Pennsylvania Heating

Heat pump vs furnace in Columbia County, Pennsylvania

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Serving Columbia County homes

Which costs less to run in Columbia 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 residential gas furnace with metal ductwork and PVC vent pipes stands on a concrete basement floor beside a blue-painted wall and a support column.

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?

  • No gas line, nothing burning in the house

    There's no gas line to the unit and no flame anywhere in it. Carbon monoxide isn't part of the picture.

    A kitchen with navy blue cabinets and a white stone-topped island holding a black induction cooktop, a light blue kettle, a mug on a wooden board, and white tulips in a pitcher, with cream upper cabinets, two glass pendant lights, and a window above the sink.

  • Steady, even comfort

    It eases up and down with the weather. There are fewer swings between too warm and too cool.

    A dimly lit living room at dusk with a navy armchair holding an open book, pillow and gray throw, a yellow dog sleeping on a patterned rug, a lit floor lamp and side table with a mug, and frost-edged windows showing evergreen trees outside.

  • 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 blue interior shutters framing a window overlooking a green garden, a cream sofa with blue cushions and a blue knitted throw, a wicker trunk, and a wooden coffee table holding a vase of white flowers, a blue mug, and stacked books.

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.

    A mudroom with a dark blue windowed exterior door showing snow outside, a sheer white curtain at left, a wooden bench with a cushion, blue pillow, fringed throw and speckled mug, a dark coat on a wall hook, two pairs of snowy boots on a tile floor, a woven rug, and a metal floor vent.

  • Proven, simple, easy to get serviced

    The design is simple and well understood. That keeps service calls short.

    A gloved hand holds a white pleated air filter in front of a furnace and ductwork in a basement, beside a blue shelving unit holding baskets and folded plaid blankets.

  • Pairs with any central AC

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

    A floor air vent set into dark hardwood flooring near a white curtain and window, with a gray mug of coffee on a wooden table and a potted green plant in the foreground.

What winter here does to a heat pump

Columbia County winters sit right on top of a standard heat pump's weak spot. The overnight low averages 20°F across December, January and February, and that's below both marks that matter for this machine. Below 40°F it puts out less heat than its rating says. Below about 35°F it often needs backup heat to make up the difference. Here, every night that drops to freezing or below, about 135 of them a year, is past both of those marks.

That doesn't mean the house goes cold. It means a standard heat pump is leaning on backup heat for a good part of the season it's needed most, October through May. The running cost printed above, $2.37 per 100,000 Btu, doesn't include that backup heat. On the coldest nights here your real cost runs higher than that number.

A heat pump built to carry the ENERGY STAR Cold Climate label is a different machine on paper. To earn it, it has to keep making 1.75 units of heat for every unit of electricity at 5°F, and hold onto 70 percent of its warm-weather capacity at that temperature. Field tests of prototype cold climate heat pumps found backup heat covering only a small share of the output between 0°F and 35°F, and running on backup alone was rare even above 0°F. Columbia County only sees 0°F or below about 5 nights a year, a small slice of the 135 freezing nights. If a heat pump is the choice here, that distinction, standard or cold climate, is the one worth checking before you buy.

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 what that doesn't settle

At Pennsylvania's prices, a gas furnace is the cheapest of the three to run here: $1.64 per 100,000 Btu, against $2.37 for a heat pump and $3.03 for an oil furnace. That gap holds for the full 8 months heat runs in this county, not just the cold snaps. If the house already has a gas line and the choice is between a furnace and a standard heat pump on cost alone, the furnace wins.

But a gas furnace only heats. It has nothing to do the other 4 months of the year. A heat pump runs the air conditioning too, July and August here, so the comparison isn't furnace versus heat pump in isolation. It's a furnace plus a separate AC system versus one heat pump doing both jobs year round.

Fuel oil heats about as many homes here as gas does, around one in four either way, and it's the most expensive of the three to run, $3.03 per 100,000 Btu. For a house currently heating with oil, a heat pump already costs less to run, and that's before weighing the backup heat question. For a house on gas, the furnace stays cheaper to run through the whole season, and the decision comes down to whether having one system instead of two is worth more to you than the lower running cost.

Sources: NOAA nClimDiv · NOAA 1991–2020 seasonal normals · PNNL Building America guide · PNNL-37127 field study · ENERGY STAR product criteria · EIA SEDS 2024 · 10 CFR 430.32 · 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 its output drops as the temperature does. A standard heat pump falls short of its rated heat below 40°F and often leans on backup heat below about 35°F. The average overnight low here in December, January and February is 20°F, and about 135 nights a year here fall at or below freezing, so a lot of winter nights here sit below both marks. A heat pump built to the Cold Climate standard is tested to hold at least 70 percent of its 47°F capacity at 5°F, which is the kind of night that trips up a standard one.

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

    With a standard heat pump, likely yes. Its heating efficiency tends to drop below about 35°F outside, and the average overnight low here across December, January and February is 20°F, well under that mark. About 5 nights a year here reach 0°F or below, which is the range where a standard heat pump leans hardest on backup heat. A cold climate model is built and tested to keep more of its capacity down to 5°F, which narrows how much backup heat it needs.

  • What if my house doesn't have a gas line?

    Then it's a heat pump, electric resistance heat, or oil or propane, since there's no gas furnace to run. Electricity already heats close to a third of homes in Columbia County, so a heat pump puts you in good company. Against an oil furnace, a heat pump also costs less to run here, $2.37 against $3.03 per 100,000 Btu.

  • What if my house heats with oil or propane?

    A heat pump costs less to run than an oil furnace here, $2.37 against $3.03 per 100,000 Btu of heat. Oil heats about one in four homes in Columbia County, so you have company either way. Switching to a heat pump also means no oil tank to keep filled and no delivery to schedule.

A person's hand in a blue shirt adjusts a round black and silver wall thermostat on a white wall, with a living room containing a dark sofa, coffee table and patterned rug blurred in the background and a tool bag below.

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