Heat Pump Installation & Replacement in Dexter, Michigan

Rural and propane homes on the edges of Dexter are where a heat pump makes the biggest difference. Propane heat is the most expensive heat in Washtenaw County, and a cold-climate heat pump sized to carry a 48130 house at the design temperature with the propane furnace or electric backup for the coldest nights can cut the winter bill substantially. Temprasure installs standalone and dual-fuel heat pumps across Dexter, MI, sized with a Manual J and commissioned in both heating and cooling modes, with the rebate and credit documentation handed over at the end.

Dexter houses and what that means for heat pump installation

In the historic core around Grand Street, Fifth Street and Broad Street, we work on 1840s–1910s frame and brick homes with fieldstone basements, low ceilings and ductwork that has been reworked three or four times. Some of these still have radiators on a boiler and a separate air handler for cooling tucked into an attic. The subdivisions that make up most of Dexter's housing were built between roughly 1994 and 2008. Huron Farms and Dexter Crossing are two-story colonials and cape-style homes on full poured basements, usually with an original 80 percent furnace, a 10 to 12 SEER condenser, and a water heater that has already been replaced once. Westridge and the newer phases carry 90-plus furnaces and two-stage equipment. Beyond the city line, Mast Road, Island Lake Road and North Territorial have 1970s–90s custom homes and older farmhouses on well, septic and sometimes propane, with walkout basements that bring their own moisture issues.

The ductwork in Dexter is the constraint we check first. Heat pump supply air runs 90 to 105 degrees, cooler than a gas furnace's, so the system depends on moving more air to deliver the same comfort. The 1990s–2000s subdivision homes around an 1830s village core in 48130 frequently have one return in a hallway and supply trunks sized for a smaller blower, and a heat pump on those ducts will feel weak and short cycle on defrost. On every Dexter heat pump estimate we measure static pressure on the existing system and tell you whether a return needs to be added or a trunk resized. Sometimes it is a small add-on; sometimes it is the honest reason we recommend a conventional AC instead.

In Dexter the furnace is the one appliance nobody thinks about until it fails at 11 p.m. with the temperature falling through the teens. That is when the phone rings, and that is when being 19 miles away matters. We know the 1990s–2000s subdivision homes around an 1830s village core along Dexter-Ann Arbor Road corridor and the basements near Gordon Hall, we carry parts for every brand that went into Washtenaw County homes, and we charge the same flat rate at midnight that we charge at noon. Dexter has about 4,500 in the city, with roughly 15,000 more in the surrounding townships people and a lot of twenty-year-old furnaces; we would rather tell you yours has five winters left than sell you a new one it does not need.

Local details we plan around in Dexter

• The city proper is on DTE gas, but Consumers Energy territory begins just west of town and many addresses with a Dexter mailing address are actually on Consumers or on propane.
• The Huron River and Mill Creek floodplain means basements in the oldest part of town have flooded more than once, and we routinely find equipment that was underwater.
• Dexter's municipal water is softened at the plant, but homes outside the city on private wells have very hard water with iron that attacks water heater anodes quickly.
• Dexter sits where Mill Creek drops into the Huron River, and the lowest streets near the Cider Mill and Mill Creek Park hold fog and humidity on summer mornings. The town is far enough west that it picks up a little more snow than Ypsilanti and feels polar vortex cold snaps a degree or two harder. Hills and heavy oak cover around Gordon Hall and the metroparks shade a lot of roofs, which holds down cooling loads compared with the open subdivisions to the south.