Home Inspector in Lake Orion, MI

Lake Orion is a lake community with a specific inspection history behind it. A significant portion of the housing closest to the water started life as a seasonal cottage and was converted to year-round use somewhere over the last seventy years. Those conversions are the single most important thing to understand about buying here, and they are not visible from the street.

A converted cottage typically means a foundation that was never designed for a year-round structure, a crawlspace that was never meant to be conditioned, insulation added in layers without an air barrier, and heating extended into space it wasn't sized for. Sometimes that work was done well. Often it was done incrementally by successive owners with no permits and no plan. I inspect what the structure actually is today, and I tell you which parts of it were engineered and which parts accumulated.

Then there's the site. Lakefront lots here are frequently steep, and steep lots move water toward the house. I look at grading, retaining structures, foundation drainage, and how the property has handled runoff. On waterfront parcels I also document seawall and shoreline condition visually, and I'm clear about where a home inspection ends and a marine contractor's evaluation begins.

Village of Lake Orion: pre-1940 cottages and downtown homes (37% of the village)

More than a third of the village’s roughly 1,400 homes predate 1940, concentrated on the lakefront, on Bellevue and Park islands, and in the blocks around Broadway and Flint Street. Beyond the cottage-conversion issues in the intro, homes from this era commonly have pier or block foundations with no continuous footing, knob-and-tube remnants in the original portion, galvanized supply lines, clay laterals, and asbestos in pipe wrap and floor tile. On the islands, access is part of the inspection: Victoria, Sweet’s, and Romance islands are reached by bridge or boat, so tell me which when you book. I get into every crawlspace, photograph the piers and the sill contact, meter the floor framing nearest the water, and document the seawall from the lot. I also note how the lake level, which the village DPW controls at the dam, sits relative to the lowest framing.

1970s and 1980s township homes and the older lake subdivisions

About 16 percent of township homes went up in the 1970s and 9 percent in the 1980s, scattered across the township’s older lake subdivisions and hamlets. Homes from this era commonly have aluminum branch-circuit wiring through 1973, Federal Pacific or Zinsco panels, polybutylene supply piping after 1978, and single-pane aluminum windows. Many of these lots are on private wells and septic, and a 1975 drainfield is now at or past its design life. The township also has a small share of manufactured homes, about 2 percent, and I inspect those as manufactured homes: piers and tie-downs, the marriage line on a double-wide, the belly wrap, and the data plate. On any lake lot from this era, I trace where the sump and footing drains discharge, because many were sent straight toward the water.

1990s subdivisions — the biggest township group (25%)

A quarter of Orion Township was built between 1990 and 1999, much of it in the colonial subdivisions along Baldwin, Joslyn, Clarkston, and Silverbell roads, and this is the house most township buyers end up in. Homes from this era commonly have polybutylene supply lines if built before about 1995, hardboard siding swelling at the bottom courses, builder-grade windows with failed seals, first-generation high-efficiency furnaces, and roofs at or past replacement age. I identify the supply piping at the water heater and under sinks, fly the roof, and pay attention to grading, because thirty years of settling backfill sends water toward the foundation. If the home predates the township’s service-line inventory work, it may be one of the 2,474 lines still listed as unknown.

2000s to today: newer subdivisions and lake rebuilds

About 23 percent of township homes were built after 2000, with 12 percent in the 2010s alone, the second-highest new-construction share among the Oakland County cities I cover. In the village, new construction is mostly a lakefront cottage coming down and a much larger year-round home going up on the same small lot. Homes from this era commonly show condensate and venting problems on high-efficiency equipment, missing kick-out flashing, insulation gaps around can lights and bath fans, and builder punch lists nobody closed. On a lakefront rebuild I verify that the new house got a new service line and lateral rather than being tied back into the 1930s ones. For anything still under construction, a pre-drywall inspection while the rough-ins are open and an 11-month inspection before the builder warranty ends are the two visits that pay for themselves.

Oakland County is EPA Radon Zone 2, and roughly 30 percent of tested homes in the county come back above the EPA action level of 4.0 pCi/L, per EGLE. The glacial hills around Bald Mountain and the crawlspaces under converted cottages are two very different soil-gas situations, and the only way to know either one is to test. I treat radon as part of the inspection here: a 48-hour continuous-monitor test in the lowest livable level, $175 added to your inspection or included in the $749 Complete Inspection. In a cottage with a crawlspace and no basement, the lowest livable level is the main floor, and I place the monitor accordingly.