Wayne, Michigan
Looking for a Wayne home inspector? We do certified home, commercial, mold and radon inspections in Wayne, 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 Wayne 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 Wayne and across Wayne 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 Wayne 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 reportWayne housing stock
Wayne has roughly 7,902 housing units and about 63% 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 1950s: 2,189 homes, about 28% of everything standing today.
The median owner-occupied home here is valued at $127,600. Around 675 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 Wayne 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 Wayne was built
88% of homes here run on utility gas. Another 61 use bottled or LP gas.
Local knowledge
Wayne inspects houses that are for sale. Not at closing, not on transfer — while they are on the market.
The City’s For Sale Inspection, run under its residential dwelling certification ordinance, exists to ensure that all homes which are for sale in Wayne meet the minimum standards of the International Property Maintenance Code and the guidelines set by the Building Official. It is one of a handful of point-of-sale programs in this part of the state, and the trigger being the listing rather than the closing changes the timeline.
It sits alongside a substantial rental program. The City reports approximately 2,500 rental properties — roughly a third of its 7,902 housing units — each required to be inspected every three years.
And the housing is postwar and static: 2,189 units from the 1950s, 1,412 from the 1960s, 1,226 from the 1940s, and nothing at all built since 2009.
Before you buy
The For Sale Inspection
Ten of the cities we write about run some form of municipal inspection tied to a sale, and each one produces the same confusion. Wayne is no exception, and its version has an unusual trigger.
The Building Division describes the For Sale Inspection as ensuring that all homes which are for sale within the City meet the minimum standards of the International Property Maintenance Code and the guidelines promulgated by the Building Official. That is a compliance check against a maintenance code, carried out for the City, on a property that is on the market.
It is not a condition report and it is not written for you. A buyer’s inspection is independent, commissioned and paid for by you, and covers the roof, structure, foundation, drainage, electrical, heating and cooling, plumbing and the accessible interior — what is failing, what is near the end of its service life, and what to plan for. On a house built in 1955 that document shapes your first few years of ownership. Both happen before the same closing and neither does the other’s job.
The City also runs a rental inspection ordinance requiring each of roughly 2,500 rental properties to be inspected every three years, to meet the same International Property Maintenance Code minimums. If you are buying income property, that cycle comes with the building.
The paperwork to ask about
The City’s forms and permits page names the documents in this process, and the names alone are informative enough to be worth knowing before you are in the middle of a transaction.
Alongside the ordinary permits, the City publishes a For Sale Application for Certificate of Compliance, City Certification Guidelines, a City Certification Inspections document, a Buyer Assumption Letter, a Non-occupancy Certificate of Compliance, a Temporary Certificate of Compliance, a Furnace Safety Inspection Certification, a Roof Acceptance Letter, a Landlord Registration and a Vacant Property Registration.
Those documents are published as PDFs and we have not reproduced their contents, so we are not going to tell you what any of them requires. What the list does tell you is the shape of the process: there is a certification tied to sale, there are temporary and non-occupancy variants for properties that are not being lived in, there is separate certification for the furnace and separate acceptance for the roof, and there is a mechanism involving the buyer. Those are all questions worth putting to the Building Division early.
Two of them are worth flagging for a different reason. A furnace safety certification and a roof acceptance letter are documents about specific components — and on a house from the 1950s the furnace and the roof are exactly the two components most likely to be near the end of their service lives. Whatever those forms require of a seller, what they will cost you afterwards is a separate question, and that is the one an inspection answers.
Water service lines
This is the clearest consumer explainer any municipality in this project publishes, and it concerns something an inspector looks at anyway: the pipe at the meter.
Under the 2018 amendments to the Michigan Safe Drinking Water Act, public water systems had to maintain an inventory of service line materials by the start of 2025. Rather than guess, the City asks residents to help identify their own, and lends out magnets from three City locations to do it. The method it publishes is simple: find the meter in the basement, crawlspace or garage, and test the pipe both between where it enters the building and the meter, and between the meter and the house plumbing. Scratch it with a key or coin, as you would a lottery ticket, sanding through paint first. Orange underneath means copper. A shiny silver scratch means lead or steel — then use the magnet. If it attracts, the pipe is steel. If it does not attract and is shiny silver, it is lead. Blue plastic pipe joined to the supply is plastic.
If it turns out to be lead, the City asks to be contacted so that it can verify the finding and replace the service pipes at no cost to the owner. Under the 2018 Michigan Lead and Copper Rule those lines must be replaced by 2040. In the meantime the City notes that the water it receives from the Great Lakes Water Authority contains a corrosion inhibitor, and advises running cold water for at least five minutes after it has been standing, considering a filter, and cleaning faucet aerators every six months.
On our side of it: a home inspection does not test water. We do not take samples and we do not analyze them. What we do report is the accessible plumbing as found, including the materials visible at the meter and elsewhere, their condition, and evidence of leaks or past repairs — and we say plainly what was concealed.
The buried line
The City will help you identify the water service line. Nothing helps with the sanitary lateral, which is a different pipe running the other way.
On a house from the 1950s it has been in the ground about seventy years, with mature street trees around it — 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 Wayne laterals are generally made of.
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 — and 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.
Local information from City of Wayne — Building & Engineering, For Sale and rental inspections · City of Wayne — water service line self reporting program · City of Wayne — forms, permits and maps. Municipal requirements change — verify current details with the municipality.
Radon in Wayne 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 Wayne is not where the state’s worst readings turn up, and we would rather say that plainly than imply otherwise. What a zone cannot tell you is anything about one house: 17% of tests actually run in Wayne County still came back at or above the EPA’s 4 pCi/L action level, which is about one in six. A zone is an average taken across a whole county, and no house is an average.
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 · Wayne County radon and inspection coverage
Zone from the EPA Map of Radon Zones. Elevated-result share from the Michigan Indoor Radon Program.
Why choose us
Five reasons people here pick us as their Wayne 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
Cowboy “Jim” just did Mold Testing in my parents’ basement. He was Professional, explained the what, how and yet of everything to my Senior parents. Our results came back super quick. He even referred us to the resources on the Trademark website for me to use to fix the leaky basement. It’s 1 stop shopping with Trademark.
Becky JohnsonWayne, MIOra from Trademark did an incredible job with the inspection and sewer scope of the home I am in the process of buying. He was very thorough, explained everything to me from the start, and made it all super easy to understand which definitely helped to put me at ease a bit more. Highly recommend this company!
Mariah HartmanWestland, MIJim was prompt and thorough during the mold testing. Clearly gave us an explanation about mold and testing process he was going to conduct. Testing was followed by a written report. I would recommend everyone use a third party to test mold, independent from the company conducting remediation work. I would hire Trademark again and strongly recommend them.
Alberto PicconeNorthville, MIWhat happens
Questions
Yes, and the trigger is unusual. The City runs a For Sale Inspection under its residential dwelling certification ordinance, which it describes as ensuring that all homes which are for sale in Wayne meet the minimum standards of the International Property Maintenance Code and the guidelines promulgated by the Building Official. It attaches to the listing rather than the closing, so build it into the timeline early.
No. The City checks a property against a maintenance code, for the City, so the sale can proceed. A buyer’s inspection is independent, commissioned and paid for by you, and reports the condition of the roof, structure, foundation, drainage, electrical, heating and cooling, plumbing and the accessible interior — what is failing, what is near the end of its life and what to budget for. Neither does the other’s job.
It is one of the documents the City publishes in its forms list, and we have not reproduced its contents — it is a PDF we did not open. What its title suggests is a mechanism by which outstanding items pass to the buyer, which is how similar documents work in other cities. If one is put in front of you, that is a question for the Building Division and your agent before you sign it, not after.
The City publishes a step-by-step test and lends magnets from three City locations. Find the meter, and test the pipe both between where it enters the building and the meter and between the meter and the house plumbing. Scratch it with a key or coin, sanding through any paint. Orange underneath is copper. Shiny silver means lead or steel — then use the magnet: if it attracts, steel; if it does not and the metal is shiny silver, lead. Blue plastic pipe is plastic.
Contact the Department of Public Works. The City states it will verify the finding and replace the service pipes at no cost to you, and that under the 2018 Michigan Lead and Copper Rule those lines must be replaced by 2040. In the meantime it notes the water it receives from the Great Lakes Water Authority contains a corrosion inhibitor, and advises running cold water for at least five minutes after it has been standing, considering a filter, and cleaning faucet aerators every six months.
A three-year inspection cycle. The City reports approximately 2,500 rental properties and states that its rental inspection ordinance requires each to be inspected every three years against the minimum standards of the International Property Maintenance Code. A Landlord Registration form is published among the City’s documents. That cycle comes with the building.
Postwar and unchanged. Of about 7,902 housing units, 2,189 were built in the 1950s, 1,412 in the 1960s and 1,226 in the 1940s, with 804 predating 1940 and 1,121 from the 1970s. Nothing has been built here since 2009. Around 63% is single-family detached. On a house from the 1950s every original mechanical component has been replaced at least once, and the roof and the furnace are the two most likely to be due again.
It is worth considering, and it is a different pipe from the one the City helps you identify. The sanitary lateral running from the house to the main has been in the ground about seventy years on a 1950s house, with mature street trees around it, and no visual inspection reaches inside it. We will not guess a material from a build year — no authoritative source establishes what Wayne laterals are generally made of. 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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Permits, assessing and property records for Wayne are handled by Wayne, Michigan, not by us.
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