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My brother bought a pretty old double wide built in 1974 I think. He is being burried with the cost of gas to heat the place. He sets the thermostat to 50 degrees which I know isn't too comfortable for him. Do any of you know if there is some electric heaters that can be run for less than gas? Any information will be appreciated,short of telling him to move to Florida.

My wife keeps our house an uncomfortable 62 degrees during the day. I have one of those round radiant heaters from Costco right here by my chair and it even has a remote. It won't heat the trailer, but he can be comfortble in one spot. It's crazy because this same woman won't hesitate to buy a $300 purse. Ken

I'd start with a caulking gun, spray foam and gasket material and seal the place up. Then move onto checking the insulation where accessible and adding if possible. Also check the furnace efficiency rating verses the new ones, typically they are 20% more efficient these days.

infrared heaters are what my buddy swears by in his old farm house in eastern north dakota. saves him a bundle on fuel oil

A mobile that old will likely have aluminum framed windows with single glass. Those things will suck an amazing amount of heat out of the house. It also probably has aluminum wiring and foam insulation that was outlawed in about '78 because it gives off formaldehyde fumes. Idaho doesn't allow mobiles that old to be set up so if you have one, it stays where it now sits until it falls down.

Unless you rebuild that old double wide, it will never be inexpensive to heat or cool. My guess is that there is about zero insulation, and that the windows and doors leak air like a sieve.

My take as well..

Any chance he can dump it and upgrade?

Ceiling and windows first.

Trailers usually have a low ceiling to begin with, so the idea of a drop ceiling really sucks but he needs to get at least another 3 1/2 inches insulation up there.

A cheap and quick fix for windows is 2 inch thick foam board cut to fit snugly on the inside. With a good tight fit it'll make an immediately noticeable difference.

Other than that the best thing he could ever buy is a wool sweater, wool long johns, and a heavy wool blanket for the bed. I can sit around comfortably in 45 50 degrees range with a couple pieces of wool clothing.

Air conditioning in the summer is non-essential in my opinion. There's really only about a month out of a year where the heat is too unbearable in this part of the country. (different for southerners and people in high humidity areas, I'm sure) A small window ac in the bedroom will suffice on a low budget. Get a good nights sleep is important, the rest of the day people are usually working anyway.

ps

Usually lots of good wool clothing available at second had outlets. People don't like it because it's ithcy. so what. Wear a layer of cotton underneath. A thick wool shirt at Salvation Army will run about 3 dollars. And it's probably been hanging there for 15 or 20 years.

Being that old, I'm assuming that it has a metal roof that's nearly flat. If so, there's no way to add insulation to what's already there. It's not worth the money, but I have seen people overlay the existing roof with a new framed one and add a foot of insulation on top of the old roof. That has it's problems, too, though. Those old trailers aren't designed to handle the load so the new roof has to be supported by posts going to the ground.

Thank you one and all from me and my brother, I e mail him your responses and he told me to please thank all of you for the advice. I guess so far he has bought some of that clear shrink stuff to cover the inside of the windows. I suspect it will stop some drafts but not really add any insulating qualities. The foam in the windows sounds like a great idea as he has a LOT of windows, most of which are too big anyways. Real heat suction machines for sure.I doubt he will spend the money or want to upgrade everything. A new double wide or something sounds like a better deal. He got it pretty reasonable, it is a nice looking place, just a money pit when it comes to heating it.

Rent it out, with utilities being the responsibility of the tenant (make the rent more reasonable), and find a better place to live.

I had an old construction office trailer I used as an office. I installed a small coal burning stove, it worked great.