Service Agreements in Dexter, Michigan

For Dexter households that would rather not think about the furnace until it matters, the Temprasure Service Agreement handles the thinking. We reach out in the fall to schedule the furnace tune-up and in the spring for the air conditioner, you confirm a date, and Al comes out to Dexter with the instruments and leaves a written report. If the 1990s–2000s subdivision homes around an 1830s village core system in your house needs a repair during the year, you are prioritized and the repair is discounted. Agreement customers across Washtenaw County tell us the part they value most is simply that the visits happen.

Dexter houses and what that means for service agreements

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.

Safety is the quiet part of the agreement in Dexter. The fall furnace visit includes a heat exchanger inspection and a carbon monoxide reading at the registers with the blower running, and in the 1990s–2000s subdivision homes around an 1830s village core homes around Hudson Mills Metropark with gas furnaces in damp basements, that check is the one that matters most. Exchangers rust from the outside in a Michigan basement, and the first sign is usually a reading, not a symptom. Agreement customers in Dexter get that reading every year, documented, along with a look at the water heater venting and the flue. We have shut furnaces down on that visit, shown the homeowner why, and been right. That is worth more than the discount.

We write more service agreements in Dexter 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 1990s–2000s subdivision homes around an 1830s village core around Dexter-Ann Arbor Road corridor and Hudson Mills Metropark that is often fifteen years old. The DTE Energy furnaces get a combustion check and a cleaned flame sensor; the condensers near Mast Road area get their capacitors measured and coils washed. Dexter is about 32 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 Dexter

• 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.
• Many of the 1990s subdivision homes have a furnace and water heater sharing an undersized masonry chimney that needs a liner when either appliance is upgraded.
• 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 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.