379. Secondary as Primary
28 Jan 2026 · 2 min
Derek Cole explains that a secondary electric furnace can work as your main heat source, especially in heat-pump retrofits for mobile homes. But don't do it: electric bills will spike significantly compared to using a heat pump as primary.
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Foreign. Hey, this is Derek Cole and welcome to the Derek Cole Podcast. This podcast is all about home comfort and energy savings. The majority is really comprised of short audio clips of a device and answers to questions that we've been asked over the years. We also kind of sprinkle in the Ask Derek Cole show audio, which is a much longer Q and A kind of program. If you like this episode, and I hope you do, I would love for you to share it on social with others. Just take a screenshot of the program and hashtag it Derek Cole so I can see you. But let's get in to today's episode.
It depends on what kind of system you have, but around here we have a lot of heat pumps. Yes, it will still work. So when you use that backup heat as the main heat, which will happen when your compressor is out, you're gonna have some 5, 6, 700R light bills. It's gonna be quite painful, but it will work. We do a lot of modular homes and mobile homes. Their original setup is air conditioner outside, electric furnace inside. Well, we do. We go back with a heat pump outside and use that electric furnace inside as the backup heat source. That's going to say that saves them a lot of money because now your primary heat is the heat pump. Your secondary heat is the electric furnace. So I would never use the secondary as my primary because of light bill reasons. But yes, to answer your question, it will work. Do I recommend it? No, I don't.
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