The Ultimate Guide to Mobile Home Energy Efficiency

For the 20 million Americans who live in mobile homes, energy efficiency is important. Beyond just helping to save money on heating and cooling costs, it aids in keeping the climate of your home from fluctuating in any weather conditions you may find yourself in. Efficiency can be just as consistent in a snowstorm or a heatwave if energy management is done right. 

Here are 31 ways to improve mobile home energy efficiency. 

9 Basic Tips for Mobile Home Energy Efficiency

When it comes to mobile home energy costs, you can start by doing the basics. These not only reduce your electric bill but also conserve the environment. 

Use Air-Sealing

Air-sealing can work in various nooks and crannies to reduce heat loss or overheating. It is a valuable tool that can work for your ceilings, walls, and floors.

You can even cover spaces underneath the kitchen and bathroom sinks, doorways, and windows. 

Use Films and Coating

Besides simple insulation, you can also use films and coating to reduce the amount of energy your home absorbs.

The advantages of these reflective films and coatings are that they complement the power of an average sunscreen. They provide UV protection and keep your home cool, thus reducing your dependency on cooling systems and your AC and/or fan consumption. 

Service Your HVAC System Every Season

Your HVAC system takes punishment year-round. It stops dust and contaminants from getting into your home, filters the air, and cools you down—all of which can take a toll on a machine.

The vents can fill up with dust and dirt. If you don’t clean them every season, you will reduce their efficiency and soon find yourself in a contaminated home. 

Semi-annually cleaning your heating and cooling system can be a huge cost saver.  

Clean or Replace Your Furnace Filter

As with your HVAC system, your furnace filter can accrue a lot of gunk while it runs.

Cleaning or replacing it will reduce contaminants in your home and maintain its functionality. 

Install Sun Screens

Exterior sunscreens are incredible for blocking the heat of the sun. They can block up to 92% of the sun’s rays from heating your home.

Over the entire year, that is a massive lump of savings on your energy costs. 

Upgrade Kitchen Appliances 

By upgrading your old kitchen appliances, you can reduce electricity costs simply by modernizing them.

New appliances minimize energy use and can reduce your power costs for the year. 

A rule of thumb is to go for Energy Star appliances, as they meet strict energy efficiency requirements. 

Install Exterior Awnings

Exterior awnings reduce the sunlight directly hitting your door or home. Think of it like installing a shade.

Awnings can remain with your home even as it moves. 

Seal and Insulate Your Crossover Duct Connections 

Insulating your duct connections and sealing them up can reduce the contaminants accumulating within your vent systems.

Insulation is not typically a DIY job, but it can help keep your mobile home functioning in tip-top shape. 

Injection or Spray Foam Insulation to Seal Cracks

Like air-sealing, injection or spray foam insulation can seal cracks, boosting mobile home energy efficiency. The only difference is that it can adapt to any gap or space that you put it in.

Spray foam is a great DIY tool. However, ensure you only use it to cover up small areas. Anything larger than a 3-inch (7.62 dm) diameter hole requires foam or blanket rolls. 

11 Ways to Improve Insulation in Your Mobile Home

Install Energy Efficient Windows and Doors 

Energy efficient building openings are one of the most basic ways to improve insulation in your mobile home.

Doors and windows are the two most significant entry points for wind, heat, cold, rain, and snow. Hence, it’s essential to seal them off entirely so your home doesn’t lose or gain heat.

Energy efficient windows and doors come with sealings, padding, as well as several layers. That’s how they stop heat from leaving or entering your mobile home. 

According to Architect Magazine, an energy efficient window can reduce heat loss by 30-40%.

No matter how you look at it, those numbers are incredible. They really matter when the heat is on or the cold is beating down. These gains can also help you cut down significantly on your utility bills. 

It’s more than just about repelling or conserving heat. It’s about improving your overall level of comfort. 

Insulate the Belly of the Mobile Home 

Think about how you insulate yourself during the cold. First, you put on clothing to cover your chest and legs. Without that, most of your body mass is exposed to the elements.

Just like that, the belly of your mobile home is bare without insulation.

If you don’t insulate, you can lose a lot of heat or gain it from the underbelly. 

The best way to do it is through cell spray foam insulation. Open-cell foam is also viable, but it’s more likely to capture and hold water.

This means its application can result in fungus or mildew and minimize insulation, so you are better off opting for cell spray foam. It lasts longer and improves your insulation by a far more significant margin. 

Be on the Lookout for Repairs

These manufactured houses generally take more punishment than site-built homes. Because they venture around the country and don’t stay in one place for too long, you should be on the lookout for repairs.

Catching something that’s breaking down and replacing it can benefit your mobile home. 

With regards to insulation, you should be on the lookout for repairs. Any leaks, cracks, breaks, etc., can upset your entire insulated environment. 

Add Insulation to the Walls

Just like the belly of your home, the walls are also large areas for heat exchange.

That’s why you need to install insulation on those walls and cover them completely, which can significantly cut down your energy bills. 

Install a Belly Wrap

A belly wrap is a barrier that keeps out the elements, rodents, and other unsavory things. Therefore, it can serve several different purposes for a mobile home.

For example, it will keep the heat loss from the belly of your home to a minimum. It will also keep any moisture from attaching to the underside of your mobile home.

Belly wraps are particularly excellent for when you’re on the road because they will repel any muck or splashing water from the belly of your home. 

By reducing the buildup of mildew and fungus, you will also reduce the chances of any diseases or biohazards developing within your home.

Install Insulation for Your Roof

The roof is the final area from where you can lose or gain the most heat. It is at right angles to the sun and is in direct contact with sunlight for the entire day. Hence, it receives the bulk of the radiation from it.

When you cut that off, you can improve insulation by a tremendous amount and significantly reduce the heat absorbed by your home throughout the day. 

Plant Trees to Reduce Winter Winds

You can plant trees around your home to reduce the impact of winter winds or even provide shade around your home. This practice will help you cultivate a beautiful garden and give back to nature.

It will also promote mental and social well-being. 

Planting trees is not viable for mobile homeowners who move around a lot. However, it’s a very healthy practice for those who stay in one place for a few months or a year at a time. 

Use Blow-In Insulation

Blow-in insulation is commonly known as loose insulation. It requires a certain degree of professionalism as well as the proper equipment.

For example, you need to cut a small hole in a wall, the floor, or the ceiling. You can also use other areas of your mobile home where the application works. 

Then, you need to use a particular type of compressor to push insulation into the area. With the materials ranging from cellulose to wool, it’s a practical style of insulation. 

Loose-fill insulation is excellent for mobile homes that need to move from place to place since it will hold no matter where you go.  

Use Blanket or Roll Insulation

Blanket or roll insulation consists of both fiberglass and wool. It can also consist of plastic and natural fiber varieties. Perhaps the biggest advantage is you can buy blanket insulation in any hardware store. It’s also a relatively easy DIY job. 

This type of insulation works for attics or underpinnings in regular homes. Hence, it’ll work great for the floor or the ceilings of your mobile home. 

However, there is a downside. You will need those areas to be accessible all the time if you have to replace the insulation. 

Other than that, this is a choice of insulation for the often-mobile mobile home. 

Use Foam Boards 

Foam boards are very similar to blanket roll insulation and also can be a self-applied job. The only caveat is that it is not flexible. Instead, foam boards are very rigid, making it challenging to fit them into small or inexact spaces.

The few other downsides include that they’re not suitable for all areas of the home. The ceilings and the floors aren’t very hospitable to foam boards. They can become dislodged and loose, undoing the purpose of the insulation.  

Fix Poorly-Fitting Doors

Poorly fitted doors are the bane of insulation. They can let heat in and out, basically defeating the purpose of insulation.

You need to check out any doors in your home that have gotten dislodged or are leaning. They can let in a lot of cold air or let out heat, particularly in the winter months when the cold is at its peak. 

Things to Install to Improve Mobile Home Energy Efficiency

While most things we’ve discussed up to this point require little investment, these are expensive and may require some effort and higher upfront costs for mobile homeowners. However, the payoff is worth it. 

These installations are also for homes situated in one place for a long time. 

Install a Geothermal Heat Pump

Geothermal heat pumps are perhaps the most energy efficient renewable options out there. They can take energy from the ground and recycle it back to the ground.

In addition, they can provide space heating and cooling at once. Hence, you can heat your home in the winter and cool it in the summer. 

They are also the most cost-effective heating appliances to install. However, you can’t move them. That’s the con. If you want to be genuinely traveling in your mobile home, this option won’t work for you. 

Add a Sunspace and Reorient Your Home

While this may not be as expensive as the other items on this list, it’s certainly a task that requires effort.

Adding a sunspace and reorienting your home requires that you maximize solar exposure. You also have to do some landscaping for energy efficiency.

Reorienting includes installing shading devices and redirecting sunlight.

All in all, this will improve energy efficiency and energy delivery to your home. However, it will also require that you account for the seasons and the sun’s position in the sky. 

Add Solar Water Heating

Again, solar water heating requires effort. It won’t work for lightweight mobile homes, but for those that can withstand the weight, you can heat your home for free.

You can use lightweight roof-mounted air collectors for water heating. You could also install heavier liquid-type solar collectors on the ground. However, these systems are suited for new manufactured homes that are not mobile for most of the year. 

Invest In a Solar Electric or Photovoltaic System

You can use many solar energy units today for mobile homes. They are light enough to install on the roofs of manufactured homes and house solar or photovoltaic systems.

These units can run anything within a mobile home and provide energy for the entire year in some instances.

However, you should know that these systems are inefficient in humid areas and during monsoon season. They capture very little sunlight and will not help you lower utility bills. 

Install a Small Wind Electric System

If you plan to stay in a rural area without many buildings, installing a small wind-electric system is a good idea. It will give you enough power to run your home and contribute to the environment.

Just make sure that your home is in an area with wide-open spaces. It should be an area with at least one acre of land.

Of course, a wind-electric system can’t be used with a constantly moving home, as with other power-generating systems. 

Install a Micro-Hydropower System

If your home is near a stream or has access to flowing water, you can install a micro-hydropower system to generate enough power to run your home.

Micro-hydropower is another mobile home energy efficiency option for those who stay in the same place for a long time.

It’s not viable for those moving with their home to arid and humid areas. 

5 Ways to Reduce Your Mobile Home’s Energy Expenditure

You can improve mobile home energy efficiency in other ways than simply installing power generation systems and improving insulation. 

Wash Only Full Loads of Laundry

When you wash only full loads of laundry, you save money operating your washing machine. It may be tempting to run the washing machine and dryer every day or every other day, but that wastes power and water.

Doing full loads of laundry at the end of the week will help you conserve both. Also, you’ll save on detergent, electricity bills, and even valuable time. 

Use Cold Water Detergent

You can also save a lot on utility bills by washing your laundry in cold water.

You can also buy cold water detergent so that you can offset any problems. This combination can save you hundreds of dollars over even just one month. 

Change to Energy Efficient Lighting 

Energy efficient lighting is one of the most basic DIY fixes for mobile home energy efficiency improvements. As a result, you can reduce your electric bill and help conserve the environment.

Choose LED light bulbs instead of regular lighting. By doing so, you’ll get more light and reduce your annual electricity costs.

Install a Low Flow Showerhead

A low-flow showerhead may not remove all the shampoo from your hair, but it will reduce water and power costs. You will conserve water and thus reduce the yearly costs for your mobile home. 

Keep Electric Baseboard Heat Registers Cleaned

The electric baseboard registers are integral to the operation. They won’t function properly if they accrue too much dust or muck.

Keeping them clean will reduce the chances of the electric baseboard catching fire or malfunctioning. 

Conclusion

There you have it. These mobile home energy efficiency solutions will offer various benefits, and the quantity presented here hopefully offers at least something everyone can employ.

We hope you found a few techniques from all the different strategies laid out that you can use to keep you comfortable and improve your mobile home energy efficiency.

If you’re on the quest to make the ultimate energy efficient home, you may be interested in our articles on The Affordable Components Of A Net-Zero House and Is Net-Zero A Lie, A Trap, Or A Goal Impossible To Achieve?