Heat Pump Maintenance in Dexter, Michigan

Temprasure maintains every brand of air-source heat pump in Dexter, from the dual-fuel systems installed on top of gas furnaces in the 1990s–2000s subdivision homes around an 1830s village core around Westridge to the standalone units with electric backup in the newer 48130 subdivisions. Two visits a year, both instrument-based, both ending with a written report of the readings. The service agreement bundles them with priority scheduling for the January night the unit ices over, and Washtenaw County homeowners on the plan get first pick of fall and spring dates. No parts get replaced that are still in spec.

Dexter houses and what that means for heat pump maintenance

In the historic core around Grand Street, Fifth Street and Broad Street, we work on 1840s–1910s frame and brick homes with fieldstone basements, low ceilings and ductwork that has been reworked three or four times. Some of these still have radiators on a boiler and a separate air handler for cooling tucked into an attic. The subdivisions that make up most of Dexter's housing were built between roughly 1994 and 2008. Huron Farms and Dexter Crossing are two-story colonials and cape-style homes on full poured basements, usually with an original 80 percent furnace, a 10 to 12 SEER condenser, and a water heater that has already been replaced once. Westridge and the newer phases carry 90-plus furnaces and two-stage equipment. Beyond the city line, Mast Road, Island Lake Road and North Territorial have 1970s–90s custom homes and older farmhouses on well, septic and sometimes propane, with walkout basements that bring their own moisture issues.

The newer subdivisions in Dexter have standalone heat pumps with electric backup strips, and those are the systems where deferred maintenance hurts most. The strips are sized to carry the house if the heat pump fails, and they do, silently. A 48130 homeowner whose defrost sensor drifted in November may not notice anything until the DTE Energy bill in January, because the house stayed warm the whole time on resistance heat. Our fall tune-up for these homes tests the strips and sequencer so they work when needed, and tests the defrost system so they are not needed when they should not be. The report tells you which heat source carried the house during the visit.

Dexter winters are long enough that a furnace runs more hours in a year here than an air conditioner runs in five. We maintain and repair the gas furnaces in the 1990s–2000s subdivision homes around an 1830s village core near Hudson Mills Metropark and the Dexter Cider Mill, the hot-water boilers in the older houses around Mast Road area, and the furnaces in newer subdivisions out toward Dexter Crossing where builder-grade equipment hits its first real failures around year ten. The shop is 19 miles away, the truck carries the parts that fail, and a heating call in Dexter ends with heat on the first visit far more often than not.

Local details we plan around in Dexter

• Many of the 1990s subdivision homes have a furnace and water heater sharing an undersized masonry chimney that needs a liner when either appliance is upgraded.
• Mechanical permits in the city go through Dexter's building department, while township addresses go through Washtenaw County, and the two have slightly different inspection habits.
• The Huron River and Mill Creek floodplain means basements in the oldest part of town have flooded more than once, and we routinely find equipment that was underwater.
• Dexter sits where Mill Creek drops into the Huron River, and the lowest streets near the Cider Mill and Mill Creek Park hold fog and humidity on summer mornings. The town is far enough west that it picks up a little more snow than Ypsilanti and feels polar vortex cold snaps a degree or two harder. Hills and heavy oak cover around Gordon Hall and the metroparks shade a lot of roofs, which holds down cooling loads compared with the open subdivisions to the south.