New Home HVAC Inspection in Ann Arbor Township, Michigan

Buying a house in Ann Arbor Township means inheriting its furnace, its air conditioner, its water heater and its ducts, and the general home inspection tells you almost nothing about any of them. Temprasure does the HVAC inspection that the inspector's report recommends: we open the equipment in a Ann Arbor Township house, test it with a combustion analyzer and gauges, walk the ductwork, and deliver a written report to you inside the contingency window. Ann Arbor Township is about 18 minutes from our shop, so scheduling around a tight deadline is manageable, and the 1950s–80s custom homes on large wooded lots, with newer estates along Geddes and Earhart housing around Warren Road area is exactly the kind where what we find changes the negotiation.

Ann Arbor Township houses and what that means for pre-purchase inspection

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.

Flips and former rentals in Ann Arbor Township are a category we approach carefully. A house in Warren Road area that has been turned over for sale often has a new thermostat, a wiped-down furnace cabinet and a fresh filter in front of equipment that was never serviced, and an air conditioner that was topped off with refrigerant for the showing rather than having its leak found. Our inspection in Ann Arbor Township looks past the presentation: serial-number ages, heat exchanger condition, charge by superheat and subcooling rather than a pressure reading, and the Washtenaw County permit record for any equipment the listing calls new. When a 1950s–80s custom homes on large wooded lots, with newer estates along Geddes and Earhart rental in 48105 has had a decade of deferred maintenance, the report says so plainly, with photos.

We write more service agreements in Ann Arbor Township every year because the math is easy to see once a homeowner has lived through one no-heat night. Two visits a year, spring for the air conditioner and fall for the furnace, on equipment in the 1950s–80s custom homes on large wooded lots, with newer estates along Geddes and Earhart around Barton Hills and Parker Mill County Park that is often fifteen years old. The DTE Energy along the main roads furnaces get a combustion check and a cleaned flame sensor; the condensers near Whitmore Lake Road corridor get their capacitors measured and coils washed. Ann Arbor Township is about 18 minutes from the shop, and agreement customers go to the front of the line in a heat wave or a cold snap.

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.
• Homes with multiple furnaces and air handlers in different wings mean a single thermostat complaint often turns out to be a zoning or balancing problem rather than an equipment failure.
• Barton Hills has its own village government and architectural review, so exterior equipment placement there can involve an extra approval.
• 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.