Furnace Maintenance & Tune-Ups in Ann Arbor Township, Michigan

Furnaces in Ann Arbor Township work hard. A Washtenaw County winter puts well over 6,000 heating degree days on a furnace, and in the 1950s–80s custom homes on large wooded lots, with newer estates along Geddes and Earhart around Pontiac Trail north of M-14 that furnace is often 15 to 25 years old and venting into a damp basement. Temprasure's maintenance visit is built for exactly that equipment. We inspect the exchanger every year because that is where old furnaces fail, we test the cheap parts that take them down, and we tell you honestly where the furnace stands so a replacement, if one is coming, happens on your schedule rather than during a polar vortex.

Ann Arbor Township houses and what that means for furnace maintenance

Almost nothing in Ann Arbor Township is a tract house, which means every service call is a little different. Barton Hills is 1920s–60s architect-designed homes, some with original boilers and radiators, others with forced air that was threaded through later, and many with both plus a separate attic air handler for the upper floors. The Geddes Road and Huron River Drive estates are 1950s–80s customs and 1990s–2010s rebuilds on walkout basements facing the river, frequently with three or four separate systems serving different wings. Along Earhart, Warren and Joy Roads, the township has 1960s–80s ranches and contemporaries on wooded lots, often with a furnace in a crawlspace or garage utility room and ductwork running through unconditioned space. Older farmhouses on Pontiac Trail and Whitmore Lake Road have Michigan basements and a chain of additions. Oversized equipment is common here because builders of large custom homes rarely bothered with a proper load calculation.

Oversizing shows up on Ann Arbor Township tune-ups as wear. The 1950s–80s custom homes on large wooded lots, with newer estates along Geddes and Earhart common here were often fitted with furnaces 30 to 50 percent larger than the house needs, and a furnace that short cycles all winter burns through ignitors, stresses the exchanger and never gets the temperature rise it was designed for. We record temperature rise and cycle behavior on every Ann Arbor Township, MI maintenance visit, and where a blower speed adjustment can lengthen the cycles we make it. We will also tell you plainly if the furnace is simply too big for the house, because that changes the replacement conversation whenever it comes, and it changes how much life you should expect from the current one.

Heating calls from Ann Arbor Township 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 18 minutes away with ignitors, flame sensors, pressure switches and inducer motors on the truck. The 1950s–80s custom homes on large wooded lots, with newer estates along Geddes and Earhart around Earhart Road area and Whitmore Lake Road corridor mostly burn DTE Energy along the main roads natural gas, and the furnaces in them are old enough that a heat exchanger inspection is part of every visit, not an upsell. Near Domino's Farms and out toward Geddes Road estates, 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 Ann Arbor Township

• DTE gas runs along the main corridors, but a surprising number of estates on Huron River Drive, Geddes and the northern roads heat with propane, and some have large buried tanks.
• Barton Hills has its own village government and architectural review, so exterior equipment placement there can involve an extra approval.
• Long, tree-lined private drives make power outages frequent, and we field a steady stream of questions about generator transfer wiring for furnaces.
• The Huron River and Barton Pond dominate the township's weather at ground level: homes on the bluffs and along Huron River Drive deal with fog, heavy dew and basement humidity that the city's higher ground does not. Thick oak and hickory cover across Barton Hills and the Geddes estates keeps summer cooling loads modest but drops leaves and branches on condensers every fall. North of M-14, the land opens into fields and takes the full winter wind.