Vernon, Michigan
Looking for a Vernon home inspector? We do certified home, commercial, mold and radon inspections in Vernon, 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 Vernon 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 Vernon and across Shiawassee 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 Vernon 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 reportVernon housing stock
Vernon has roughly 278 housing units and about 93% 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 years before 1940 than from any other decade — 108 homes, roughly 39% of the town. At 93% single-family it is almost entirely detached houses, so the inspection is nearly always of a whole building rather than one unit inside one.
The median owner-occupied home here is valued at $113,700. 97% are owner-occupied, which is high even for this area.
This is not a forecast for any one address. It is where a Vernon 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 Vernon was built
92% of homes here run on utility gas. Another 2 use bottled or LP gas.
Local knowledge
Vernon does something small and genuinely useful: it writes down what it costs to own a house here, on one page, and hands it to you. The village publishes a Residential Property Owners Guide with the sewer bill, the tax dates, the collection days and the office hours on it, alongside a companion packet for new business and property owners.
Most communities make you assemble that from four different pages, or ask. Having it in front of you before you buy is worth more than it sounds, because the running costs of a property are the part of a purchase that nobody quotes you and everybody discovers.
The other thing to know is that Vernon keeps its building department in-house. There is a Building Official, a Mechanical and Plumbing Inspector and an Electrical Inspector — three named people — but only one thing you have to do to reach them: the village states you schedule an inspection through the Building Official or by calling the Village Hall. Three specialists, one phone number.
A home inspection is not a permit search or a code inspection and we do not present it as one. What we establish is what is physically there and what condition it is in, and we flag work that looks as though it was done without the benefit of a permit. In a village that answers on one number, that is an easy thing to go and check.
Before you buy
Permits
The village’s permits page contains one sentence worth reading twice: applications are not processed until payment is received and all document attachments, where they are required, are included.
That sounds procedural. It is actually a clock. An application that is short a document or a fee has not entered the queue at all — it is not being reviewed slowly, it is not being reviewed. The village states that applications are reviewed for completeness and accuracy and that applicants are contacted if the application or the fee needs adjustment, so the correction does come back to you, but the days spent waiting were never counting.
If you are buying with work in mind and the work is on any kind of timetable, that is the thing to plan around. Send it complete, or send it early enough that a round trip does not matter.
The village is also blunt about the other direction. Its guidance on remodeling, plumbing, electrical or mechanical work is to check with the Village Hall to be sure whether a permit is needed, and it says the point of checking is to avoid a notice and a fine for work done without one.
For a buyer that reframes the question usefully. It is not only whether a previous owner pulled permits, but whether anything on the property is the kind of work the village would have expected a permit for. That is the sort of thing a buyer’s inspection is good at surfacing, because it is visible in the building even when it is absent from the file.
Running costs
The residential guide puts the sewer bill at $59.81 a month, with a discounted annual payment of $610.06 due between 1 and 30 April. Twelve monthly bills come to $717.72, so paying the year in April is worth roughly $108 — which is a real decision to make in your first spring rather than a detail, and one a new owner will simply miss if nobody mentions it.
Late payment carries a 10% penalty after the last day of the month, and the guide notes that balances still unpaid as of 1 April are applied to taxes. Village tax bills are mailed on 1 July, and the guide is clear that village taxes are not the whole picture: Vernon Township levies its own summer and winter taxes on top.
Collections are Thursday mornings for garbage and every other Friday morning for recycling, and the village asks that carts go back near the house or garage after pickup rather than living at the curb. On a village lot that is a question of where a cart can actually stand out of the way, which is worth a glance while you are walking the property.
The Village Hall keeps a three-day week — Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, 8:30am to 5:00pm — so questions that need the office are best gathered up and asked in one go. The village also publishes an address map and a zoning district map, which between them answer a surprising number of the questions people ring up with.
None of this is what a home inspection covers. We raise it because it is free to learn in advance, and because the guide exists precisely so that somebody arriving here does not have to find it out the expensive way.
The housing
Vernon has roughly 278 housing units and about 93% of them are single-family detached, with a median build year of 1953. This is a village of individual houses rather than shared buildings, so an inspection here is nearly always of a whole structure rather than one unit inside one.
On housing with that median the electrical system is usually the work of several decades rather than one installation: mixed wiring types meeting in the same enclosure, ungrounded receptacles, panels that have been added to more than once, and an original service capacity sized for a 1953 household rather than a modern one. We report what is there and photograph it either way.
Plumbing has usually been renewed in part rather than in whole, which puts the interesting questions at the transitions between materials. Heating and water heating equipment will be several replacements deep. Roof coverings will be on a second or third generation, and the flashings and penetrations matter more than the covering.
Foundations of the period are typically block, and their condition depends far more on how water has been handled around the building than on how they were built. Where the downspouts terminate, whether there is a sump and where it discharges to, and how the ground falls away from the walls tell you more about a basement than the basement does.
Detached housing on village lots also means outbuildings — garages, sheds and workshops that often carry their own electrical supply and their own roof and structural questions, and are frequently where informal work has accumulated. We inspect them as part of the property. 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.
The buried line
The village bills for sewer service, which tells you the system exists. What no bill describes is the lateral running from the building out to the main, because that pipe belongs to the property and no visual inspection reaches inside it.
On a median 1953 house that line is over seventy years old unless somebody has replaced it, and a replacement is rarely recorded anywhere a buyer will come across. We are not going to name a material from a build year — nothing published establishes what lines here 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 village streets with mature trees, roots at an old joint are the commonest finding there is, and the first symptom a new owner usually gets is a backup at the worst possible moment.
It goes on the same appointment rather than a second visit, and we deliver a full written report with photographs, generally the same day. You can read what our clients say, browse answers to common questions, or get in touch about a specific address in Vernon.
Local information from Village of Vernon — Residential Property Owners Guide · Village of Vernon — permits and applications · Village of Vernon — building and zoning, and the inspectors · Village of Vernon — village website. Municipal requirements change — verify current details with the municipality.
Why choose us
Five reasons people here pick us as their Vernon 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
The village does, in-house. There is a Building Official, a Mechanical and Plumbing Inspector and an Electrical Inspector, and the village states inspections are scheduled through the Building Official or by calling the Village Hall.
Being incomplete. The village states applications are not processed until payment is received and all required document attachments are included, so a file short a document or a fee is not in the queue at all until that is fixed.
The village asks you to check with the Village Hall to be sure, covering remodeling, plumbing, electrical and mechanical work as well as new buildings, and says the reason to check is to avoid a notice and a fine for work done without one.
The village’s residential guide gives a monthly bill of $59.81 and a discounted annual payment of $610.06 due between 1 and 30 April. Twelve monthly payments come to $717.72, so the annual option is worth about $108 across the year.
The guide states a 10% penalty applies after the last day of the month, and that balances still unpaid as of 1 April are applied to taxes. Confirm the position on a specific address with the village before closing.
No. The guide states village tax bills are mailed on 1 July and that Vernon Township levies additional summer and winter taxes on top.
Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, 8:30am to 5:00pm. It is worth gathering your questions and asking them in one visit rather than across three weeks.
On housing with a 1953 median the lateral is often the oldest untouched thing on the property, and the sewer bill says nothing about its condition. A camera inspection goes on the same visit and shows what is really in there.
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 Vernon home inspector and not sure we reach you? Call 734-331-3269 and we will tell you.
Permits, assessing and property records for Vernon are handled by Vernon, Michigan, not by us.
From the blog
October 22, 2017
May 18, 2024
April 5, 2024
Your local Vernon home inspector, seven days a week. Home inspection reports in 24 hours.
