Grand Traverse County, Michigan · Traverse City
Water spreading, a burst pipe, sewage, mold or smoke? Call to be connected with a restoration company that serves Traverse City, Kingsley and Chums Corner. Start the steps below while you wait.
Answered 24/7 by a participating local provider. We're a referral service and don't do the work ourselves. How it works
Start here
Pick the closest match. These steps limit the damage and protect your insurance claim. Skip anything that isn't safe.
Grand Traverse County averages 59 nights a year at 20°F or colder, mostly November to April, and 19% of its homes predate 1960.
Basements flood here mostly in August. Grand Traverse County averages 3.9 days a year with an inch of rain or more.
Backups often follow heavy rain, which Grand Traverse County gets about 3.9 days a year, when storm water overloads sewer mains and pushes up through the lowest drain in the house.
Roof leaks here come from summer downpours and, with about 101 freeze-thaw days a year, from winter ice dams. Most show up as ceiling stains in the room below.
13% of occupied homes in Grand Traverse County heat mainly with wood or propane, below the Michigan county median of 29%.
Muggy summer nights, lows of 65°F or more, come about 8 times a year in Grand Traverse County. Mold after a leak spreads fastest from June through August.
Local risk profile
Grand Traverse County covers 464 square miles of northern Lower Michigan, with about 96,166 residents and 47,003 homes. Traverse City is the county seat; Kingsley, Chums Corner and Grawn are the next largest communities. Much of its housing is recent, with a median build year of 1986.
39/100 Water Damage Risk Index: Moderate Grand Traverse County ranks 65 of 83 Michigan counties. See the statewide ranking and method.The three factors where Grand Traverse County ranks highest compared with other Michigan counties.
For frozen pipes, Grand Traverse County is a typical Michigan county, which is still plenty. It averaged 151 freezing nights a year over 2015–2024, 59 of them at 20°F or colder, cold enough for pipes in outside walls and crawl spaces to freeze. Among 83 Michigan counties that's 35th.
On February 20, 2015 the low fell to about -21°F, and in the stretch ending March 2015 the county went 41 days in a row below freezing. Leaks from split pipes typically appear the day the thaw arrives.
Expect the hardest freezes in January, inside a season that runs November to April. That's when an outdoor spigot left connected to a hose, or a pipe in a crawl space, is most likely to split.
On average the first fall freeze arrives around Oct 20 and the last spring freeze around May 12.
Rainfall is about average for Michigan. Of roughly 32.9 inches of yearly precipitation, the damage comes from the 3.9 days a year with an inch or more, ranked 42nd of 83. July, August and October see the most. The single wettest day in the record: 2.5 inches, October 23, 2020. Multi-day storms matter most for basements; the wettest three days on record here totaled 4.61 inches (through October 25, 2017).
Freeze-thaw days, below freezing overnight and above it by afternoon, come about 101 times a year here. They're the main driver of ice dams and of water working its way through foundation cracks in late winter.
Housing
42% of homes in Grand Traverse County predate 1980, below the Michigan county median of 58.4%, which ranks 80th of Michigan's 83 counties.
31% of homes were built in 2000 or later, more than in most of Michigan. Newer plumbing rarely corrodes, so damage here tends to come from appliance supply lines, water heaters, sump pumps and storms.
28% date from 1980 to 1999, the window when polybutylene, a gray flexible plastic supply pipe, was used in some homes. It's prone to leaks at the fittings, so it's worth checking for in a house from those years.
Beyond water
Summer nights that don't drop below 65°F, a good marker of humid air, come about 8 times a year here, below the Michigan county median of 10. The EPA recommends keeping indoor humidity below 60%, ideally 30 to 50%. Basements can pass 60% on their own in summer, so a dehumidifier matters even without a leak, and anything wet should be dried within 24 to 48 hours.
Mold remediation: what to expectHeating fuel matters for fire risk. In Grand Traverse County it's 73% utility gas, 12% electric, 12% propane and 2% wood. Most homes here heat with gas or electricity, so cooking and electrical faults are the likelier fire sources. Even a contained kitchen fire can send soot through the ductwork to every room.
Fire and smoke cleanup: first stepsCoverage
Calls connect to restoration companies that work across Grand Traverse County. The largest communities by population:
Population from ACS 2020-2024 5-year estimates. Townships and unincorporated areas are covered too.
Nearby
Antrim, Kalkaska and Wexford get more pipe-freeze nights than Grand Traverse. Wexford County has the oldest housing nearby, with 52% of homes built before 1980.
By the numbers
| Factor | Grand Traverse | Michigan median | Rank |
|---|---|---|---|
| Homes built before 1960 | 19% | 32% | 77 of 83 |
| Homes built before 1980 | 42% | 58% | 80 of 83 |
| Homes built 2000 or later | 31% | 16% | 1 of 83 |
| Manufactured or mobile homes | 6.7% | 7.3% | 48 of 83 |
| Vacant homes | 14% | 20% | 52 of 83 |
| Wood or propane heat | 13% | 29% | 67 of 83 |
| Nights at 20°F or colder | 59/yr | 54/yr | 35 of 83 |
| Days with 1 inch+ of rain | 3.9/yr | 3.9/yr | 42 of 83 |
| Freeze-thaw days | 101/yr | 95/yr | 20 of 83 |
| Muggy nights (65°F+) | 8/yr | 10/yr | 44 of 83 |
Rank 1 is the highest value. Bars run from the lowest to the highest Michigan county; the tick marks the median; orange means higher water damage risk than the median, green means lower.
Questions
Peak risk months in Grand Traverse County: freezing from November to April, heavy rain in July, August and October.
Sources: U.S. Census Bureau, ACS 2024 5-year estimates (2020-2024); weather from NOAA nClimGrid-Daily county averages (EpiNOAA), 2015–2024, averaged across the county; county boundaries from Census TIGER. Reviewed 2026-10-21. Methodology