Home Inspector in Mount Clemens, MI

Mount Clemens holds the oldest concentrated housing stock in Macomb County. This was a mineral bath resort city long before the suburbs around it existed, and the neighborhoods near downtown still show it — late nineteenth and early twentieth century homes with real architectural character, alongside 1950s infill and postwar ranches at the edges.

Century-old housing requires a different inspection than a 2005 subdivision, and the electrical system is where that starts. In homes from this era I look for active knob-and-tube, cloth-insulated conductors that have gone brittle at the terminations, fuse panels still in service, and the single most misleading condition in old-house buying: a modern panel installed without replacing any of the branch wiring behind it. That looks like an upgrade on a listing photo. It frequently isn't one.

Below grade, expect stone and block foundations, limited headroom, and moisture management designed for a different century. Above, expect plaster, original framing, and roof systems that have been layered and patched over many decades. None of it disqualifies a house. All of it needs to be documented honestly, with a realistic sense of what maintaining a home this age actually costs.

Pre-1940 resort-era homes downtown and in Breitmeyer Hills

The mineral bath era ran from 1873 to 1974 and built the Colonial Revivals, Victorians, and 1920s bungalows around downtown and the Breitmeyer Hills Historic District. Beyond the wiring and foundations covered above, homes from this era commonly hide a buried heating-oil tank, and I look for the cut-off fill pipe and vent that give one away. Slate and tile roofs on the larger houses outlast three asphalt roofs but fail at the flashings, and I document them from the drone, airspace and weather permitting, rather than walking them. Cast-iron stacks rust through at the base, and pre-1978 paint, pipe wrap, floor tile, and siding can contain lead and asbestos. I identify suspect materials and tell you what testing costs before you disturb them.

1940s–1960s bungalows and ranches at the edges

Forty percent of the city was built between 1940 and 1969, filling in Canfield Manor, Seminole Hills, and the streets between Gratiot and Groesbeck. Homes from this era commonly have block foundations, 60-amp fuse panels or the first generation of breaker panels, galvanized supply lines that are now at or past end of life, clay sewer laterals, and ductwork sized for a gravity furnace that was replaced two furnaces ago. I check flow at the top-floor fixtures, look for corrosion at galvanized joints, open the panel, and check whether the furnace and air conditioner added later have enough return air. These houses are honest and simple. The expensive items are the ones underground.

1970s–1990s infill and small subdivisions

Only about a quarter of the housing here dates from 1970 to 1999, most of it from the 1970s. Homes from the early 1970s can have aluminum branch-circuit wiring, and Federal Pacific Stab-Lok and Zinsco panels turn up across the whole period. Late-1970s to mid-1990s houses can carry polybutylene supply pipe. In this city the 1970s homes are often on the same combined-sewer streets as their older neighbors, so they share the basement-backup exposure without the age you would expect to go with it. I check the panel brand, sample devices for aluminum, identify the supply piping at the water heater, and look for a backwater valve or evidence of past backups at the floor drain.

Converted two- and three-unit buildings from every era

About 41 percent of Mount Clemens households rent, and roughly three in ten dwellings are in buildings with two or more units, many of them big single-family houses carved up over the decades. Homes converted this way commonly have circuits shared between units, one gas or water service split after the meter, missing fire separation, and an attic or basement unit with questionable egress. I inspect two- to four-unit buildings as a multi-unit inspection and report each unit’s systems separately, so you know what the city’s rental inspection is going to ask of you.

Macomb County is in EPA Radon Zone 3, the lowest-potential category. The county health department estimates 5 to 10 percent of homes test above the EPA action level of 4.0 pCi/L, and EGLE’s county map puts Macomb tests at about 11 percent. Old houses with fieldstone foundations, dirt-floor crawlspaces under additions, and open sump pits give soil gas more ways in than a modern poured basement does, which is why I do not treat the county average as a pass. A 48-hour continuous-monitor test for $175 sits in the lowest livable level during the inspection window and gives you a number instead of a guess.