Furnace Repair in Augusta Township, Michigan

Temprasure has fixed a lot of furnaces in Augusta Township, MI that another company said were done. Not because the other company was lying, but because a furnace that will not stay lit looks terrifying to a homeowner and a quick replacement quote is easy to write. We diagnose with a manometer, a meter and a combustion analyzer, inspect the heat exchanger on every Augusta Township call, and tell you exactly what failed. For Washtenaw County homes on DTE Energy gas, that usually means a repair in the low hundreds and a furnace that runs another five winters.

Augusta Township houses and what that means for furnace repair

Augusta's housing is a long timeline laid out along the roads. The 1860s–1920s farmhouses have Michigan basements, two or three additions and forced-air systems that were added long after the house was built, usually with ductwork that never reached the upstairs properly. The 1960s–80s ranches and split-levels that make up the biggest share of the township sit on crawlspaces or shallow basements, with furnaces in hallway closets or utility rooms and ductwork under the floor that has collected decades of moisture and rodent traffic. Newer acreage homes and the subdivisions off Whittaker and Bemis Roads are 1995–2015 colonials and ranches on full poured basements with 80 or 90 percent furnaces, many on propane, and condensers sized by the builder's rule of thumb rather than a load calculation. Manufactured homes with package units or small furnaces are common on the back roads. A good number of properties also have a pole barn or shop with a hanging heater we end up servicing.

The 1960s–90s rural ranches and newer acreage builds on former farmland that dominate Augusta Township were often built with a furnace sized for a house with no insulation, single-pane windows and an unfinished basement. Decades of upgrades later, that same furnace, or its like-for-like replacement from the 1990s, is badly oversized, and oversized furnaces short cycle. Every short cycle stresses the ignitor and the heat exchanger, and that is why so many Augusta Township repair calls from Willis Road corridor involve a cracked ignitor on a furnace that is otherwise healthy. We fix the ignitor, but we also check the temperature rise and the blower speed, because sometimes a simple adjustment gets a furnace cycling properly and makes the next ignitor last twice as long.

Heating calls from Augusta Township come in two waves: the first real cold night in November and whatever stretch of January the polar vortex decides to visit. Both times we are 18 minutes away with ignitors, flame sensors, pressure switches and inducer motors on the truck. The 1960s–90s rural ranches and newer acreage builds on former farmland around Talladay Road area and Rawsonville Road south of Bemis mostly burn DTE Energy natural gas, and the furnaces in them are old enough that a heat exchanger inspection is part of every visit, not an upsell. Near Lincoln High School and out toward Willis Road corridor, we also see high-efficiency furnaces whose exterior vents ice over in a storm, which looks like a dead furnace and is a ten-minute fix.

Local details we plan around in Augusta Township

• DTE gas mains follow Whittaker Road, Willis Road and a few others, but a large share of the township's homes run on propane, and we size and set up equipment accordingly.
• High water tables along Stony Creek and Paint Creek flood crawlspaces, and we find rusted-through duct trunks and water-damaged furnaces in those areas after wet springs.
• Septic systems serve nearly every home, and condensate from a high-efficiency furnace should be neutralized or routed away from the septic line.
• Augusta is low, flat and open, and the land along Stony Creek and Paint Creek holds water well into spring, so basements and crawlspaces in the township's middle run damp for months. Winter wind crosses the fields with nothing in the way, and the exposed north and west sides of farmhouses and acreage homes carry heavier heating loads than their square footage would suggest. Summer humidity is high across the creek bottoms, and shade is scarce outside the older farmsteads with their windbreaks.