Heating, cooling and water heater service in Whittaker, MI

About Whittaker

Whittaker is a crossroads community in Augusta Township, about sixteen minutes straight south of our shop on Whittaker Road, and it has its own post office and zip code even though it has never been incorporated. The settlement started in the 1800s where Whittaker Road meets Willis Road, and a small cluster of houses, the post office and a church or two still mark the spot. Lincoln High School and the rest of the Lincoln Consolidated campus sit a short distance east on Willis Road, and the Augusta Township Hall is nearby on Talladay Road, so most township business happens within a couple of miles of the Whittaker intersection. The surrounding roads are farmland broken up by houses on one- to five-acre lots, and in the past two decades the stretch of Whittaker Road between Bemis and Willis has picked up several subdivisions and a lot of individual builds. People here tend to be Lincoln school families, auto and skilled-trades workers, and farmers whose land is now surrounded by neighbors who commute to Ann Arbor or Belleville.

What Whittaker houses need from an HVAC company

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.

Weather and the equipment it tests

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.

Local details we plan around

• 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.
• Permits for Whittaker addresses are issued by Washtenaw County, not by a village or city, because the community has no government of its own.
• Crawlspace ductwork on the 1970s ranches here is frequently rusted, disconnected or chewed, and we check it on every furnace call before we blame the equipment.