Derek ColeGM, Simmons One Hour Heating & Air · AI HVAC Answers

Utilizing Heat Pumps and Electric Furnaces in Modular and Mobile Homes

19 Nov 2024 · 1 min

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0:58

In this short monologue, the speaker discusses heating strategies for modular and mobile homes that originally have an outdoor air‑conditioner paired with an indoor electric furnace. They explain that adding an outdoor heat pump and keeping the electric furnace as a backup can dramatically reduce heating costs because the heat pump serves as the primary heat source. While the backup electric furnace will still function as the main heat if the heat‑pump compressor fails, doing so would drive electricity bills up to $500‑$700 per month, making it financially painful. The speaker stresses that the secondary (electric furnace) should never be used as the primary heating source due to these high utility costs, and although the backup‑as‑primary setup would technically work, it is not recommended.

Chapters

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 $500, $600, $700 light bills. It's gonna be quite painful, but it will work. We do a lot of modular homes and mobile homes, and their original setup is air conditioner outside, electric furnace inside. What we do, we go back with a heat pump outside and use that electric furnace inside as the backup heat source. 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. Uh, but yes, to answer your question, it will work. Do I recommend it? No, I don't.