Warren, Michigan
Looking for a Warren home inspector? We do certified home, commercial, mold and radon inspections in Warren, 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 Warren 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 Warren 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 Warren 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 reportWarren housing stock
Warren has roughly 58,153 housing units and about 76% 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 1960s: 21,259 homes, about 37% of everything standing today.
The median owner-occupied home here is valued at $169,300. There are around 1,799 manufactured and mobile homes in Warren. Those are a different inspection — the questions are about the frame, the anchoring and the skirting rather than a basement. Around 1,939 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 says anything about the specific house you are buying. It is the shortlist a Warren 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 Warren was built
88% of homes here run on utility gas, and 48 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 923 use bottled or LP gas.
Local knowledge
Warren is the third-largest city in Michigan and it was built, essentially, in about twenty years. Knowing which twenty changes what an inspection is looking for.
The dates line up tightly. The Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant started mass-producing tanks in 1941 and kept building them until 1997. The GM Tech Center was inaugurated in 1956. Warren officially became a city on 27 October 1956 — and, in the words of its adopted master plan, the City’s population doubled between 1960 and 1970.
The housing follows exactly that. Of roughly 58,153 units, 36.6% were built in the 1960s and 58.3% across the fifties and sixties together. The median build year is 1965 and about 76% of units are single-family detached — the City’s own plan puts it the same way, that three-quarters of Warren’s housing stock is single-family detached and that most development occurred during the 1950s through 1970s.
Warren residents said it more bluntly than any statistic could. Asked at the City’s town hall meetings for one word to describe Warren, the most common answer was “outdated”, which the plan summarizes as the feeling of “driving through the 1960s”. For a buyer that is not an insult, it is information: this is a city of houses that are now around sixty years old, largely built to one era’s standards, and the question worth answering is what has been renewed since.
Before you buy
Water
On most of our city pages we have to say that we found no municipal record of a general basement flooding pattern, and we refuse to invent one. Warren is the exception. Here the City documents both the mechanism and its scale.
From the adopted master plan: most development in the City of Warren occurred during the 1950s through 1970s, and “the majority of residential homes (approximately 45,000 to 49,000 homes) have footing drains connected to the sanitary sewer. During wet weather events, this additional flow of clean rainwater that does not require treatment contributes to maxing out capacity of the existing sanitary sewers and leads to basement overflows.”
The City has taken it seriously and found it hard. It costed disconnecting those footing drains at between $500 and $540 million — a municipal figure for a citywide project, not anything an individual owner would face. A pilot program installing sump pumps to take the footing flows off the sanitary sewer drew roughly 60 households and, in the plan’s words, did not gain the public interest or results to be worth implementing. Several new sanitary relief sewers have since been installed, with further collection-system improvements in design.
Now the careful part. That is a system-capacity mechanism affecting a large share of the city; it is not a prediction that a particular house takes water, and plenty do not. What it does mean is that in Warren the basement deserves close attention, and the things that manage water here — sump pump and its discharge, the condition of the pit, grading, gutters and downspouts, and any evidence of past water at the floor and walls — move up the list. Those are exactly what we look at and photograph.
What the City does and does not check
This is worth stating plainly, because buyers moving between Downriver and Macomb County often assume otherwise.
Several communities in this region require a municipal certificate before a home can change hands. We found no equivalent point-of-sale requirement in Warren. The City’s residential city certification is scoped to vacant property: under Section 22.11(a), a vacant residential dwelling that has been posted “no occupancy” cannot be occupied until the Building Division issues certification that it complies with the International Property Maintenance Code and the City’s zoning ordinance. Warren also runs rental inspections, which is a separate track again.
We would rather point you at the Building Division to confirm the position for one specific address than have you assume either way. But the practical consequence is worth understanding: if no municipal inspection happens because a house is being sold, then the inspection you commission is the one that looks at the property on your behalf.
That is what a home buyer inspection is for — the roof, structure, foundation, drainage, electrical, heating and cooling, plumbing and the accessible interior, photographed and written up with how urgent each finding is. In a city of sixty-year-old houses where the municipality is not checking at the point of sale, that is not a formality.
The buried line
Warren owns and operates its own wastewater treatment plant, on the south side of Fourteen Mile Road east of Van Dyke. The City is unusually self-contained that way, and its master plan discusses the sanitary system in real detail.
What none of that establishes is the condition of the line running from one particular house. That pipe is buried, a visual inspection cannot see inside it, and we are not going to name a material from a build year — there is no authoritative source establishing what Warren laterals are generally made of, and a house from 1965 has had sixty years in which sections could have been replaced.
There is a specifically Warren reason to look, though. If the City documents that tens of thousands of homes have footing drains tied into the sanitary sewer, then how that house handles water and what condition its drainage carries are not abstract questions here. A sewer camera inspection records what is actually in the line — roots, cracks, displaced joints, bellies or blockages where they exist, and a clear run where they do not. It goes on the same visit.
Lead, and getting help
Two separate lead questions come up in a city where almost every house predates 1978, and Warren has something to say about both.
On water, the City reports that there are no lead pipes on its own properties, and that the water department would like to start an educational campaign to help households find lead pipes in homes — beginning by telling residents how to check. Read that for what it is: the City helping identify service-line material address by address. It does not establish that a particular Warren house has a lead line, the build year does not answer it, and a home inspection does not determine it either.
On paint, Warren runs a Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Homes Program that is genuinely unusual. Income-eligible owner-occupants of pre-1978 homes housing a pregnant woman or a child under six may qualify for free renovations to make the home lead-safe. Landlords with qualifying pre-1978 rentals may be eligible for a free comprehensive lead inspection and risk assessment, and for 90% of what it takes to make the property lead-safe. Conditions apply and the City sets the eligibility, but for a city this old that is a real resource and most buyers have never heard of it.
Alongside a home inspection we also carry out commercial building inspections to the CCPIA standard for offices, retail, multifamily and warehouse property — relevant in a city built around the Tech Center and the Arsenal — and radon testing or mold inspection and testing can be added to either kind of visit.
Local information from City of Warren — Master Plan, adopted 12 January 2021 · City of Warren — Building Division · City of Warren — Lead Hazard Control & Healthy Homes Program · City of Warren — Water and Sewer System. 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 Warren is not where the state’s worst readings turn up, and we would rather say that plainly than imply 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 Warren 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
Because that is when the city was built. Warren officially became a city on 27 October 1956, the GM Tech Center was inaugurated the same year, the Detroit Arsenal Tank Plant had been building tanks since 1941, and the City’s adopted master plan records that Warren’s population doubled between 1960 and 1970. The census figures follow: 36.6% of roughly 58,153 housing units were built in the 1960s and 58.3% across the fifties and sixties together, with a median build year of 1965.
The City documents a real citywide mechanism, which is unusual and worth knowing. Warren’s adopted master plan states that approximately 45,000 to 49,000 homes have footing drains connected to the sanitary sewer, and that during wet weather this contributes to maxing out the capacity of the sanitary sewers and leads to basement overflows. The City costed disconnecting them at between $500 and $540 million and has installed new sanitary relief sewers instead. None of that predicts what any individual house does — many are fine — but it does mean the basement, the sump equipment and the drainage deserve close attention here, and that is where we spend it.
We found no point-of-sale requirement in Warren, which surprises people moving from communities that have one. The City’s residential city certification is scoped to vacant property: under Section 22.11(a) a vacant residential dwelling posted “no occupancy” cannot be occupied until the Building Division certifies it complies with the International Property Maintenance Code and the zoning ordinance. Rental inspections are a separate process again. Confirm the position for a specific address with the Building Division — and in the meantime, do not assume a municipal inspection is going to look at the house on your behalf.
It is worth considering. A sixty-year-old house has had a long time for a buried line to be damaged, disturbed by roots or partly replaced, and the build year establishes neither the material nor the condition — we are not aware of any source establishing what Warren laterals are generally made of, and we would not guess. Given that the City documents tens of thousands of homes with footing drains tied into the sanitary sewer, how water moves through a Warren property is a live question rather than an academic one. Putting a camera down the line shows its accessible interior directly and is added to the same appointment.
It has to be determined property by property, and the City is working on exactly that. Warren reports no lead pipes on its own properties and says its water department would like to run an educational campaign to help residents find lead pipes in homes, starting with how to check. The age of a house does not answer the question and a home inspection does not determine service-line material. Separately, Warren runs a Lead Hazard Control and Healthy Homes Program covering lead-based paint in pre-1978 homes, which may offer qualifying owner-occupants and landlords free inspection, risk assessment and remediation help.
No, and this one catches people. Warren’s own master plan notes that the city covers an entire township excluding the City of Center Line, which Warren completely surrounds. Center Line is a separate municipality with its own building department, ordinances and processes, sitting in the middle of Warren. Warren also borders Detroit, Eastpointe and several other communities. Before relying on any city requirement, permit record or inspection process, check which municipality the property is actually in rather than going by the mailing address.
Yes. You can book a Warren 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.
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Claim the Hero DiscountNeed a Warren home inspector and not sure we reach you? Call 734-331-3269 and we will tell you.
Permits, assessing and property records for Warren are handled by the City of Warren, not by us.
From the blog
October 22, 2017
December 1, 2017
Your local Warren home inspector, seven days a week. Home inspection reports in 24 hours.
