Washington Township, Michigan
Looking for a Washington Township home inspector? We do certified home, commercial, mold and radon inspections in Washington 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 Washington 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 Washington Township 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 Washington 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 reportWashington Township housing stock
Washington Township has roughly 11,291 housing units and about 69% of them are single-family detached. Housing that went up mostly in one era has mostly one era’s problems — which is genuinely useful to know before you buy, because it tells you what to look at first.
Most of it went up in the 2000s — 2,592 homes, around 23% of the town.
The median owner-occupied home here is valued at $366,100. There are around 656 manufactured and mobile homes in Washington Township. Those are a different inspection — the questions are about the frame, the anchoring and the skirting rather than a basement.
None of this is a prediction about a particular house. It is where a Washington Township home inspector starts looking in a home of this age, and what we photograph and write up either way.
Housing figures: US Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2022 five-year estimates.
When Washington Township was built
90% of homes here run on utility gas, and 17 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 273 use bottled or LP gas.
Local knowledge
Washington Township runs a mandatory cross-connection inspection program on properties connected to public water, and it publishes something we have not seen any other municipality in this region put in writing: a plain warning about water-powered backup sump pumps.
A cross connection is a plumbing arrangement through which water can flow backward into the public supply. Part 14 of the Michigan Safe Drinking Water Act administrative rules prohibits them and requires every public water supply to run a prevention program covering inspections, testing, recordkeeping and education. Here that program is enforced by the Department of Public Works under Township Ordinance 186, and the inspections themselves are carried out by a contracted specialist provider, which also notifies customers when re-testing is due.
For a buyer, the practical questions are whether the property has any device subject to that program, whether it has been tested, and when the next test is due. Those obligations do not reset at a closing.
The township is large and still growing: about 11,291 housing units, with 2,592 built in the 2000s, 2,290 in the 1990s and 1,421 since 2010. Around 69% is single-family detached, which leaves close to a third of the stock in attached and multi-unit buildings — and as below, that distinction turns out to matter here.
Before you buy
Water-powered backup sump pumps
A water-powered backup sump pump has no battery. It uses the pressure of the municipal water supply to drive an ejector that pushes water out of the crock, which means it keeps working through a power cut for as long as the water main holds pressure. That is the appeal.
The Township’s Department of Public Works does not recommend them, and gives three reasons. They run on public water, so they raise your water bill. They can fail without the owner noticing. And they may carry on drawing public water after the electricity has come back on.
There is also a code requirement attached. Because the device connects a potable supply to a sump crock, state plumbing code requires a reduced pressure backflow prevention assembly — ASSE #1013 — in the supply line. As the Township puts it, the assembly stops the water in your sump crock from entering the public drinking water mains. Installing one properly requires a plumber who is both actively licensed and holds the ASSE certification, a plumbing permit from the Building Department, a test report submitted to the DPW, and a final interior plumbing inspection with the inspector given access inside the house.
The part that follows a buyer is the ongoing one: backflow preventers on water-powered backup sump pumps must be tested every year by a licensed plumber with ASSE tester certification. That is an annual obligation attached to the property, and it is not the kind of thing that usually comes up at a closing.
On an inspection we report the sump equipment we find — the pump, the pit, the discharge and where it goes, and whether there is a backup arrangement and what kind. If a water-powered backup is present, whether it was permitted, whether a backflow assembly is fitted, and when it was last tested are questions for the Township and the seller. We can tell you the device is there; the DPW can tell you whether its paperwork is in order.
The Township’s own suggestion, for anyone weighing the options, is to look properly at battery backup systems as an alternative.
Cross connections
The Township’s cross connection program applies to every customer on public water, and it is not optional — the inspections are described as mandatory, and customers are notified when re-testing falls due.
The line worth reading carefully is how the program is divided. The residential program applies to single-family homes and detached condominiums connected to public water. The commercial program applies to attached condominiums, apartments, and all non-residential buildings — offices, stores, banks, restaurants.
So if you are buying an attached condominium here, your building sits under the commercial side of the program rather than the residential one. Around 31% of the housing in this township is not single-family detached, so this is not a rare situation. Whether the association has kept up with the program is a fair question to put to it, alongside the usual questions about reserves and minutes.
Common residential cross connections are more ordinary than the term suggests: lawn irrigation systems, boilers, and outside hose connections all create arrangements where water can be drawn back toward the supply under the wrong conditions. The Township requires permits for lawn irrigation sprinkler systems and fire suppression sprinkler systems connected to public water, alongside the water-powered backup sump pumps above — those three sit with the Building Department, while the Department of Public Works handles permits for connecting to public water, sanitary and storm sewer, sump line installations, final grade, fire hydrant use, second meters and private paving rehabilitation.
On the inspection side, what we report is what is physically present and accessible: hose bibs and whether they carry vacuum breakers, visible irrigation connections, boiler fill arrangements, and the sump and its backup. Whether each of those satisfies the Township’s program is the program’s call, not ours — but knowing what is there is where that conversation starts.
Wells, septic and the county
A significant part of this township is not on public services, and the Township is clear about where those questions belong. Wells and septic systems fall under the Macomb County Health Department, which evaluates proposed building sites, conducts soil percolation tests, issues septic permits, inspects septic systems and investigates complaints of failing systems.
Those services cover single-family dwellings and commercial or industrial buildings generating under 10,000 gallons of sewage a day; sites generating between 10,000 and 20,000 gallons need permits from both the county health department and the state.
For private wells, the state’s drinking water laboratory sells test kits covering E. coli, nitrate and nitrite, arsenic, lead and copper, pesticides, herbicides and others. The Township notes the obvious contrast: public drinking water is regularly tested, and a private well is tested when its owner arranges it.
We want to be exact about our own limits. We do not take water samples, we do not analyze them, and we do not evaluate septic systems. Those are separate disciplines with their own credentials, and on a property with private water and waste you want the county involved alongside a building inspection rather than instead of one.
What a buyer’s inspection covers is the building and the ground immediately around it: the roof, structure, foundation, drainage, electrical, heating and cooling, plumbing and the accessible interior, plus accessible grading and how it falls away from the foundation, gutters and downspouts and where they discharge, foundation conditions, the basement or crawlspace, and sump equipment. On a large lot the water story runs well past the foundation wall, and we record what is accessible.
Permits and contractors
Three things from the Building Department are worth knowing before you start work here.
The first is procedural: since January 2021 all building inspections must be requested by email, and the request has to carry the address, the permit number, the type of inspection, the lock box code and anything else the department might need. On a vacant property mid-sale, the lock box detail is the one people forget.
The second is a genuinely unusual piece of leverage. Every person obtaining a building permit must also obtain a soil erosion permit from the Macomb County Drain Commission — and the Township notes that when the streets in a subdivision get bad enough, the Drain Commission will shut the subdivision down to inspections until the streets are cleaned. Your project can be halted by someone else’s mud.
The third is the Township’s advice on contractors, which is unusually direct for a municipal page. Any contractor bidding work over $600 in labor and materials must be licensed. Never pay in full before the work is complete and all inspections are approved by the Building Department. And it is ultimately the homeowner’s responsibility to verify that the proper permits have been paid for before construction begins on their property.
That last point is worth carrying into a purchase as well as a project. If a previous owner added a room, finished a basement or built a detached garage, whether the permits were actually taken out and finalled is a matter of record at the Township — and the physical quality of the work is a separate question that an inspection answers.
The buried line
Where a property here is on the public system, the buried lead running from the building to the main is the one component no visual inspection reaches.
The age range is wide. On a house from the 2000s that pipe has been in the ground twenty-odd years with the landscaping now mature; on a 1970s house it is fifty; on one of the 669 units that predate 1940, considerably longer. Any of those is 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 Washington Township leads are generally made of.
On a property with a septic system, the question is a different one and belongs to the county health department 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. Get in touch to talk through a particular property.
Local information from Washington Township DPW — sump pump backups and backflow requirements · Washington Township DPW — cross connections and Ordinance 186 · Washington Township — Building Department FAQs and contractor guidance · Washington Township — well and septic. 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 Washington Township is not where Michigan’s alarming radon numbers are, and we are not going to pretend 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 Washington 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
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
That the Township does not recommend them, and that one comes with an annual obligation. The Department of Public Works notes they run on public water and raise the bill, can fail without the owner noticing, and may keep drawing water after power is restored. Because the device links a potable supply to the sump crock, state plumbing code requires a reduced pressure backflow prevention assembly (ASSE #1013) in the supply line — and that assembly must be tested every year by a licensed plumber holding ASSE tester certification. Ask the seller when it was last tested, and confirm with the Township.
It is a plumbing arrangement through which water can flow backward into the public supply. Michigan Safe Drinking Water Act rules prohibit them and require every public water supply to run a prevention program of inspections, testing, recordkeeping and education. Washington Township enforces its program through the Department of Public Works under Ordinance 186, with inspections carried out by a contracted specialist. If the property is on public water, it is in the program.
Commercial, for cross-connection purposes. The Township’s residential program covers single-family homes and detached condominiums on public water; the commercial program covers attached condominiums, apartments and all non-residential buildings. Around 31% of the housing here is not single-family detached, so it is a common situation — and whether the association has kept up with the program is a fair question to ask it.
The Macomb County Health Department. It evaluates proposed building sites, conducts soil percolation tests, issues septic permits, inspects septic systems and investigates failing systems, for buildings generating under 10,000 gallons a day. We do not test water and we do not evaluate septic systems — on a property with private water and waste you want the county involved alongside a building inspection rather than instead of one.
By email only. Since January 2021 the Township has required all building inspection requests to be emailed to the Building Department, with the address, permit number, type of inspection requested and the lock box code included. On a vacant property mid-sale, the lock box code is the detail people leave out.
The Township says so. Every building permit also requires a soil erosion permit from the Macomb County Drain Commission, and when the streets in a subdivision get bad enough the Drain Commission will shut that subdivision down to inspections until they are cleaned. In an actively building subdivision, your schedule is partly in other people’s hands.
Mostly recent, and the township is still growing. Of about 11,291 housing units, 2,592 were built in the 2000s and 2,290 in the 1990s, with 1,524 from the 1970s, 1,465 from the 1980s and 1,421 since 2010. There are also 669 units predating 1940. Around 69% is single-family detached. A house from the early 2000s is now reaching the age where its first roof, furnace and water heater come due within a few years of each other.
If the property is on the public system, yes. The buried lead is the one component no visual inspection reaches, and even a 2000s house has had twenty-odd years of mature landscaping growing 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 the county health department instead.
More on cost, timing and what is included on the FAQ page.
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