Furnace Maintenance & Tune-Ups in Lodi Township, Michigan

Temprasure runs fall furnace maintenance across Lodi Township from September until the first real cold, and the visit is the same whether the furnace is a new two-stage unit in a 48176 subdivision or a 1990s 80 percent furnace in a 1970s–2000s acreage homes and golf-course customs on former farmland house near Lodi Center at Pleasant Lake and Ann Arbor-Saline. Burners, ignition, safeties, exchanger, combustion, gas pressure, airflow, and on condensing furnaces the condensate and venting. You get the readings in writing and flat-rate prices on anything we recommend, with no pressure to replace a furnace that is doing fine. Service-agreement members across Washtenaw County get first pick of dates.

Lodi Township houses and what that means for furnace maintenance

Lodi homes almost all have one thing in common: they are on their own well and septic, and a good number of them are on propane. The Travis Pointe area is 1980s–2000s large customs with multiple furnaces, finished walkouts and long duct runs that were rarely balanced. Scattered along Pleasant Lake, Parker and Wagner Roads are 1970s–90s ranches and split-levels on crawlspaces or partial basements, often with a 1990s furnace that is on its last heat exchanger and a condenser that still runs R-22. The 1800s–1920s farmhouses that survive have Michigan basements with dirt or rough concrete floors, additions off the back and a furnace that is doing the work of two. Along the Textile Road border, 1998–2010 subdivision colonials on poured basements carry builder-grade 80 percent furnaces and single-stage air conditioners now hitting twenty years. Barns, workshops and pole buildings with their own heaters are a regular part of the conversation out here.

Damp basements are the maintenance story in Lodi Township. The older 1970s–2000s acreage homes and golf-course customs on former farmland near Lodi Center at Pleasant Lake and Ann Arbor-Saline sit on Michigan basements or block foundations that sweat all summer, and by October the burners on an 80 percent furnace are coated in rust, the flame sensor is corroded and the bottom of the heat exchanger has been sitting in humid air for five months. Our fall tune-up for these Lodi Township, MI homes starts with the burner assembly and the exchanger because that is where the damage shows up first. We clean what can be cleaned, measure what can be measured, and tell you when the basement is winning so you can plan a replacement or a dehumidifier instead of being surprised by a CO reading.

Heating calls from Lodi 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 22 minutes away with ignitors, flame sensors, pressure switches and inducer motors on the truck. The 1970s–2000s acreage homes and golf-course customs on former farmland around Travis Pointe and Wagner Road south of Scio Church mostly burn DTE Energy natural gas, and the furnaces in them are old enough that a heat exchanger inspection is part of every visit, not an upsell. Near the Washtenaw Farm Council Grounds and out toward Ann Arbor-Saline Road corridor, 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 Lodi Township

• DTE gas reaches the Travis Pointe area and the subdivisions near Textile Road, but many roads in the middle and west of the township have no gas main, so propane furnaces and water heaters are routine.
• Mechanical permits for Lodi addresses go through Washtenaw County's building department, and the county expects permits on furnace and condenser replacements even on rural parcels.
• Pole barns and workshops with unit heaters or hanging furnaces are common, and homeowners here often ask us to look at those along with the house.
• Lodi is flat, open and largely treeless outside the yards themselves, and it takes winter wind straight off the fields from the west and southwest, which makes infiltration a bigger factor in heating loads than it is in the shaded neighborhoods of Ann Arbor. Summer sun on a west-facing wall with no canopy pushes condensers hard. The Saline River headwaters and the low ground near Saline-Waterworks Road hold some humidity, but most of the township drains well.