Electric strip heat makes heat at one unit out per unit in; a heat pump moves heat instead and delivers far more across a mild Central Florida winter. In Oviedo, where 25.0% of homes were built 1970-89 on straight-cool plus strip heat, converting is also Duke Energy's largest published rebate - if your meter is west of the Econ bridge.
An outdoor condenser that only cools, and a bank of electric resistance elements in the air handler for heat. Resistance heat is 100% efficient and no better — one unit of electricity in, one unit of heat out. It was cheap to build and the winters are short, which is exactly why Alafaya Woods and the older Twin Rivers sections were built with it.
The same machine run backwards in winter: it moves heat rather than making it, so it delivers substantially more heat per unit of electricity across the mild mornings that make up almost all of an Oviedo winter. Strip heat usually stays as auxiliary backup for the handful of genuinely cold ones.
The cooling side barely changes. A heat pump and an air conditioner are the same equipment in summer. The conversion is a heating-season and a rebate decision, not a cooling one.
Three reasons this is the Oviedo question rather than a generic one.
The national cost data matters here: a 2026 survey of 1,000 homeowners puts the average installed air-source heat pump at $8,007 against $8,460 for a central air conditioner. The heat pump is not the expensive option. Then, west of the bridge, the rebate comes off.
Seminole County Property Appraiser CAMA extract, Parcels.csv dated 5 September 2026; This Old House — HVAC replacement cost guide, 2026 survey of 1,000 homeowners (updated 2 September 2026).
The honest limits, because this is not free money:
Check which side of the C.R. 419 Econlockhatchee bridge your house is on. West of it you are a Duke Energy customer, and Duke requires a free Home Energy Check completed within the previous 24 months before the equipment is installed — replace first and apply afterwards and the claim is denied. East of it you are on FPL, and none of the Duke figures on this site apply to you at all. Which utility is yours, and the order of operations.
Check whether the thermostat has an emergency-heat setting and whether there is a large double-pole breaker feeding the air handler. Or send us a photo of the panel.
