Service Agreements in Ann Arbor, Michigan

For Ann Arbor households that would rather not think about the furnace until it matters, the Temprasure Service Agreement handles the thinking. We reach out in the fall to schedule the furnace tune-up and in the spring for the air conditioner, you confirm a date, and Al comes out to Ann Arbor with the instruments and leaves a written report. If the pre-war two-stories and 1950s–60s ranches, with university-era infill on every side system in your house needs a repair during the year, you are prioritized and the repair is discounted. Agreement customers across Washtenaw County tell us the part they value most is simply that the visits happen.

Ann Arbor houses and what that means for service agreements

Ann Arbor gives us almost every housing type in one zip code. The Old West Side and Old Fourth Ward are full of 1880s–1920s frame houses with stone or rubble foundations, fieldstone basements that stay damp, and furnaces that replaced boilers or gravity units sometime in the 1960s or 70s. Many of those homes still have cast-iron radiators fed by a boiler, and a surprising number have both a boiler and a separate forced-air system added for cooling. Burns Park and Ann Arbor Hills houses are larger 1920s–50s builds with plaster walls, so getting a second return or a bigger supply trunk in is slow work. The ranches and split-levels of the west side were built with 80,000 to 100,000 BTU furnaces that are now oversized for insulated versions of the same house. Condos near Briarwood and Pittsfield Village often have furnaces in closets or attics with tight clearances. Student rentals near campus run the oldest equipment in the city, and landlords routinely call us for emergency service and new-purchase inspections.

The pre-war two-stories and 1950s–60s ranches, with university-era infill on every side equipment around Kerrytown is in the stretch where maintenance pays for itself. Furnaces and air conditioners installed during that era in Ann Arbor are past their first decade, which is when flame sensors start coating over, capacitors drift below their rating, inducer bearings get loud and condensate traps grow enough algae to back up. None of those are expensive if caught in October or May; all of them are an emergency call if caught on the day they fail. The Temprasure Service Agreement puts a trained set of eyes on a Ann Arbor system twice a year, with readings written down so a slow decline is visible before it becomes a breakdown, and the repair discount applies to whatever is found.

Whether it is a service agreement for a house near Burns Park or a pre-purchase inspection on a listing out by Dicken, our planned work in Ann Arbor follows the same rule: measure, document, explain. Buyers in Washtenaw County are competing hard for the pre-war two-stories and 1950s–60s ranches, with university-era infill on every side around Nichols Arboretum, and a general home inspector's ten-minute look at the furnace is not enough to know what the next five winters will cost. We are about 16 minutes from 48103, we fit inspections inside the contingency window, and we put the findings in writing you can negotiate with.

Local details we plan around in Ann Arbor

• The city's two historic districts, the Old West Side and the Old Fourth Ward, regulate exterior changes, so condenser placement on a street-facing wall often needs Historic District Commission sign-off.
• The large number of boiler-and-radiator homes means we see hydronic work here far more than anywhere else in our radius.
• A lot of pre-1950 houses have been converted to duplexes or student rentals, which means two systems crammed into one basement and undersized gas lines serving both.
• The Huron River cuts a deep valley through the north side of Ann Arbor, and the Northside, Lower Town and Gallup Park neighborhoods feel it as morning fog, heavier dew and basements that sweat in July. The downtown core holds heat with all its brick and pavement, so attics and upper floors there run several degrees hotter than the leafy blocks of Burns Park and the Old West Side, where mature oaks and maples shade roofs and cut peak cooling loads noticeably.