Heat Pump Installation & Replacement in Livonia, Michigan

The question we hear most from Livonia homeowners is whether a heat pump can really heat a house here. The honest answer: a modern cold-climate unit can, down to zero and below, and in the dual-fuel configuration we install most often in 48150, your gas furnace handles the handful of polar vortex nights anyway. For the rest of the heating season, which is most of it, the heat pump heats the house on electricity at a cost that beats DTE Energy gas for the mild range. Temprasure sizes it with a Manual J, installs R-454B equipment to spec, and handles the Wayne County permit and rebate paperwork.

Livonia houses and what that means for heat pump installation

Livonia's housing is the biggest block of 1950s through 1970s construction in our radius, and we see every variation of it. The 1950s brick ranches between Joy Road and Five Mile are on full block basements with a single-return furnace and a center trunk, typically on their second or third furnace with a condenser added in the 80s or 90s. The tri-levels and quad-levels from the 1960s, common between Five and Seven Mile, have a lower level that never gets enough air and a bedroom level that overheats in summer. The 1970s colonials in the northwest toward Eight Mile and Newburgh are larger, with longer duct runs and two-and-a-half to three-ton condensers that are often oversized. Rosedale Gardens is the exception: 1920s and 30s Tudors with Michigan basements, retrofitted duct and occasionally a boiler. Finished basements are nearly universal, and the furnace is frequently boxed into a closet that limits combustion air and filter access. Electrical service is 100 amps on most pre-1975 houses.

The ductwork in Livonia is the constraint we check first. Heat pump supply air runs 90 to 105 degrees, cooler than a gas furnace's, so the system depends on moving more air to deliver the same comfort. The 1950s–70s brick ranches, colonials and tri-levels in 48150 frequently have one return in a hallway and supply trunks sized for a smaller blower, and a heat pump on those ducts will feel weak and short cycle on defrost. On every Livonia heat pump estimate we measure static pressure on the existing system and tell you whether a return needs to be added or a trunk resized. Sometimes it is a small add-on; sometimes it is the honest reason we recommend a conventional AC instead.

In Livonia the furnace is the one appliance nobody thinks about until it fails at 11 p.m. with the temperature falling through the teens. That is when the phone rings, and that is when being 20 miles away matters. We know the 1950s–70s brick ranches, colonials and tri-levels along Kimberly Oaks and the basements near Greenmead Historical Park, we carry parts for every brand that went into Wayne County homes, and we charge the same flat rate at midnight that we charge at noon. Livonia has about 95,000, one of the largest cities in Wayne County outside Detroit people and a lot of twenty-year-old furnaces; we would rather tell you yours has five winters left than sell you a new one it does not need.

Local details we plan around in Livonia

• Rosedale Gardens has historic district guidelines that affect exterior equipment placement on the 1920s and 30s houses.
• Livonia's inspection department requires mechanical permits for furnace, AC and water heater replacements and is known for thorough final inspections, including checking gas line sizing and venting.
• Finished basements with the furnace in a closet often have no combustion air provision at all, and we address that before anything else on a replacement.
• Livonia is flat and almost entirely built out, with mature street trees on the older blocks that give shade in summer but drop leaves into condensers every fall. The Middle Rouge through Hines Park and Bell Creek and Tarabusi Creek through the middle of the city create damp pockets, and basements near those drains need dehumidification in summer. Winter is freeze-thaw cycling with the full effect of polar vortex nights on 70-year-old brick with minimal insulation.