So if you choose to move to the south, as many of us do, I’d suggest moving here at the end of winter.
For one, it’s wonderful to go from all that cold to the mild winter we have around here.
I left a house that had the gas furnace still running to a house where the heat pump was quiet when we arrived. And that heat pump has only had to stir a few times in this, my first full time winter. The reason I suggest moving here in the late winter is more geared to the heat of summer actually. Of course, we all realize that trading a gas furnace for a heat pump comes with way more air conditioning. But you really can’t quite understand this sort of heat until you experience it. I was lucky to move at the beginning of spring and have a great neighbor. He too was from the north and gave me some great advice right off the bat. My new neighbor suggested that we wait as long as we could before we cranked the air conditioning. I really didn’t understand why until I realized that you really do have to acclimate to this level of heat and humidity. Otherwise, you stay inside the air conditioning all the time. And over cooling a house can come with expenses that rival letting a gas furnace run wild in the winter. But once those four months of summer are over, the rest of the year is awesome. Yet, the winter is exquisite and I don’t miss that gas furnace one bit.