Ann Arbor, Washtenaw County, Michigan
What a Plumber Ann Arbor Homeowners Hire Expects Under the Front Lawn
Most cities cannot tell you what your sewer lateral is made of. Ann Arbor is unusual in that it can tell you exactly when one particular material was legal to install here, down to the month at both ends, and then says plainly that it does not know which houses have it. The material is bituminized fiber pipe, universally called Orangeburg after the Orangeburg Manufacturing Co., Inc. of Orangeburg, New York, and the city publishes a page about it.
That combination, a precise legal window and no address list, is the single most useful thing to understand before anybody starts quoting on a slow drain in this city. If the house went up between roughly 1949 and 1970, the pipe running from about five feet outside the foundation to the main in the street is a live question rather than a settled one, and the answer changes what a sensible repair looks like.
A Code Decision With a Date on Each End
The Years Bituminized Fiber Pipe Was Legal in Ann Arbor
The city sets this out as an administrative history rather than a rumour, and the dates are the useful part. The State of Michigan Plumbing Board accepted bituminized fiber piping as of November 1, 1949, and that first approval was for the brand name Orangeburg. Additional products were approved in October and November of 1955. Two national standards governed manufacture, ASTM D-1861 for homogenous pipe and ASTM D-1862 for the laminated wall variety, both covering resistance to flattening, crushing, strength, permeability, absorption and chemical resistance.
| Date | The decision | What it means for a house of that age |
|---|---|---|
| Fiscal year 1948 to 1949 | The city was already enforcing the State Plumbing Code | State approvals fed directly into what was allowed here |
| November 1, 1949 | The State of Michigan Plumbing Board accepts bituminized fiber piping | The earliest date the material was legitimately in the ground |
| 1954 | The city adopts the 1950 BOCA Building Code and provisions of the State Plumbing Code | The material stays approved locally |
| October and November 1955 | Additional bituminized fiber products approved | More brands than Orangeburg itself are in Ann Arbor ground |
| Approximately 1970 | Approval within the city jurisdiction ends | The upper bound on any legitimate installation |
| May 1970 | A city ordinance removes the material from the list of approved sewer materials | Anything installed after this was not approved here |
The city is candid about how the ban came about. During the period the material was approved it says it was still reluctant to approve it, but once the state had given approval the city did not prohibit its usage. After documentation of several failures, the Attorney office felt there were sufficient grounds to prohibit the material and did so. The state did not immediately follow suit and continued to approve the material at state level, but it did approve the city code amendment restriction from 1970 on.
Orangeburg was not the only maker. The city names The Fiber Conduit Company, KYOVA Fiber Pipe Company, Central Fiber Pipe Company, Line Material Company and Brown Company, whose product was called BERMICO, as manufacturers of the same class of pipe. All of them were busy during and after the Second World War, when scarcity of cast iron and rationing of metal building products pushed the industry toward alternatives.
Why It Goes, and What Sends It Early
A Sewer Pipe That Rots From the Inside Out
The city states that although cast iron and plastic sewers also fail, the preponderance of sewer pipe failures in Ann Arbor over the past twenty years or so has been associated with bituminized fiber piping. It gives several mechanisms. Bedding around the pipe shifts or is disturbed over time, so sections move and break apart, generally at the joints. Tree roots invade at those same joints, loosening or breaking sections and restricting flow. And the material itself deteriorates.
The deterioration is the part worth reading twice. As the material breaks down it flattens under the pressure of the earth around it and loses its circular cross section, and the city points out that the circular shape matters most at the bottom of the pipe where most material will flow. In laminated pipe the bottom weakens and bows upward, reducing or eliminating the ability of the pipe to flow properly.
What makes it genuinely strange is the direction of the failure. The interior layers fail first and the pipe then continues to rot from the inside out. City inspectors have seen bituminous fiber piping that still maintained a circular outer shape while its interior cross section was out of round and failing. The city describes that inside-to-out mechanism as particularly unique to this material, which means an exterior dig can look reassuring while the flow path has already gone.
The Household Habit That Shortens It
Bitumen Is the Binder, So Solvents Are the Enemy
Here is the one line on the city page that a household can act on tonight. The pipe is held together with bitumen. The city states that any type of solvent, paint thinner, mineral spirits or adhesive cleaner dumped into the pipes will cause deterioration, and that while age causes some breakdown, in many cases the deterioration is caused by the effects of improper disposal of cleaners and solvents.
- Paint thinner, named directly by the city as a cause of deterioration
- Mineral spirits, named directly by the city
- Adhesive cleaners, named directly by the city
- Any type of solvent, which is how the city phrases the general rule
- Anything a project leaves over that you were planning to rinse away rather than take to a household toxics collection
Note what this rule is not. It is not the usual advice about grease and wipes, which is about blockage. This is about chemistry attacking the material of the pipe itself, and it applies specifically to a pipe made of fibre and asbestos held together with tar. In a house with cast iron or modern plastic, a splash of thinner is a pollution question. In a house with bituminized fiber pipe, the city describes it as a structural one.
Four Ways to Establish the Material
How to Find Out What You Have, When There Is No List
The city states directly that it does not have records listing all Orangeburg houses, that there appears to be no consistent pattern of buildings with or without the pipe, and that it may show up anywhere in the city, sometimes consistently on specific streets and other times in isolated instances. What it does have is a record, kept since the mid 1980s, of addresses where sewer pipe has been replaced in total or in part. Not every replacement on that list was Orangeburg, but the city says many certainly were.
The replacement record
Check the city list for the address itself, and for addresses on the same street or in the immediate vicinity. It is a proxy for the neighbourhood pattern rather than an answer.
The microfilm files
The city suggests looking at files of similar houses to see whether similar construction dates, similar plumbers or similar builders were involved. Contact the city about viewing the files and films.
A camera down the line
A television or video scan is possible where the line can be accessed and can give a picture of what is happening inside, with interior damage patterns as a clue to the pipe type.
Digging to the pipe
Positive identification, and extremely disruptive to the yard. The city says that unfortunately, in many Orangeburg cases, it will eventually be necessary anyway.
A snake or mechanical cutter also yields evidence, sometimes by bringing pipe material back up with it, but the city warns in the same breath that it may further damage the pipe. That is the awkward part of diagnosis here: the cheapest way to look is also a way to make the problem worse, which is a reason to think about sequence before anybody puts a machine down the cleanout.
Clearing It Versus Replacing It
Two Repairs, and the City Refuses to Pick One
The city reduces the whole question to two options. Either clear the obstruction and hope the pipe is still in good shape, or repair and replace the piping. Clearing is usually done with a snake carrying a cutting tool on the leading portion. It will usually clear the obstruction, but with bituminous fiber pipe it may damage the pipe itself, and the city is blunt that it may only clear things temporarily because the failure mechanism will likely resume once the current area of failure is cleared. It is certainly cheaper than replacement, and it may only be borrowing time.
- Establish the age of the house against the window
A build date between roughly 1949 and 1970 puts bituminized fiber pipe in play. Earlier or later does not rule everything out, but it changes the odds considerably.
- Read the replacement record before you dig
Check the address and its neighbours against the city record of sewer replacements. A street with several entries is telling you something about the era of construction there.
- Look before cutting where you can
A camera survey gathers evidence without loading the pipe. The city itself notes that cutting may bring back identifying material and may also cause further damage, so order matters.
- Decide whether you are buying time or solving it
Both are legitimate. The city states that in many Orangeburg cases replacement is the only viable option, and that cutting will not even work where the length of failed pipe is extensive.
- Choose the method on your own facts
Trenching is the standard method. Pipe bursting needs large holes at each end and may save landscaping. The city says it does not recommend any particular method and that the choice must be based on individual needs and budget.
One geometry point decides more of this than people expect. Water jetting is sometimes used to clean a line, but for most blockages the interior must have a reasonably circular shape established for smooth flow, so cutting will probably be required first. A pipe that has already gone oval is not a pipe that jetting alone will restore, which is exactly the situation this material produces as it ages.
Basements, and a Three Year Clock
The Backup Pump Choice That Commits You to a Test
The city separates two things that look identical on a basement floor. A basement backup is sanitary sewer water entering the basement, typically through a floor drain; it is grayish in colour and usually has an odour, and the city asks to hear about it right away on 734.794.6320 during the week from 7:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., or 734.994.2840 after hours, at weekends and on holidays. Basement flooding from heavy storms, spring snowmelt, excessive groundwater or poor yard drainage is typically clear and odour free, and the same numbers apply.
For sump pump replacement, repair, and semi annual maintenance checks the city simply says to contact a plumber. But it attaches a condition to one specific product choice. Where a water powered backup system is installed, the backflow prevention device it relies on, an RPZ valve, must be tested by a licensed certified plumber and inspected by the city every three years, to verify that sump water is not contaminating the water supply.
That is worth weighing at the point of purchase rather than discovering later. A water powered backup has real advantages in a long outage because it does not depend on a battery, and in exchange it becomes a tested and inspected device on a fixed cycle. A battery backup carries no such requirement and a different maintenance burden. Neither is wrong; they are simply different commitments, and the city has already told you which one has a clock on it.
Insurance and Records
Two Things the City Says That Are Not About Pipes
The first is a warning about cover. The city urges residents to check their homeowners insurance policies to make sure they are covered for property damage from basement flooding, and states that often this type of coverage is not included in a standard homeowners policy, so residents must request a special rider in order to be covered. That is a five minute phone call that changes the arithmetic of every basement decision underneath it.
The second is about data. The city says it tracks instances of basement flooding to identify causes and potential patterns. Reporting a wet basement is therefore not only a request for help, it is a contribution to the record that eventually justifies work on a particular street. That is the same logic as the sewer replacement address list: this city has spent decades building partial records because it accepts that no complete one exists.
The Supply Side
Lead, Galvanized Lines and a Gooseneck Problem With Two Date Ranges
Michigan runs one of the more demanding lead and copper regimes in the country, and Ann Arbor Water publishes its position against it in numbers. State rules require communities to locate and prioritise eligible service lines for removal, and eligibility covers all lead service lines and all galvanized service lines that were once connected to lead through a lead gooseneck. Ann Arbor once used goosenecks to connect galvanized water service lines to water mains, on service lines installed before 1927 and on some lines installed between 1942 and 1945.
| The inventory, as of December 31, 2025 | Figure | Why it matters inside a house |
|---|---|---|
| Lead service lines in the system | 0 | The pipe from the street is not the lead question here |
| Service lines of unknown material | 0 | Unusual, and the reason the other figures can be read plainly |
| Total service lines in the system | 25,633 | The denominator for everything else on this table |
| Service lines verified | 96 per cent | Verification is by inspection or by resident photographs |
| Service lines still needing inspection | 911 | The remaining work, and the reason the city asks for help |
| Service lines replaced through the city programme | 551 | Replacements are coordinated with water main and road projects |
The city states it has no known homes with lead service lines, but that some customers do have lead components in their internal plumbing. Two dates carry that risk. Homes with copper plumbing installed before 1988 are most likely to have lead solder at the joints, and faucets, fittings or valves sold before 2014 may have a higher lead content than newer plumbing materials. Neither is a service line question; both are inside the wall and inside the owner responsibility.
Practical routes exist for both halves. The city offers one free lead and copper test per household. For a service line inspection you can email leadandcopper@a2gov.org or call 734.794.6350 extension 43324, or submit clear photographs of the service line where it enters the home and connects to the water meter, including the threads or solder at the connection point. The city also says that if you do not receive a letter, your line has never been connected to lead piping and is not eligible for replacement.
Source, Treatment and Hardness
Softened Water, and Why the Utility Mentions Your Pipes
Approximately 85 per cent of the Ann Arbor supply comes from the Huron River and the remaining 15 per cent from multiple wells located south of the city. That mix is why the plant is built around multiple barriers rather than one process, and why source water protection here covers both a Surface Water Intake Protection Plan and a Wellhead Protection Plan.
The treatment runs on three main processes: softening, disinfecting and filtering. Softening uses lime, meaning calcium oxide and calcium hydroxide, to remove excess calcium, magnesium and iron. Disinfection uses ozone as the primary disinfectant and chloramines as a secondary one, which the utility explains produces fewer by products and lasts longer in the distribution system than free chlorine, with less taste and odour. Filtration uses granular activated carbon.
The reason a plumbing page cares is that the utility itself draws the plumbing consequence. It states that because of the high level of hardness in Ann Arbor source waters the city softens its water, and that lowering water hardness reduces build up and scaling on pipes. That is a treatment decision with a direct effect on the working life of everything downstream of the meter, and it is the utility saying so rather than us.
Cross Connections
The Garden Hose Problem, and a Reporting Chain That Ends With the State
A cross connection is any piping arrangement that allows a potable water system to be connected to a non potable one, and backflow is the undesirable reversal of flow into the potable supply, caused by backpressure, backsiphonage or both. The city names the most common residential source without hesitation: a garden hose, with the end submerged in something or connected to a fertiliser sprayer. If the pressure drops, the hose behaves like a straw.
The domestic fix is cheap. Hose bib vacuum breakers and similar backflow protection devices are available at hardware and home improvement stores for about four to ten dollars each, and the city recommends fitting them on all hoses and threaded faucets. Larger installations need specialised devices, and the city lists built in lawn irrigation sprinklers, hot water boilers, in ground swimming pools, heat exchangers, active solar heating systems and private wells as examples.
The formal side has three steps and a state regulator at the end. Proper maintenance of a backflow prevention device requires a periodic certification, followed by a City of Ann Arbor inspection, and then annual reporting of those results to the Michigan Department of Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy. If a letter arrives from the water utility saying a device is due for certification and inspection, that is the chain it feeds. The backflow inspection line is 734.794.6339 and the address is backflow@a2gov.org, with Public Works open 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays.
Neighbourhoods and Nearby Ground
Where This Applies Around Ann Arbor
Ann Arbor has separate systems for handling sewage and stormwater, which the city states on the Orangeburg page itself, so a sanitary problem here is genuinely a sanitary problem rather than a combined sewer event. Wastewater Treatment Services runs the treatment plant and eight sewage lift stations around the city, with personnel in attendance at all times because the plant is a continuous operation, and it serves the Ann Arbor community as well as portions of Ann Arbor, Pittsfield and Scio townships.
The list above is neighbourhood geography rather than a coverage promise. What actually varies across it is construction era, and construction era is what decides whether the pipe question on this page applies to a given address at all. Streets built out in the 1950s and 1960s carry the highest exposure to bituminized fiber laterals, and the oldest cores carry a different mix again.
Ann Arbor Plumbing Questions, Answered Straight
A sewer material with a legal start date and a legal end date, a failure that works from the inside out, a three year clock on one kind of sump backup, and a service line inventory that reached zero.
Orangeburg is the brand name of a sewer pipe made by the Orangeburg Manufacturing Co., Inc. of Orangeburg, New York, and the material is properly called bituminous or bituminized fiber pipe. The city describes it as plant based fibers and asbestos soaked in a tar like substance to make the pipe strong and water resistant, made either with a solid wall or in layers. It spread during and after the Second World War, when scarcity of cast iron and rationing of metal building products pushed builders toward alternatives, and Ann Arbor built a great many houses in exactly that period.
The State of Michigan Plumbing Board accepted bituminized fiber piping as of November 1, 1949, with additional products approved in October and November 1955. The material was approved within the city jurisdiction until approximately 1970, and an ordinance which became effective in May 1970 removed it from the list of approved sewer materials. The city continued to exclude it from that point on. The city also notes it was enforcing the State Plumbing Code as early as fiscal year 1948 to 1949 and adopted the 1950 BOCA Building Code in 1954.
No, and it says so directly. The city states it does not have records listing all Orangeburg houses, and that there appears to be no consistent pattern of buildings with or without the pipe. It may show up anywhere in the city, sometimes consistently on specific streets and other times in isolated instances. Since the mid 1980s the city has kept a record of addresses where sewer pipe has been replaced in total or in part, and it offers that list as a general indication for a given address or its immediate neighbours.
The city gives three routes. The bedding around the pipe shifts or is disturbed over time so sections move and break apart, generally at the joints. Tree roots invade at those joints and restrict flow. And the material itself deteriorates, flattening under earth pressure and losing the circular cross section that the bottom of the pipe needs in order to carry flow. The city says the preponderance of sewer pipe failures in Ann Arbor over the past twenty years or so has been associated with this material.
That is the city position, and it is stated plainly. Because the piping material is held together with bitumen, any type of solvent, paint thinner, mineral spirits or adhesive cleaner dumped into the pipes will cause deterioration. In laminated pipe the effect is to weaken the bottom so that it bows upward under earth pressure, reducing or eliminating flow. It is a chemistry problem rather than a blockage problem, which is why it does not appear in the usual advice about grease and wipes.
Because this material fails from the inside out. The city states that the interior layers fail first and the pipe then continues to rot from the inside out, and that city inspectors have seen bituminous fiber piping which still maintained a circular outer shape but with an interior cross section out of round and failing. The city describes that inside-to-out failure mechanism as particularly unique to bituminous fiber piping, so an exterior inspection can be reassuring and wrong at the same time.
The city says that in most houses the bituminized fiber pipe was probably used from a point about five feet outside the foundation wall all the way to the city main in the street, and that beneath the basement slab other material was usually used. In the street the pipe probably ran to the sewer, although in some areas short stubs of iron, concrete or clay sewer leads came off the main and were connected to the bituminized pipe at the end of the stub. It adds that individual situations may vary.
The city sets out both and declines to choose. Clearing with a snake and cutter usually works but may damage the pipe, and may only be borrowing time because the failure mechanism will likely resume once the cleared area is passed. Water jetting is sometimes used, but for most blockages a reasonably circular interior shape is needed for smooth flow, so cutting will probably be required. In many Orangeburg cases the city says replacement is the only viable option, and where the length of failed pipe is extensive cutting will not even work.
It recommends neither. The standard method involves digging a large and probably deep trench to remove the old pipe and install replacement material. Trenchless or pipe bursting technology, long used in commercial applications, is described as fairly new to residential cases and as requiring large holes at each end of the sewer for the equipment that pulls the new pipe, which may help save landscaping. The city states directly that it does not recommend any particular method and that the choice must be based on individual needs and budget considerations.
It depends what the water looks like. A sanitary sewer backup is grayish, usually has an odour and typically comes up through a floor drain, and the city asks to hear about it right away. Basement flooding from storms, snowmelt or groundwater is typically clear and odour free. For either, the numbers are 734.794.6320 Monday to Friday between 7:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m., and 734.994.2840 after hours, at weekends and on holidays. For sump pump repair, replacement or maintenance the city says to contact a plumber.
Yes. The city states that backflow prevention devices, meaning the RPZ valves that water powered backup systems rely on, must be tested by a licensed certified plumber and inspected by the city every three years, to verify that sump water is not contaminating the water supply. That is a real difference between a water powered backup and a battery backup, and it is worth knowing before the purchase rather than after it. The city points to the Michigan Plumbing and Mechanical Contractors Association to find a certified backflow tester.
Check, because the city warns that it often is not. It urges residents to check their homeowners insurance policies to ensure coverage for any property damage from basement flooding, and states that this type of coverage is often not included in a standard homeowners policy, so residents must request a special rider in order to be covered. That is worth resolving before a wet spring rather than during one, and it is independent of whatever is wrong with the pipe.
As of December 31, 2025 the city reports zero lead service lines and zero service lines of unknown material, out of 25,633 total service lines, with 96 per cent verified, 911 still needing inspection and 551 replaced through the city programme. Ann Arbor once used goosenecks to connect galvanized service lines to mains, on lines installed before 1927 and on some lines installed between 1942 and 1945, and it is those galvanized lines once connected to lead that state rules make eligible for removal.
Because the remaining exposure is inside the house. The city states it has no known homes with lead service lines but that some customers do have lead components in their internal plumbing. Homes with copper plumbing installed before 1988 are most likely to have lead solder, and faucets, fittings or valves sold before 2014 may have a higher lead content than newer plumbing materials. The city offers one free lead and copper test per household, which is the cheapest way to convert that from a worry into a number.
The utility says it softens because of the high level of hardness in its source waters, using lime, meaning calcium oxide and calcium hydroxide, to remove calcium, magnesium and iron. It also states the plumbing consequence itself: lowering water hardness reduces build up and scaling on pipes. Roughly 85 per cent of the supply is Huron River surface water and the remaining 15 per cent comes from multiple wells south of the city, with ozone as the primary disinfectant, chloramines as secondary and granular activated carbon filtration.
No. The city states that Ann Arbor has separate systems for handling sewage and stormwater, which it mentions on the Orangeburg page while explaining what the sanitary sewer carries: drainage from fixtures such as sinks, bathtubs and showers, toilets, laundry tubs and floor drains. Wastewater Treatment Services operates the treatment plant and eight sewage lift stations around the city, staffed at all times, and serves the city plus portions of Ann Arbor, Pittsfield and Scio townships.
Age First, Then Everything Else
Plumber Ann Arbor Work That Starts With a Build Date
In most cities the first question on a slow lateral is where the blockage is. In Ann Arbor the first question is what the pipe is made of, because between 1949 and 1970 the legal answer included a material the city later banned and can no longer map. Find the build date, check the replacement record for the street, look before you cut, and then decide whether you are buying time or ending the problem. That order costs nothing and it changes what a fair quote looks like.
Related work on this site: sewer line repair covers the replacement decision in general terms, drain cleaning covers the clearing side, and sump pump services covers the backup choice discussed above. The state picture sits on our Michigan plumbing page.
Sources for the Orangeburg brand and manufacturer, the bituminous fiber description including plant based fibers and asbestos, ASTM D-1861 and ASTM D-1862, the other named manufacturers, the acceptance of the material by the State of Michigan Plumbing Board as of November 1, 1949 and the additional approvals in October and November 1955, the city enforcement of the State Plumbing Code in fiscal 1948-49, the 1954 adoption of the 1950 BOCA Building Code, the approximate 1970 end of local approval, the ordinance effective May 1970 removing the material from the approved list, and the account of the Attorney office grounds for prohibition: the City of Ann Arbor Orangeburg Sewer Piping page.
The same city page is the source for the statement that it has no records listing all such houses, the record of replacement addresses kept since the mid 1980s, the microfilm suggestion, the failure mechanisms including bedding shift, root intrusion, flattening and the inside-to-out deterioration, the naming of solvents, paint thinner, mineral spirits and adhesive cleaner, and the five feet outside the foundation wall description with its iron, concrete and clay stubs.
That page is likewise the source for the snake, jetting, trenching and pipe bursting discussion, for the statement that the city does not recommend any particular method of repair or replacement, and for the statement that Ann Arbor has separate systems for sewage and stormwater. It carries a disclaimer that the material is not warranted to be consistent for all locations and addresses.
Sources for the lead and copper inventory figures dated December 31, 2025, the zero lead and zero unknown service lines, the 25,633 total, the 96 per cent verified, the 911 still needing inspection, the 551 replaced through the city programme, the gooseneck history on lines installed before 1927 and some lines installed between 1942 and 1945, the population of 127,885 served, the pre-1988 lead solder note, the pre-2014 fittings note, the free household test and the inspection contact details: the City of Ann Arbor Lead and Copper Rule page.
Sources for the sanitary backup and basement flooding descriptions, the two telephone numbers and their hours, the instruction to contact a plumber for sump pump work, the homeowners insurance rider warning, the statement that the city tracks basement flooding instances, and the requirement that backflow prevention devices on water powered backup systems be tested by a licensed certified plumber and inspected by the city every three years: the city Basements and Sump Pumps page.
Sources for the cross connection and backflow definitions, the garden hose example, the four to ten dollar device price range, the specialised installation list, and the certification then city inspection then annual EGLE reporting chain with the backflow line and address: the city Cross Connections and Backflow Prevention page.
Sources for the approximately 85 per cent Huron River and 15 per cent well split, the softening, disinfecting and filtering processes, the use of lime as calcium oxide and calcium hydroxide to remove calcium, magnesium and iron, the statement that lowering water hardness reduces build up and scaling on pipes, ozone as primary and chloramines as secondary disinfectant and granular activated carbon filtration: the city Water Treatment page. Sources for the eight sewage lift stations, the continuous staffing and the service area including portions of Ann Arbor, Pittsfield and Scio townships: the city Wastewater Services page.
No water, sewer or stormwater rate is quoted anywhere on this page, because the rate pages were not opened. No permit fee is quoted, because the fee schedule was not opened. No hardness figure in grains per gallon or milligrams per litre is stated, because none was fetched. No count of Ann Arbor houses containing bituminized fiber pipe is stated, because THE CITY ITSELF STATES IT DOES NOT HAVE THAT RECORD. No mileage of sewer or water main, no plant capacity, no 1,4-dioxane or PFAS concentration and no sanitary sewer overflow count is stated.
No response time, crew count, office or address of ours is stated for Ann Arbor, and no coverage claim is made beyond what our Michigan page already sets out. Codes, programmes, contact numbers and inventory figures change, so confirm current requirements with the City of Ann Arbor before relying on anything above. The build date guidance on this page is OUR READING of the city published date range and is not a city instruction.