Thermostat Installation in Ann Arbor Township, Michigan

Houses in Ann Arbor Township have thermostat wiring from every era of the 1950s–80s custom homes on large wooded lots, with newer estates along Geddes and Earhart that fill Washtenaw County. Two-conductor cable to a round mercury dial in the older blocks around Matthaei Botanical Gardens, four conductors in the colonials that got central air in the 1980s, and five or more in the subdivisions near Dixboro Road corridor where the builder ran enough wire but the installer never used it. What your Ann Arbor Township house needs for a modern thermostat depends on which of those you have, and that is what we check before recommending anything. Temprasure installs Ecobee, Nest, Honeywell Home and Sensi units, plus plain digital thermostats for people who want nothing connected, and we quote the whole job flat-rate.

Ann Arbor Township houses and what that means for thermostats

Almost nothing in Ann Arbor Township is a tract house, which means every service call is a little different. Barton Hills is 1920s–60s architect-designed homes, some with original boilers and radiators, others with forced air that was threaded through later, and many with both plus a separate attic air handler for the upper floors. The Geddes Road and Huron River Drive estates are 1950s–80s customs and 1990s–2010s rebuilds on walkout basements facing the river, frequently with three or four separate systems serving different wings. Along Earhart, Warren and Joy Roads, the township has 1960s–80s ranches and contemporaries on wooded lots, often with a furnace in a crawlspace or garage utility room and ductwork running through unconditioned space. Older farmhouses on Pontiac Trail and Whitmore Lake Road have Michigan basements and a chain of additions. Oversized equipment is common here because builders of large custom homes rarely bothered with a proper load calculation.

The common wire problem is the one we solve most in Ann Arbor Township. The 1950s–80s custom homes on large wooded lots, with newer estates along Geddes and Earhart homes around Dixboro Road corridor were wired with four-conductor thermostat cable when central air was added, and a smart thermostat needs a fifth conductor for continuous power. Without it, the thermostat steals power through the furnace circuit, the screen goes blank during a heating call, the Wi-Fi drops, and the furnace board sees pulses it interprets as calls and starts short-cycling. On a Ann Arbor Township install we open the furnace, find an unused conductor if one exists, land it on the C terminal at the board, and if there is nothing spare we fit a power extender kit at the furnace or fish a new cable where the wall allows. The thermostat then has real power and the furnace sees a clean call.

Our trucks are in Ann Arbor Township most weeks, because Washtenaw County is where a large share of our work is and 48105 is a short run from Ypsilanti. The 1950s–80s custom homes on large wooded lots, with newer estates along Geddes and Earhart that line the streets near Earhart Road area and Domino's Farms have usually been through two or three furnaces and at least one air conditioner, often installed by different companies with different ideas about ductwork, and sorting that out is what a whole-system visit is for. We check the furnace, the coil, the condenser, the thermostat and the ducts as one system, because in a Ann Arbor Township house they fail as one system.

Local details we plan around in Ann Arbor Township

• DTE gas runs along the main corridors, but a surprising number of estates on Huron River Drive, Geddes and the northern roads heat with propane, and some have large buried tanks.
• Barton Hills has its own village government and architectural review, so exterior equipment placement there can involve an extra approval.
• Mechanical permits for township addresses are handled by Washtenaw County, not the City of Ann Arbor, despite the shared mailing address.
• The Huron River and Barton Pond dominate the township's weather at ground level: homes on the bluffs and along Huron River Drive deal with fog, heavy dew and basement humidity that the city's higher ground does not. Thick oak and hickory cover across Barton Hills and the Geddes estates keeps summer cooling loads modest but drops leaves and branches on condensers every fall. North of M-14, the land opens into fields and takes the full winter wind.