Pennsylvania Heating

Heat pump vs furnace in Lehigh County, Pennsylvania

Get Quotes on Both

Installers who work in Lehigh County

Which costs less to run in Lehigh County?

An outdoor air conditioning condenser unit on a concrete pad beside a dark blue lap-sided wall at night, with a nearby electrical disconnect box, refrigerant lines, mulch and a shrub.

Heat pump

To heat your home here$2.37per 100,000 Btu

A beige residential furnace with a louvered upper panel stands on a concrete basement floor beside a dark blue painted block wall, with a galvanized metal flue pipe rising from its top and a bare lit bulb overhead.

Furnace

To heat your home here$1.64per 100,000 Btu

At Pennsylvania's gas and electricity prices, a gas furnace makes the same heat as a heat pump for at least 30% less.

Btu stands for British thermal unit, the standard measure of heat energy.

Where does a heat pump shine?

  • Heats and cools in one system

    Winter and summer are covered by the same outdoor unit. That's one machine to service instead of two.

    A living room with a beige sofa holding navy, blue and striped cushions and a grey fringed throw, a wooden coffee table with books and a mug, a vase of white flowers, and a large dark-framed window looking onto a green garden with trees and a wooden fence.

  • Steady, even comfort

    Instead of short bursts of heat, it keeps a gentle, steady output going. The house stays at one comfortable temperature.

    A dimly lit living room with a navy armchair holding an open book, a lit table lamp, a window with blue curtains, potted plants, a storage console with wicker baskets, and a light-colored dog sleeping on a patterned rug.

  • No gas line, nothing burning in the house

    It moves heat instead of making it from fire. That means no combustion, no flue and no gas bill for heat.

    A kitchen island with navy cabinets and a light stone countertop holding a stainless steel kettle on a black cooktop, with a white subway tile backsplash, stainless range hood, cream upper cabinets, a vase of eucalyptus, a bowl of green apples, a crock of wooden utensils, and a person seated at a table near windows in the background.

Where does a furnace shine?

  • Fast, strong heat on demand

    Turn the heat up and the furnace answers right away. There's no long wait for the house to catch up.

    An entryway with a wooden door and sheer curtain over its window, a floor vent emitting visible steam, snow-covered boots and a hanging coat at left, and a wooden bench with a dark blue mug and knit throw at right over a jute rug on stone flooring.

  • Proven, simple, easy to get serviced

    Parts are easy to find and most repairs are routine. Getting one fixed rarely means waiting on a specialist.

    A gloved hand holds a white pleated air filter in front of a gray furnace unit, with wooden shelving and storage bins in the background.

  • Pairs with any central AC

    The ductwork that delivers heat in winter delivers cool air in summer once an AC coil is added.

    A rectangular floor vent set into light wood flooring near a glass door with a white sheer curtain, beside a blue dresser and a potted plant.

What winter here does to a heat pump

Your furnace question here is really a cold question. The average overnight low across December, January and February is 22°F, and that sits below both marks that matter for a standard heat pump. Below 40°F its output falls short of what it's rated for. Below about 35°F it usually needs backup heat to keep up. At 22°F average, you're past both marks most winter nights, not just on the occasional cold snap.

About 125 nights a year here drop to freezing or below, roughly half the nights across the eight months the heat runs. Every one of those nights is cold enough to put a standard heat pump into that same bind, short on output, leaning on backup. Only about 2 nights a year reach 0°F, so the deep cold is rare. The ordinary cold isn't.

A heat pump built to carry the ENERGY STAR Cold Climate label is tested to hold at least 70 percent of its 47°F heating capacity down at 5°F, and to still make 1.75 units of heat per unit of electricity at that temperature. That's a different machine than the federal-minimum unit priced in the running-cost numbers above. A field test of prototype cold-climate heat pumps over two winters found backup heat carried only a small share of the load between 0°F and 35°F, and the units rarely ran on backup alone even above 0°F. The $2.37 figure above doesn't assume a unit built to that standard, and it adds nothing for backup heat, so a standard heat pump here will likely cost more to run than that number shows on the coldest nights.

A blue clapboard house with two dormers, a brick chimney, black shutters and a white picket fence, with snow on the roof and piled along the road in front.

Gas, oil, and what people actually have

On price alone the order doesn't change: a gas furnace makes 100,000 Btu of heat for $1.64 here, a heat pump for $2.37, an oil furnace for $3.03. Gas beats both. If your house already has a gas line, that's the cheapest way to heat it, and that math holds whether the winter is mild or hard, because it isn't about temperature.

If the choice is between a heat pump and oil heat, the heat pump wins on running cost, $2.37 against $3.03, even with nothing added for backup. About one in five homes here heat with oil. For that house, trading an oil furnace for a heat pump lowers the running cost even though the cold-weather caveats above still apply.

A heat pump does something a furnace doesn't: it cools the house too. A gas furnace only heats, so for the four months a year outside the eight-month heating season here, it does nothing and you need a separate air conditioner. A heat pump runs both jobs with one system, all twelve months.

About two in five homes here already heat with electricity, more than heat with gas or oil alone. If yours is one of them, a heat pump replaces that electric heat directly, and the question is less about fuel type and more about whether you want cooling built into the same machine, and whether you're willing to size and spec it for the cold nights rather than the mild ones.

Sources: NOAA nClimDiv · PNNL Building America guide · PNNL-37127 field study · NOAA 1991–2020 seasonal normals · ENERGY STAR product criteria · EIA SEDS 2024 · 10 CFR 430.32 · Census ACS 2020–2024

A two-story dark blue clapboard house with white trim, a brick chimney and snow-covered roof, behind a stone retaining wall and snow-covered yard with bare trees.

Common questions about heat pumps and furnaces

  • Can a heat pump heat a house through a Pennsylvania winter?

    It can, but a standard heat pump needs help on the coldest nights. Below about 40°F its output falls short of its rated capacity, and below about 35°F it often needs backup heat. The overnight low here averages 22°F across December through February, and about 125 nights a year fall at or below freezing, so that gap shows up most of the winter. A cold-climate heat pump is built to perform further down, holding at least 70 percent of its capacity at 5°F.

  • Do I need backup heat with a heat pump here?

    With a standard heat pump, yes. Its output falls short of the rating below 40°F and it often needs backup below about 35°F, and the average overnight low here across December through February is 22°F. A cold-climate heat pump needs less of it: field tests of prototype cold-climate systems found backup heat supplied only a small share of the heat between 0°F and 35°F, and running on backup alone was rare above 0°F, which covers all but about 2 nights a year here.

  • Can I keep my furnace and add a heat pump?

    Yes, that pairing is called a dual fuel system. The heat pump carries the heat down to the point where it struggles, and the furnace takes over for the coldest nights. Here that split matters: the overnight low averages 22°F across December, January and February, well past where a standard heat pump's output starts falling short.

  • Is a heat pump cheaper to run than a furnace in Lehigh County?

    No, a gas furnace is cheaper to run here. A gas furnace makes 100,000 Btu of heat for $1.64 at Pennsylvania's prices, against $2.37 for a heat pump built to the federal minimum. An oil furnace costs more than either, at $3.03.

A person's arm in a blue shirt reaches up to press buttons on a white wall-mounted thermostat, with a living room containing a sofa, fireplace, ceiling fan and a tool bag in the background.

Tell us about the job

Takes about a minute. No obligation.

Step 1 of 3: Equipment