Duke Energy publishes up to $1,000 for replacing electric resistance strip heat with a qualifying heat pump, and $600 at the lower efficiency tier. Altamonte Springs is the best territory in Seminole County for it: 72.4% of the city's 13,253 residential parcels were built between 1970 and 1989, the era when Central Florida houses were built with strip heat. But there is a free Home Energy Check you have to complete before the equipment is installed, or the rebate is denied.
A free Home Energy Check completed within the previous 24 months is required to qualify for any Duke Energy Home Energy Improvement rebate. Not recommended. Required. The rebate has to be planned before the equipment is installed — a homeowner who replaces the system first and applies afterwards is denied, and there is no retroactive assessment.
Duke Energy requires a free Home Energy Check completed within the previous 24 months before it will pay ANY Home Energy Improvement rebate. It is free and it is the gate.
The rebate tier depends on the efficiency you install and on what you are replacing. Strip heat to a heat pump is the largest published tier; replacing a straight air conditioner with another one is the smallest.
The installer has to be in Duke's participating-contractor program, and the permit still gets pulled and inspected the normal way.
The improvement must be completed within 24 months of the assessment.
Replace the system first, then apply for the rebate. There is no retroactive Home Energy Check. This is the mistake, and it costs up to $1,000.
Duke Energy states the prerequisite on both the program page and the Florida application portal, and for windows it explicitly warns that the install date must fall after the Home Energy Check. Captured 4 September 2026 through a browser session; duke-energy.com blocks automated fetching. Program page: duke-energy.com. Florida portal: dukeenergyrebates.com/florida.
| What you are replacing | Published | Efficiency required |
|---|---|---|
| Electric strip heat → heat pump, higher tier | $1,000 | 16.8 SEER & 9.0 HSPF, or 16 SEER2 & 7.5 HSPF2 |
| Electric strip heat → heat pump | $600 | 16.0 SEER & 9.0 HSPF, or 15.2 SEER2 & 7.5 HSPF2 |
| Replace an existing heat pump | $500 | 16 SEER & 9.0 HSPF, or 15.2 SEER2 & 7.5 HSPF2 |
| Replace an existing air conditioner | $300 | 16 SEER or 15.2 SEER2 |
Duke Energy publishes these amounts. The page they come from is not scoped to a single state — its body also references the Carolinas, Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana. The Florida application portal confirms the program and the Home Energy Check prerequisite apply to Duke Energy Florida, but no Florida-scoped statement of these specific dollar figures was located. Rebate amounts change. Every figure here is dated, and Duke Energy on 800.254.8535 is the only authority on what is payable today.
Duke publishes a separate multifamily figure for HVAC replacement — up to $600 — rather than the single-family tiers above. Manufactured homes are also treated separately.
The four published tiers above apply. A detached Altamonte Springs house built in the 1970s or 1980s and still on strip heat is the exact profile the largest tier is written for.
Build era is the proxy for strip heat, and Altamonte Springs has more of it than any other city in the county. The city grew 401.7% between 1970 and 1980 — from 4,391 people to 22,028 — and the housing went up in one wave.
The county parcel file records when a home was built. It does not record what is bolted to the wall today. What the era tells you is what the house was designed around: Central Florida homes of the 1970s and early 1980s were built for straight-cool air conditioning with electric resistance strip heat, because residential heat pumps were not yet common here. Many have been changed two or three times since, and some of those changeouts were already to heat pumps.
How to check your own in thirty seconds: open the air handler closet or look at the indoor unit. A strip-heat system has an electric heat kit in the air handler and a separate high-amperage breaker feeding it. A heat pump has a reversing valve on the outdoor unit and the thermostat will have an emergency-heat setting.
Source: Seminole County Property Appraiser CAMA extract (Parcels.csv, 5 September 2026), tax district A1 — Altamonte Springs. 13,253 improved residential parcels: single-family, townhome and condominium. Apartments and manufactured homes excluded.
Manufacture and import of new residential R-410A split systems ended on 1 January 2025 under EPA's Technology Transitions rule. A later EPA final rule, effective 27 July 2026, allows continued installation of pre-2025 R-410A stock until supplies run out. So an existing R-410A system is legal and repairable — but the matched-equipment pool is shrinking, which quietly pushes a failed coil or compressor toward full replacement rather than a partial repair. Anything still on R-22 is serviceable only with reclaimed refrigerant.
In Altamonte Springs, for a home or a business, almost certainly yes. The city created Altamonte Electric Utility on 3 October 2017, but it serves city-owned facilities only — streetlights, parks, the wastewater plant, the police department. The Florida Public Service Commission granted Duke Energy exclusive rights to serve residents and businesses, and the city reserved self-generation for its own operations. Every residential HVAC rebate question here goes to Duke Energy Florida, not to city hall. Duke publishes a lookup at duke-energy.com.
Published sources put a full central AC system replacement in the Altamonte Springs area at roughly $6,500–$11,000 depending on home size, efficiency, ductwork condition and permitting, with labour commonly 30–50% of the total and higher in older homes. Florida PACE puts statewide AC replacement in a comparable range. Against that, the largest published Duke tier — $1,000 for strip heat to a qualifying heat pump — is a meaningful share of the gap between a minimum-efficiency system and a qualifying one, but only if the Home Energy Check is done first. These are researched market estimates compiled in September 2026 from third-party cost guides and other Florida contractors' published pricing. They are not our price book, not a quote, and not a promise. Refrigerant type, duct condition, electrical work and permit fees all move the number.
Rebate questions: 800.254.8535. Application support: 877.364.9003, Mon–Fri 8–5. Email eeneedrequest@duke-energy.com. These are Duke's own published contacts, not ours.