Home Inspector in Grosse Pointe Woods, MI

Grosse Pointe Woods is the postwar Pointe. It was the Village of Lochmoor in 1927, took its current name in 1939, became a city in 1950, and most of what stands here went up around and just after the Second World War. The median home was built in 1953, nearly eight in ten homes date from 1940 to 1969, and only about 12 percent predate 1940. That is a different inspection from the slate-roofed estates in the Farms and the Park.

A 1950s brick colonial or ranch does not hand me boilers and knob-and-tube. It hands me galvanized supply lines at seventy years, cast-iron drains, a panel that may be original or may be the second one, ductwork sized for a furnace three generations gone, and a roof, windows, and additions each replaced or added on someone else’s schedule. The house looks solid from the curb because the brick is; the question is what is behind it.

The Woods is also the only Pointe without Lake St. Clair shoreline; its Lake Front Park sits in St. Clair Shores. What it shares with its neighbors is the water table, the clay, and a combined sewer system that put about 100 basements under water in June 2021. I spend a large part of every inspection here in the basement, because that is where a Woods house tells the truth about its plumbing and its history.

Pre-1940 Lochmoor-era houses (about 12%)

The oldest homes in the Woods date to the Village of Lochmoor years and earlier, and they are usually the exception on a block of 1950s brick. Homes from this era commonly have balloon framing, plaster and lath, knob-and-tube or cloth-insulated remnants behind newer circuits, galvanized supply lines, clay laterals, and block or early poured foundations, and they have been worked on more than anything around them. I trace the wiring generation by generation from the panel, check every place an addition meets the original framing, and look for the plaster cracking pattern that means movement rather than age.

1940s bungalows, Cape Cods, and small colonials (about 30%)

The wartime and immediate postwar houses are the smallest in the city, and most have grown since. Homes from this era commonly have 60-amp fuse panels or the first breaker panels, galvanized plumbing, block foundations, undersized ductwork, and asbestos in floor tile, duct wrap, or siding. The defining feature is the finished attic or shed dormer that turned a one-and-a-half-story house into a three-bedroom. I get the pole camera into every attic space I can reach, check whether the dormer framing was tied in properly, look for blocked ventilation and bath exhaust dumping into the attic, and verify the panel was upgraded to carry what has been added.

1950s brick ranches and colonials (about 32%)

This is the Woods most buyers picture: brick, garage, full basement, hardwood under the carpet. Homes from this era commonly have cast-iron drain stacks, galvanized supply on its last years, a roof on its second or third layer, and a forced-air system whose furnace is new but whose ducts are original and undersized. I run water at several fixtures at once to see the pressure drop, put the thermal camera on each register with the system running, check the roof deck from the attic for prior leaks, and look under any rear addition, which is where 1950s houses most often picked up moisture.

1960s to today: the aluminum-wiring years and the infill (about 26%)

Roughly 16 percent of the Woods was built in the 1960s, which overlaps the 1965 to 1973 aluminum branch-circuit wiring era; I identify aluminum at the panel and at receptacles and document it by circuit. Federal Pacific Stab-Lok and Zinsco panels, early central air, and single-pane aluminum windows belong to this group too. Only about 5 percent of the city was built from 1970 to 1999; anything from 1978 to 1995 gets checked for gray polybutylene supply piping. The 2010s added a few infill homes on teardown lots, and a new house on an old lot still sits on the original water service and lateral unless the permit record says otherwise.

The EPA puts Wayne County in Radon Zone 3, its lowest predicted-potential category. EGLE’s own test-result map is less reassuring: 17 percent of Wayne County tests come back at or above the 4.0 pCi/L action level. Neither number predicts the ranch you are buying. Block foundations have more joints and soil contact than a poured wall, and many Woods basements are finished and used every day. A 48-hour continuous-monitor test in the lowest livable level costs $175 and runs inside your inspection window.