Furnace Repair in Superior Township, Michigan

Temprasure has fixed a lot of furnaces in Superior Township, MI that another company said were done. Not because the other company was lying, but because a furnace that will not stay lit looks terrifying to a homeowner and a quick replacement quote is easy to write. We diagnose with a manometer, a meter and a combustion analyzer, inspect the heat exchanger on every Superior Township call, and tell you exactly what failed. For Washtenaw County homes on DTE Energy gas, that usually means a repair in the low hundreds and a furnace that runs another five winters.

Superior Township houses and what that means for furnace repair

The southwest neighborhoods near MacArthur Boulevard are compact 1950s–60s ranches and bungalows on crawlspaces or shallow block basements, with the original duct trunk often running through an uninsulated crawl, so the floors stay cold even with a new furnace. The newer subdivisions along Prospect and Geddes Roads are 1995–2012 colonials and larger two-stories on full basements, generally with original 80 percent furnaces and single-stage condensers that are coming due for replacement. The rural stretch north of Geddes is where things get interesting: 1880s farmhouses with Michigan basements and multiple additions, 1970s–80s custom ranches on five-acre parcels, and newer acreage homes with 90-plus furnaces, some of them on propane and some on well water. Dixboro's older homes are frame two-stories with stone foundations and low basement ceilings. Horse farms and larger estates off Vorhies and Cherry Hill Roads sometimes have two or three furnaces serving one sprawling house.

High-efficiency furnaces in Superior Township have a winter problem that 80 percent units never did: they make water. A 90-plus percent furnace condenses several gallons a day out of its exhaust, and that condensate has to drain through a trap, a line and usually a pump to get out of the basement. In the Superior Township, MI homes near Cherry Hill Nature Preserve where that line runs through an unheated corner or out through a wall, it freezes during a cold snap, the pressure switch opens, and the furnace shuts down on the coldest night of the year. The exterior PVC vent can ice over the same way. We thaw it, clear it and then fix the routing or pitch so it does not happen again in February.

We run a lot of winter miles in Superior Township, and most of them end in a basement under one of the 1950s–70s ranches in the southwest corner and 1990s–2010s subdivisions along Prospect and Geddes that make up its streets near MacArthur Boulevard neighborhood, Legacy Park and Dixboro. DTE Energy service reaches nearly every home here, so the equipment is familiar: 80 percent and 90-plus percent gas furnaces, a few boilers near the Dixboro village green, and the occasional propane furnace at the rural edge. What differs house to house is the ductwork and the wiring, and that is where a careful technician earns the dispatch fee. We arrive from Ypsilanti in about 12 minutes, any hour, at the same flat rate.

Local details we plan around in Superior Township

• Well water across the rural half is hard and often high in iron, and we see heavy sediment in water heaters and crusted humidifier pads on those homes.
• The township contracts its building inspections, and mechanical permits for furnace and AC replacements are still required and reviewed.
• The 1950s MacArthur Boulevard area homes often have small 60-amp or 100-amp panels, so adding central air usually involves a panel upgrade first.
• Superior Township rises gently away from the Huron River, so the subdivisions along Geddes and Prospect are drier and windier than the Ypsilanti lowlands just south of them. Open fields in the northern half let winter wind run unchecked, and acreage homes with a west-facing wall feel it in January. Frains Lake and the wetlands around LeFurge Woods add humidity in summer to the homes nearest them, and heavy tree cover around Dixboro keeps cooling loads lower there.