Energy efficiency

Every manufactured home was built to a thermal zone recorded on its data plate. A home built for a mild climate and installed somewhere cold will cost more to run than its size suggests, permanently, and knowing which yours is tells you how much headroom there is.

The losses concentrate in a few places. The floor, over a ventilated crawl space, is a large cold surface. Windows, particularly single-glazed units in older homes. Air leakage around windows, doors, and where plumbing and wiring penetrate the floor and walls. And ducts in the belly, which lose conditioned air directly if they have come apart.

In rough order of return: seal the duct run and reconnect anything loose, because that is often free money. Air-seal penetrations and add weatherstripping. Add floor insulation if the existing belly insulation is thin, damaged, or missing. Then consider windows, which cost the most and pay back slowest.

Beware of improvements that trap moisture. Adding insulation or sealing without regard to ventilation can move the dew point somewhere unhelpful and cause condensation inside the assembly. Air-sealing the living space is good; sealing the crawl space is a different project with its own engineering.

Many utilities and state programmes offer energy audits and weatherisation assistance, and some are specific to manufactured housing. An audit is worth doing before you spend on improvements, because it tells you which of the above applies to your home rather than to homes in general.