An important question to ask is when your mobile home was manufactured. Older mobile homes lack the technological advantages that newer energy-efficient mobile homes bring. The older the mobile home, the more work it may need to make more efficient. If a newer mobile home is not in the budget, then perhaps you can hire someone or even do most or all of the work yourself.
The essential problem with a hot mobile home in the summer, despite the use of air conditioning, is that thermal energy is being allowed to transfer at some place or places throughout the home.
That is, heat from the outdoors is getting transferring either directly – as in the case of an air leak around a door, window or plumbing leading to the exterior – or indirectly through solid surfaces such as windows, floors, ceilings, walls, and doors. Thermal transfer can make your mobile home so hot it’s unbearable.
Air leaks can and should be sealed rather easily with caulking and weatherstripping to create air tight seals around doors, plumbing and ducts. It may take some getting dirty, crawling under the mobile home to find all of the the leaks, but it will be well worth it in the long run. An added benefit from sealing small holes is that it blocks insects and small animals from crawling in.
Correcting thermal transfer through solid surfaces will take more work. The exact solution will vary upon the type of surface, but the concept is the same: insulation.
Insulation creates a middle-layer between two surfaces of differing degrees. In the case of your mobile home wall, insulation would thermally separate the interior wall, which is cooled by the cool air inside from the exterior wall, which is heated by the outside air and sun.
It may be necessary to insulate the doors, walls, belly and roof of your mobile home, depending on how your mobile home is equipped. Windows are common offenders when it comes to heat transfer. A tell-tale sign of heat transfer is excessive condensation on either the inside our outside of your windows. Every drop of water is money wasted – literally thrown out the window. If you are seeing condensation on your windows it is time to replace them with more energy efficient windows.
You will notice that it will not take as long or as much energy to cool your mobile home in the summer or to heat it in the winter once the offending surfaces are insulated. Insulation, itself, makes for a more energy efficient mobile home.
Newer appliances, such as high efficiency water heaters and heating/cooling equipment, will make a difference in your bottom line each month. Not only do they use less energy but they create less ambient heat because they are more efficient, overall.
