Heating and Cooling in Taylor, MI

What Taylor's post-war houses mean for heating and cooling

By Census Bureau estimates, nearly eight in ten Taylor homes date from 1940 to 1979, compared with just over half across Metro Detroit as a whole, and fewer than one in twenty is older. Nearly three-quarters are detached houses. About nine in ten heat with utility gas, more than across Metro Detroit, and both the gas and the electricity come from DTE.

Maverick Heating and Cooling is 7 years old and family-owned, with a crew of four. We serve every city within 50 miles of Dearborn Heights, and Taylor is one of them. We keep the time we give you. Nothing starts until you have heard what failed, what your choices are and what each one costs, and the work is 100% satisfaction guaranteed. Call 248-930-2080 from Taylor, or from Dearborn Heights on its northern border.

1940s and 1950s houses, typically 800 to 1,000 square feet

Nearly four in ten Taylor homes were built in the 1940s and 1950s. The City's master plan describes them as ranches and bungalows of typically 800 to 1,000 square feet. Some neighborhoods are mostly brick, others mostly aluminum-sided, and some houses sit on slabs.

A house that small needs a small furnace. One that is too big satisfies the thermostat quickly, shuts off and soon starts again, which wears its parts and can leave the back bedroom cool. We size a new furnace by a load calculation, not by the label on the old one. On a slab, the furnace usually stands in a utility closet or the attic, and its replacement has to fit there.

Larger ranches, split-levels and colonials from the 1960s

Another four in ten date from the 1960s and 1970s. From the mid-1960s, the master plan says, new houses got larger: ranches, split-levels and two-story colonials, with an attached two-car garage as the norm. Bigger houses mean longer duct runs, and ducts that age are often original. By ENERGY STAR's estimate, 20 to 30 percent of the air in a typical home's ducts leaks out, so sealing them can do more for a cold room than new equipment.

After the 2019 flood: furnaces and water heaters

On April 30 and May 1, 2019, about 3.65 inches of rain brought flooding to Wayne County. FOX 2 Detroit reported roughly 3,000 homes damaged across the county, and Taylor was named among the hardest-hit communities.

The City's flood sheet says water hazards on the Lakes of Taylor and Taylor Meadows golf courses double as retention basins and have significantly reduced flooding. It also says owners of flood-prone properties can raise heating and air-conditioning systems and water heaters onto platforms or to higher floors. If water reaches a furnace or water heater, do not run it again until it has been checked. Industry guidance is to replace gas valves and controls that have been flooded, and often the whole unit.