Furnace Installation & Replacement in Whitmore Lake, Michigan

A furnace replacement in Whitmore Lake is a 20-year decision made in a basement, usually under some time pressure because the old one quit in January. Temprasure tries to take the pressure off. If you are without heat, we can set temporary heat and get equipment quickly. If you have time, we walk the house, run the load calculation, look at the chimney, the gas line and the condensate situation, and give you two or three options in writing with one flat price each. Whitmore Lake, MI is well inside our radius, the owner does the install, and the Washtenaw County inspection is part of the job.

Whitmore Lake houses and what that means for furnace installation

Lakefront homes on East Shore Drive and along Whitmore Lake Road are the defining housing type: 1920s–60s cottages that were raised, expanded and insulated over the years, with furnaces in crawlspaces, half-basements or closets, ductwork routed through whatever chase was available, and water heaters wedged under stairs. Many have had a second floor added onto a frame that was built for one, and the ductwork rarely followed. Behind the lake, the older streets off Main Street hold 1940s–70s ranches and bungalows on crawlspaces, some of which started on fuel oil. The 1990s–2010s subdivisions off Barker, Spencer and Nine Mile Roads are colonials on full poured basements with builder-grade 80 percent furnaces, single-stage condensers and bypass humidifiers nearing replacement. Outlying homes on North Territorial and Six Mile are acreage builds and farmhouses on propane and wells. High water tables around both lakes keep below-grade equipment at risk.

The side-wall vent on a condensing furnace needs a good spot, and Whitmore Lake lots do not always offer one. Narrow setbacks between the 1920s–60s lake cottages converted to year-round homes, with 1990s–2010s subdivisions behind them on the older blocks near the Northfield Township Community Center, decks built right over the likely vent location, and bedroom windows on the only clear wall all complicate things. The vent has to stay clear of snow drifts, which in a Washtenaw County winter means well above grade, and it cannot dump exhaust where it will be pulled back into the intake or into a neighbor's window. We walk the outside of the house during the free estimate and show you exactly where the intake and exhaust will terminate before you sign anything.

Heating calls from Whitmore Lake come in two waves: the first real cold night in November and whatever stretch of January the polar vortex decides to visit. Both times we are 26 minutes away with ignitors, flame sensors, pressure switches and inducer motors on the truck. The 1920s–60s lake cottages converted to year-round homes, with 1990s–2010s subdivisions behind them around Barker Road corridor and Nine Mile Road area mostly burn DTE Energy on most of the Washtenaw side natural gas, and the furnaces in them are old enough that a heat exchanger inspection is part of every visit, not an upsell. Near Whitmore Lake itself and out toward North Territorial Road east of US-23, we also see high-efficiency furnaces whose exterior vents ice over in a storm, which looks like a dead furnace and is a ten-minute fix.

Local details we plan around in Whitmore Lake

• Septic serves most of the community, though a sewer system around the lake was added to protect water quality, and condensate routing depends on which a house is on.
• Many winterized cottages have original 60-amp panels or multiple subpanels added over the years, and a new air conditioner usually means an electrician visits first.
• DTE gas serves most of the Northfield side, but some Green Oak addresses are on Consumers Energy and outlying roads on either side run on propane.
• Whitmore Lake and Horseshoe Lake dominate the local weather for the homes around them: summer humidity is high, morning fog is common from May through October, and basements and crawlspaces near the shoreline rarely dry out. The lakes also moderate the first freezes slightly, but by January the open ice and surrounding fields let northwest wind blow across unbroken. Snow runs a bit heavier here than in Ypsilanti because of the slightly higher ground and the township's position farther from the Huron valley.