Pennsylvania Heating

Heat pump vs furnace in Blair County, Pennsylvania

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Match with a pro in Blair County

Which costs less to run in Blair County?

An outdoor air conditioner condenser unit on a concrete pad beside a dark horizontal-lap sided wall, with a conduit and disconnect box mounted above it, surrounded by mulch at night.

Heat pump

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

A beige upflow furnace stands against a blue-painted concrete block basement wall, with galvanized sheet-metal ductwork, a flue pipe, white PVC piping and a flexible metal conduit above it, lit by a bare hanging bulb.

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?

  • Steady, even comfort

    A heat pump runs long and low instead of blasting on and off. Rooms hold an even temperature all day.

    A navy upholstered armchair with an open book and gray knit throw sits on a patterned rug beside a lit lamp and side table with a mug, while a yellow dog sleeps curled on the rug and a snowy scene is visible through a window.

  • 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 a white marble-look countertop holding a black glass cooktop, a dark kettle, a blue mug and a striped towel, with navy cabinets, a marble backsplash, a wood shelf of dishes, and a window showing evergreen trees.

  • Heats and cools in one system

    One machine handles the heat in winter and the cooling in summer. There's no second system to buy or keep up.

    A living room with a cream sofa with blue cushions and a grey throw, a wooden coffee table holding a bowl of green apples and a jug of flowers, a jute rug, navy built-in bookshelves, a stone fireplace with a wood stove, and a white sash window looking onto a garden.

Where does a furnace shine?

  • Runs on the gas most homes here already use

    Most homes in Blair County already have a gas line run for the furnace, so a new one just hooks into what's there. No new fuel source to add, no new infrastructure to plan around.

    A row of brick houses with covered porches and railed front steps along a sidewalk, with patchy snow and dry weeds in the front yards and a person walking away in the distance.

  • Fast, strong heat on demand

    The air coming from the vents feels genuinely hot. That's welcome on a freezing morning.

    Entryway with a navy door, snow-dusted boots on a dark mat, a floor vent in wood flooring, a sheer curtain, and a steaming mug on a cushioned bench with a basket beneath and coats hanging above.

  • Pairs with any central AC

    A furnace's blower and ducts carry cooled air too. Adding central AC uses the same system.

    A metal floor vent set in oak flooring beside a sheer white curtain and a dark blue cabinet, with sunlight casting shadows across the floor.

What winter here does to a heat pump

Blair County heats for eight months a year, October through May, and the overnight low over those months averages 21°F. That number matters because a standard heat pump starts losing ground before it gets anywhere near that cold. Below 40°F it already puts out less than its rated capacity. Below about 35°F it often needs backup heat to keep up. The average night here sits under both marks.

Over half the nights in heating season here, about 130 of them, fall at or below freezing. On every one of those nights a standard heat pump is working under at least one of those two marks, often both. That is not a rare cold snap. That is most of the winter.

The deep cold is a smaller problem than it sounds. Only about 3 nights a year reach 0°F here, and field testing of cold-climate heat pumps found that even on those nights, backup heat rarely had to carry the whole load. The part of winter that actually strains a heat pump is the long stretch in the 20s and 30s, not the handful of nights near zero.

There is a version built for this. The ENERGY STAR Cold Climate heat pump has to prove it still makes at least 1.75 units of heat per unit of electricity at 5°F, and hold onto 70 percent of its 47°F capacity at that temperature, checked by outside testing. A standard heat pump is not built to that mark. If a heat pump is going into a Blair County house, this is the distinction that decides whether it keeps up on the nights that matter here.

Snow-covered stone steps lead to a white storm door on a navy blue shingled house, with a stone retaining wall at left and a stacked firewood rack at right.

What it costs to run, and who that favors

A gas furnace makes 100,000 Btu of heat here for $1.64. A heat pump makes the same heat for $2.37. An oil furnace runs $3.03. Gas is the cheapest of the three to run, by a wide enough margin that it is worth stating plainly: at Pennsylvania's prices, a furnace burning gas beats a heat pump on the utility bill every month the heat is on.

That changes who this decision is really for. Utility gas already heats close to three out of five homes in Blair County. For those houses, a furnace is both the cheaper machine to run and the one built for the cold this county actually sees. For the one in five houses heating with oil, the comparison runs the other way: a heat pump costs less to run than the oil furnace it would replace, $2.37 against $3.03, and that gap holds across all eight months of heating season.

A furnace only heats. For the two months of cooling season here, July and August, a furnace has nothing to do and a separate air conditioner carries that load. A heat pump is both machines in one, it heats all winter and cools in July and August without a second system to install.

Put together: a gas furnace is the cheaper, simpler choice where gas already runs to the house. A cold-climate heat pump is the one worth looking at for a house now heating with oil, or for someone who wants one system to cover both seasons and is willing to pay more per month to run it than a gas furnace would cost.

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

Snow-covered stone steps lead to a frosted-glass door on a dark blue clapboard house, flanked by a snow-topped dry stone wall, a metal railing, and a stacked woodpile under an adjoining roof.

Common questions about heat pumps and furnaces

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

    Yes, but not at full strength on the coldest nights. Blair County's overnight low averages 21°F across December, January and February, below the 40°F mark where a standard heat pump's output starts to fall short of its rating and below the 35°F mark where it often needs backup heat. A cold-climate model holds onto more of its capacity down to 5°F, but either way the furnace or backup heat is doing real work on the coldest nights here.

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

    Most winters here, yes. The average overnight low in December, January and February is 21°F, and a standard heat pump's output drops below its rating under 40°F and often needs backup below about 35°F. About 130 nights a year here fall to freezing or below, so backup heat is not a rare event, though field tests of cold-climate models found it supplies only a small share of total heat even on those nights.

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

    Yes, and here that pairing makes sense. The heat pump carries most of the eight-month heating season, and the furnace kicks in on the roughly 130 nights a year that drop to freezing or below, where a standard heat pump's output falls short and it leans on backup heat anyway.

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

    No, a gas furnace costs less to run here. Making 100,000 Btu of heat runs $1.64 with a gas furnace against $2.37 with a heat pump, at Pennsylvania's average fuel prices. A heat pump does beat an oil furnace, which runs $3.03 for the same heat.

A man in a blue shirt and cap kneels on a concrete floor working on a gray furnace unit with ductwork and PVC piping in an unfinished basement, with an open tool bag beside him.

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