, MIWhat happens
Questions
From two places. The Township issues building permits and handles zoning itself, but it contracts with Vienna Township for mechanical, electrical and plumbing permit issuance and inspections. A single request to one office gives you only half the record.
Because on a house built between 1950 and 1979 — nearly six in ten here — the mechanical and electrical systems have certainly been worked on. The question is whether that work was permitted and inspected, and that answer sits in the Vienna Township records rather than Thetford’s.
No. An inspection reports what was actually done to the house, not whether a permit was pulled for it. That is precisely what makes it useful before a records request — you know which specific work to ask about instead of asking in general terms.
No permit has been required since May 2019, but you must call before each burn and follow the regulations, and violations carry a $500 fine. "No permit required" does not mean no obligation.
Five separate districts serve parts of the township: Clio Area, Mount Morris, Genesee, Millington and Lakeville Community. The Township will help identify which one a particular address falls in, and on a township split five ways that is worth confirming rather than assuming from the mailing address.
Ask the Township, and get it in writing. The Township bills for sewer but does not publish a page describing the system or its extent, so we are not going to guess. The same applies to whether an address is on public water or a private well.
Aging service panels and electrical work added in stages, partial plumbing renewals with material transitions at the joins, roofs on a second or third covering, and heating equipment two or three generations from the original — sometimes fitted into older venting that has not kept pace.
Yes. On sixty and seventy-year-old housing with mature trees, the lateral is one of the few significant components that is invisible, uncovered by a standard inspection and largely unknown to the seller. A camera inspection is added to 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
February 24, 2026
November 11, 2020
Your local Thetford Township home inspector, seven days a week. Home inspection reports in 24 hours.
