Ductwork Repair in Ann Arbor, Michigan

A lot of furnace and air conditioner complaints in Ann Arbor are duct complaints. The furnace that trips its limit near Michigan Stadium, the coil that freezes every July in 48103, the back bedroom that never warms up, the dust that returns a week after cleaning: in the pre-war two-stories and 1950s–60s ranches, with university-era infill on every side housing that fills Ann Arbor, those are usually a return that cannot move enough air or a branch that has let go in the basement. Temprasure fixes the ducts instead of replacing equipment that was never the problem, and we show you the before-and-after readings so you can see the difference the repair made.

Ann Arbor houses and what that means for duct repair & sealing

Ann Arbor gives us almost every housing type in one zip code. The Old West Side and Old Fourth Ward are full of 1880s–1920s frame houses with stone or rubble foundations, fieldstone basements that stay damp, and furnaces that replaced boilers or gravity units sometime in the 1960s or 70s. Many of those homes still have cast-iron radiators fed by a boiler, and a surprising number have both a boiler and a separate forced-air system added for cooling. Burns Park and Ann Arbor Hills houses are larger 1920s–50s builds with plaster walls, so getting a second return or a bigger supply trunk in is slow work. The ranches and split-levels of the west side were built with 80,000 to 100,000 BTU furnaces that are now oversized for insulated versions of the same house. Condos near Briarwood and Pittsfield Village often have furnaces in closets or attics with tight clearances. Student rentals near campus run the oldest equipment in the city, and landlords routinely call us for emergency service and new-purchase inspections.

The pre-war two-stories and 1950s–60s ranches, with university-era infill on every side ranches and bungalows in Northside and Lower Town were ducted in a specific way, and it fails in a specific way. The supply trunk runs down the basement ceiling with short branches to floor registers, and the returns are panned joist bays: sheet metal nailed across the underside of the floor joists so the bay itself carries the air back to the furnace. Those pans leak at every joist, at every wire and pipe that passes through, and wherever the metal has pulled away over sixty years, and they pull basement and crawlspace air into the system on every cycle. That is the dust and the musty smell in a lot of Ann Arbor homes. We seal the pans with mastic and foil tape, line the bays where that is practical, or replace the worst ones with real duct, and the change in air quality near Michigan Stadium is immediate.

A lot of the comfort complaints we hear in Ann Arbor are duct problems wearing a disguise: a bedroom near the Kerrytown Market that never cools, a basement return that pulls in damp air, a furnace that short-cycles because the supply trunk cannot move what the blower is pushing. The pre-war two-stories and 1950s–60s ranches, with university-era infill on every side around Dicken and Old Fourth Ward are especially prone to it. We are 7 miles away in Ypsilanti, and a duct repair or replacement in 48103 begins with a real airflow diagnosis, not a guess about what is behind the drywall.

Local details we plan around in Ann Arbor

• The city's water is treated at its own plant and softened, so water heater sediment is lighter here than in surrounding townships on well water.
• Fieldstone foundations in the oldest neighborhoods sweat enough that furnace cabinets and water heater bases corrode early unless they sit on blocks or a pad.
• The city's two historic districts, the Old West Side and the Old Fourth Ward, regulate exterior changes, so condenser placement on a street-facing wall often needs Historic District Commission sign-off.
• The Huron River cuts a deep valley through the north side of Ann Arbor, and the Northside, Lower Town and Gallup Park neighborhoods feel it as morning fog, heavier dew and basements that sweat in July. The downtown core holds heat with all its brick and pavement, so attics and upper floors there run several degrees hotter than the leafy blocks of Burns Park and the Old West Side, where mature oaks and maples shade roofs and cut peak cooling loads noticeably.