Heating and Cooling in Dearborn, MI

Heating and cooling in Dearborn: two towns in one city

Dearborn is two older towns that merged at the end of the 1920s. East Dearborn, once the city of Fordson, was developed at a higher density, much like Detroit. West Dearborn has larger lots, and some of its streets are a century old: the Ford Homes district is 250 houses built from 1919 to 1921. Citywide, Census Bureau estimates put about one home in four before 1940, nearly twice the share across Metro Detroit as a whole, and nearly half in the 1940s and 1950s.

We are a family-owned business with 7 years behind us and a crew of four, and Dearborn is inside the area we cover: every city within 50 miles of Dearborn Heights. Expect us at the hour we gave you. The price comes before the work: you hear what broke and what each fix would cost. What we do is 100% satisfaction guaranteed. We also work across the city line in Detroit and Dearborn Heights. Call 248-930-2080.

Where Dearborn's two-family houses and apartments are

By the City's master plan, in 2010, buildings with two or more units held most homes in Fairlane and Springwells, about half in the South End and about a quarter in the east-side Fordson areas, but almost none in west-side Cherry Hill. A two-family house often has a furnace and a water heater for each unit, so there are two of each to maintain.

Electric heat is common in Dearborn

Electricity heats more than one Dearborn home in four, over twice the share across Metro Detroit as a whole. Utility gas heats about seven in ten, and DTE supplies both. Electric heat usually means a heat pump, an electric furnace or baseboard heaters. Only the heat pump puts out more heat than the electricity it uses, because it moves heat in from outdoors.

Combined sewers and the 2014 and 2021 backups

Most of Dearborn's sewers were built as combined sewers, one pipe for rain and sewage, and about 40 percent of the city is still on them. The City's sewer study says they were designed for about three inches of rain in 24 hours, so bigger storms push water back into basements. It counts about 10,000 homes flooded or backed up on August 11, 2014, and more than 20,000 over three storms in summer 2021, when areas with separate storm sewers performed well by comparison.

If sewer water has reached a furnace or water heater, keep it switched off until it has been checked, even after the basement is dry. Industry guidance does not favor drying out flood-damaged gas valves and controls: they are replaced, and often the whole appliance.