Thermostat Installation in Superior Township, Michigan

Houses in Superior Township have thermostat wiring from every era of the 1950s–70s ranches in the southwest corner and 1990s–2010s subdivisions along Prospect and Geddes that fill Washtenaw County. Two-conductor cable to a round mercury dial in the older blocks around St. Joseph Mercy Hospital, four conductors in the colonials that got central air in the 1980s, and five or more in the subdivisions near Prospect Road corridor where the builder ran enough wire but the installer never used it. What your Superior Township house needs for a modern thermostat depends on which of those you have, and that is what we check before recommending anything. Temprasure installs Ecobee, Nest, Honeywell Home and Sensi units, plus plain digital thermostats for people who want nothing connected, and we quote the whole job flat-rate.

Superior Township houses and what that means for thermostats

The southwest neighborhoods near MacArthur Boulevard are compact 1950s–60s ranches and bungalows on crawlspaces or shallow block basements, with the original duct trunk often running through an uninsulated crawl, so the floors stay cold even with a new furnace. The newer subdivisions along Prospect and Geddes Roads are 1995–2012 colonials and larger two-stories on full basements, generally with original 80 percent furnaces and single-stage condensers that are coming due for replacement. The rural stretch north of Geddes is where things get interesting: 1880s farmhouses with Michigan basements and multiple additions, 1970s–80s custom ranches on five-acre parcels, and newer acreage homes with 90-plus furnaces, some of them on propane and some on well water. Dixboro's older homes are frame two-stories with stone foundations and low basement ceilings. Horse farms and larger estates off Vorhies and Cherry Hill Roads sometimes have two or three furnaces serving one sprawling house.

Two-stage and variable-speed equipment in Superior Township is often running at a fraction of what it can because of the thermostat. The subdivisions in 48198 that were built or re-equipped in the 1950s–70s ranches in the southwest corner and 1990s–2010s subdivisions along Prospect and Geddes got two-stage furnaces and air conditioners, and a lot of them were paired with a basic single-stage thermostat that never calls for high. On a cold Washtenaw County morning the furnace plods along on low for an hour; on a humid July afternoon the air conditioner never ramps up enough to pull moisture out of the house. We wire the second stage, set the staging logic in the thermostat rather than leaving it to the furnace board's timer, and set the dehumidification call so the system runs the way the equipment was designed to in Superior Township.

With about 14,000, spread across a mostly rural township residents and housing that runs from the 1950s–70s ranches in the southwest corner and 1990s–2010s subdivisions along Prospect and Geddes around Ford Road and Clark Road area to the newer streets near Dixboro, Superior Township keeps us busy year-round. The equipment is on DTE Energy for heat and DTE Energy for cooling, the basements near the Dixboro village green are prone to the same moisture issues as the rest of Washtenaw County, and the ductwork in a lot of these houses was never sized for the air conditioner that was bolted on later. We are 5 miles away, we service every brand, and we quote a flat rate before we start.

Local details we plan around in Superior Township

• The township contracts its building inspections, and mechanical permits for furnace and AC replacements are still required and reviewed.
• DTE gas reaches the subdivisions and the older neighborhoods, but a meaningful number of homes north of Geddes Road run on propane tanks, which affects furnace orifice sizing and regulator setup.
• The 1950s MacArthur Boulevard area homes often have small 60-amp or 100-amp panels, so adding central air usually involves a panel upgrade first.
• Superior Township rises gently away from the Huron River, so the subdivisions along Geddes and Prospect are drier and windier than the Ypsilanti lowlands just south of them. Open fields in the northern half let winter wind run unchecked, and acreage homes with a west-facing wall feel it in January. Frains Lake and the wetlands around LeFurge Woods add humidity in summer to the homes nearest them, and heavy tree cover around Dixboro keeps cooling loads lower there.