Heating and Cooling in Clarkston, MI

One Clarkston address, two very different kinds of house

Most people with a Clarkston address live in Independence Township, not in the village itself. The township is largely subdivision housing. Census Bureau estimates put about four in ten of its homes in the 1980s and 1990s and close to one in five since 2000. About seven in ten are detached houses and nearly nine in ten heat with natural gas. That points to forced-air furnaces and central air, and in the 1980s and 1990s houses the original equipment has usually been replaced once by now.

The City of the Village of Clarkston is another matter. It covers only about half a square mile, and its core is a National Register historic district. The survey sample for a place this small is thin, but roughly a third of its homes appear to predate 1940. A heating and cooling job there has little in common with one a mile away. Maverick Heating and Cooling, family-owned and 7 years in business, does both.

Heating and cooling an older Clarkston village house

Houses built before 1940 were not designed around ductwork or air conditioning. They are more likely than a newer home to be heated by a boiler, with no ducts at all, or to have a furnace feeding ducts that were threaded in decades later. Where the house has a furnace, we handle furnace repair and replacement.

Cooling is the harder question, because running new ducts through plaster walls is disruptive. A ductless mini-split adds air conditioning with no ducts, and the units can usually be placed with some thought for how the house looks from the street.

Township subdivisions from the 1980s onward

A furnace typically lasts 15 to 20 years, so a house from the 1990s has usually had its first replacement, and one from the 1980s may be coming up on its second. Before paying for a new one, it is worth knowing whether the old furnace was the right size. Our furnace installation page explains how a load calculation settles that. Signs it is time to ask:

• A furnace over 15 years old that needs a costly part
• Bedrooms that run several degrees off the thermostat
• An air conditioner that leaves the house cool but clammy

Well water, treated and untreated

Independence Township's municipal water comes from 14 township groundwater wells and is treated. Many township homes are on a private well instead, and those get no such treatment. What is in the water matters to anything that heats or evaporates it: mineral-heavy water tends to coat a humidifier pad and settle in a water heater sooner. If you are on your own well, say so when you call 248-930-2080. We also serve nearby Waterford and Lake Orion.