Turn furnace into A/C?

Question

I have an 03 Mobile Home from Fleetwood. It came with a Coleman Furnace installed. I was just told that instead of using my swamp cooler that I could turn off the gas to the furnace add freon to it and use it as central air.

Does anyone know if this is true?

I looked at the furnace and don't see a single place you could do this.

However on the thermostat on the wall it does have a switch to switch it to either cool or heat.

Answer 1

This is not accurate as described.

To add conventional air conditioning, you need a compressor unit  located outside the home and an evaporator unit located above the furnace heat exchanger.  This assumes there is sufficient room above the furnace for the evaporator unit to fit.  

I hope that you do not follow the advice of the person who told you this as he clearly does not have any knowledge in this area.  I would be very skeptical of anything else he suggests.

The wall thermostat, in your case, would not need replacement because it can handle heating and cooling.  However, this does not mean your furnace is equipped to do both  just because the thermostat can handle both functions.

Answer 2

Chances are the thermostat only has 2 wires going to it as is the way most mobile homes are wired. You also might not have a fan relay in the furnace as this is part of the AC upgrade blower kit. As stated, you will need an evaporator coil and a condensing unit to achieve cooling too.

Answer 3

Nope, you were lied to. You'll need a compressor and heat exchanger (coil) to make it work