Home Inspector in Oakland Township, MI

Oakland Township is estate and acreage country, and inspecting a house here has more in common with inspecting a small commercial property than a subdivision colonial. Larger square footage, complex roof geometry, multiple heating zones, whole-house generators, and — critically — a large share of properties on private well and septic rather than municipal service.

Well and septic are where I spend real time. On the well side: flow rate, pressure tank operation, visible equipment condition, and a straight answer about which water quality questions require lab testing rather than a visual look. On the septic side: tank and drainfield location, evidence of surfacing or saturation, and a clear explanation of what a county evaluation and pump-out reveals that no visual inspection can. These systems are five-figure replacements. They are not a footnote.

The structures themselves bring their own set. Complex roofs with many valleys and transitions are where leaks start, and they're difficult to evaluate honestly from the ground, so I document them from the air where conditions allow. Large finished basements hide their own mechanical rooms. And the custom builds from the 1990s and 2000s are now old enough that their original systems are arriving at end of life all at once.

Farmhouses and hamlet homes around Goodison and the old crossroads

Goodison grew up around a mill built in 1835 on Paint Creek, and the farmhouses around it and on the older farm parcels along the township’s section roads are the oldest housing here. Homes from this era commonly have stone or fieldstone foundations, balloon framing, several generations of additions, cloth-insulated wiring remnants behind a modern panel, and a well and septic system that may predate any county record. I walk the foundation inside and out, trace the electrical from the meter to the far end of each addition, and look hard at the framing where a 1990s kitchen wing meets an 1890s house. On a property like this I also want to know where the well head and the septic tank are before I arrive, because on old farm parcels nobody alive may know.

1970s–1990s acreage homes and the first subdivisions

Before the big custom-build wave, the township filled in with raised ranches and colonials on two- to ten-acre parcels along gravel roads, and with platted subdivisions in the south end such as Oakland Valley, Coachlamp, Knorrwood Pines, and Oakland Farms, which are served by the county’s Southeast well-water district. Homes from this era commonly have polybutylene supply piping if built between 1978 and 1995, Federal Pacific or Zinsco panels in the 1970s houses, single-pane aluminum windows, and a roof and furnace on their second or third replacement. On the acreage parcels the septic field is now 30 to 50 years old, which is the end of a drainfield’s design life in the poorly drained soils that cover much of this township. I flag every surface sign of a field in trouble, and I am direct about what a licensed septic contractor’s evaluation will tell you that I cannot.

2000 to today: the custom-build wave

The township issued 1,933 single-family permits between 2000 and 2019 and its population grew about 60 percent from 2010 to 2019, which works out to roughly a quarter of today’s homes built in those two decades. These are the 3,000-square-foot new-traditional and contemporary houses with four bedrooms, three-car garages, walkout basements, and complex Tudor-style roofs. Homes from this era commonly have multiple HVAC zones with one unit quietly failing, high-efficiency furnace condensate and venting mistakes, grading that has settled toward the foundation, and, on the wooded lots, gutters full of enough debris to back water under the shingles. I fly the roof, document every valley and cricket, run the thermal camera across the ceilings below, and test the sump and any backup pump, because a walkout on mucky soil is only as good as its drainage. On new construction still under way, a pre-drywall inspection is the visit that catches the most.

Oakland County is EPA Radon Zone 2, and roughly 30 percent of tested Oakland County homes come back above the 4.0 pCi/L action level, per EGLE. The glacial soils and walkout basements that define this township are exactly the conditions where I see readings vary from one lot to the next. I treat radon as part of the inspection here: a 48-hour continuous-monitor test placed in the lowest livable level, $175 added to your inspection or bundled into the $749 Complete Inspection. On a home with a finished walkout, that is the room you want the number for.