Service Agreements in Whittaker, Michigan

There is one Temprasure Service Agreement, and it is the same in Whittaker as it is on our own street in Ypsilanti: two real tune-ups a year, priority on repair calls, a discount on repairs and reminders handled by us. We do not sell tiers, we do not require renewal, and the tune-ups are identical to the standalone visits any Washtenaw County homeowner can book. What the agreement adds for a Whittaker home near the township's Talladay Road ball fields is that the fall and spring visits actually happen, the equipment builds a service history, and when a DTE Energy outage or a cold snap takes the system down, you are first.

Whittaker houses and what that means for service agreements

Around the crossroads itself the houses are 1880s–1930s farm-village homes with Michigan basements, balloon framing and a forced-air system that was retrofitted into a house built for a wood or coal stove. Those homes tend to have a single undersized return and a furnace that has been replaced two or three times without the ductwork ever being touched. Along Whittaker, Willis and Talladay Roads the common house is a 1970s–90s ranch or raised ranch on a crawlspace or block basement, with the original furnace in a utility room and a condenser that was added in the 1990s on whatever circuit was available. The 2000s subdivisions between Bemis and Willis Roads are colonials and ranches on poured basements with builder-grade equipment that is reaching replacement age, and a lot of them run propane rather than gas. Manufactured homes and modulars on the side roads often have small downflow furnaces and package units that need parts most shops do not stock.

Winter in Washtenaw County is the argument for priority scheduling. When a polar vortex stretch settles over Whittaker and the overnight lows hit single digits, every furnace that was going to fail that year fails in the same week, and every HVAC shop in the area is working through a list. Agreement customers in Whittaker are at the top of that list. A no-heat call from 48190 on the agreement goes ahead of the routine work, which in a cold snap is usually the difference between the same day and the day after. We cannot promise what the weather does to the board, but we can promise where you sit on it, and for a household with kids, older family members or a house in Merritt Road area that will freeze its pipes, that is the point.

A lot of the homes we see in Whittaker are the 1970s–90s rural ranches and 2000s acreage homes around an old crossroads that changed hands recently, and the new owners near Willis Road west toward Mooreville, Talladay Road area and Stony Creek usually have the same question: what did I actually buy? Our inspections answer that with a combustion test, a heat exchanger check, refrigerant readings, duct static and a written report. Our service agreement keeps answering it twice a year afterward. The shop is 9 miles away, and maintenance customers in Whittaker get priority scheduling when the weather turns.

Local details we plan around in Whittaker

• DTE gas is available right along Whittaker Road and Willis Road near the crossroads, but a few hundred yards down a side road the gas main ends and propane takes over.
• Every home in Whittaker is on a private well, and the water is hard with enough iron to shorten water heater life and clog humidifier pads within a season.
• Septic drain fields are universal, so we keep high-efficiency furnace condensate out of the septic line with a neutralizer or a separate discharge.
• Whittaker is on flat, open ground with Stony Creek running through the low land to the north and east, and the creek bottom holds moisture that keeps nearby crawlspaces damp through late spring. There is almost no windbreak between the crossroads and the fields to the west, so winter wind hits the exposed side of every house. Summer is humid and still, and homes without mature shade trees run their air conditioning longer than their size would suggest.