Water Heater Installation in Dexter, Michigan

Hard water across Dexter shortens the life of every tank, which is why a lot of our replacement calls here come from 1990s–2000s subdivision homes around an 1830s village core homes where the heater was installed at the last sale and is now rusting at the seams. If yours is past ten years, has rusty hot water or is already dripping, it is time. Temprasure replaces atmospheric gas, power-vent, electric and tankless water heaters in Dexter and across Washtenaw County, with a free estimate, a flat price and same-day installation on standard tanks whenever the schedule allows. We also tell you honestly when a repair would still buy time, because that is how we have earned the reviews from the Dexter Cider Mill to the township line.

Dexter houses and what that means for water heater replacement

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.

Water quality in Dexter is the reason we talk about anode rods and tankless honestly. The municipal water in town and the well water in the rural parts of Washtenaw County are both hard, and some of the wells around Mill Creek neighborhood carry enough iron that a magnesium anode produces a sulfur smell within months. On a new tank we can install an aluminum-zinc or powered anode where that is a known issue, and we tell customers when to have the rod checked so the tank reaches fifteen years instead of ten. For tankless, we are straightforward: on Dexter water it needs annual descaling, and a house with a half-inch gas line and a 1990s–2000s subdivision homes around an 1830s village core meter is not a cheap conversion. Some homes are great candidates and some are not, and we say which.

Water heaters in Dexter fail the way they fail everywhere in Washtenaw County: quietly for years, then all at once on a weekday morning. The 1990s–2000s subdivision homes around an 1830s village core around Huron Farms and Westridge mostly have 40- or 50-gallon atmospheric gas tanks on DTE Energy service, often in a basement near a sump pit where a leak goes unnoticed until the floor is wet. We are 32 minutes from 48130 with thermocouples, gas valves, elements, thermostats and relief valves on the truck, and when the tank itself is done we replace it the same day whenever a unit is in stock.

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.
• 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.