Pennsylvania Heating

Heat pump vs furnace in Beaver County, Pennsylvania

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Which costs less to run in Beaver County?

An outdoor air conditioning condenser unit on a concrete pad beside a dark blue horizontal-lap sided wall, lit at night with an electrical disconnect box and conduit on the wall behind it.

Heat pump

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

A beige residential furnace with a louvered vent panel stands against a dark blue wall on a concrete floor, with a metal flue pipe and a smaller duct rising from its top.

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 golden retriever sleeps on a woven rug in front of a dark blue armchair holding an open book, a cushion and a knit blanket, beside a lit fireplace, a bookshelf, and a side table with a lamp and mug by a dark window.

  • Heats and cools in one system

    A heat pump runs the same way all year. It pulls heat into the house in winter and pushes it out in summer.

    A living room with a cream sectional sofa holding navy and light blue cushions and a blue fringed throw, a wooden coffee table with books, a mug and a vase of green and white flowers, a navy armchair, a dark built-in bookshelf with a lamp, and an open doorway looking onto a lawn and flowering garden.

  • 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 with navy blue cabinets, a white marble-look island with a black induction cooktop and stainless steel kettle, a stainless refrigerator, a farmhouse sink under a window with a blue roman shade, and potted greenery with a blue mug on a wooden board.

Where does a furnace shine?

  • Runs on the gas most homes here already use

    Most homes in Beaver County already have gas line run to them, so a gas furnace just connects to what's there. No new fuel source to add, no separate setup to account for.

    A row of attached two- and three-story houses with porches and front steps along a snow-dusted sidewalk, with bare trees and low winter sunlight casting long shadows.

  • 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 entry with a dark blue door showing snowy shrubs through its window, snow-covered boots on a stone floor, a sheer curtain, a floor vent with visible vapor, and a steaming mug on a wooden bench beside a knit blanket and hanging coats.

  • Proven, simple, easy to get serviced

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

    A gloved hand holds a pleated air filter in front of a furnace and ductwork, next to blue shelving with baskets, a bin, and a small potted plant.

What winter here does to a heat pump

Your winter low here averages 23°F, and that matters more than any spec sheet. A standard heat pump starts falling short of its rated heat below 40°F, and below about 35°F it often needs backup heat to make up the difference. Both of those marks sit above your average low, not below it.

About 115 nights a year here drop to freezing or below, roughly half the nights across the eight months your heat runs. Every one of those nights is already past both marks. That doesn't mean the heat pump quits. It means on a lot of winter nights, a standard model is leaning on backup heat or putting out less than its rating to keep your house at temperature.

Cold-climate heat pumps are built for exactly this. To earn the ENERGY STAR Cold Climate label, a heat pump has to keep at least 70 percent of its 47°F capacity at 5°F, tested by someone other than the manufacturer. Field tests of prototype cold-climate models 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 unless it was at or below 0°F. That's close to your climate: only about 2 nights a year here reach 0°F. A cold-climate heat pump would spend almost all of its time above the point where these units start to struggle.

A standard heat pump, the kind built to the federal minimum, is a different proposition in your county. If you're comparing heat pumps to a furnace here, you're really deciding between a standard model and a cold-climate one, because the gap between them shows up on most of your winter nights.

A two-story navy blue clapboard house with white trim, blue shutters, two brick chimneys and a columned front porch, surrounded by deep snow and bare trees under a partly cloudy sky.

What it costs to run, and what that means for cooling

At Pennsylvania's average fuel prices, a gas furnace makes the same heat as a heat pump for at least 30 percent less, $1.64 against $2.37 per 100,000 Btu. That gap is built on each machine's federal minimum rating, and the heat pump's number doesn't include backup heat, so on the cold nights above, running one here likely costs more than the band shows.

Gas is also just what most of your neighbors already have. Utility gas heats 70.2 percent of homes in Beaver County, well above the statewide figure of 51.3 percent, while electric heat is the primary source in only 16 percent of homes here. A furnace runs on the fuel the county is already built around.

A furnace only heats. It has nothing to do for the four months your heat isn't running, and your summers here are real: about three months of cooling, June through August, need a separate air conditioner alongside it. A heat pump does both jobs with one system, no second machine for summer. Whether that's worth more to run through eight months of a winter like this one is the real question, and it comes down to whether you're pricing a standard heat pump or a cold-climate one.

Sources: NOAA nClimDiv · PNNL Building America guide · PNNL-37127 field study · ENERGY STAR product criteria · NOAA 1991–2020 seasonal normals · 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 a light blue front door with a wreath, behind snow-covered ground and a bare tree, with white neighboring houses and a cleared road in the foreground.

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 struggles on the coldest nights here. Below about 40°F its heat output falls short of its rating, and below about 35°F it often needs backup heat, and the average overnight low across December, January and February is 23°F. About 115 nights a year here drop to freezing or below, so that shortfall isn't rare, it's most of the winter.

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

    Most homes with a standard heat pump need it here. The overnight low falls to freezing or below on about 115 nights a year, and a standard heat pump's output drops below its rating under 40°F and often needs backup under about 35°F. A cold climate model narrows that gap, but Beaver County still sees two nights a year at 0°F or below, cold enough that even those rely on backup some of the time.

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

    Yes, that setup is usually called a dual fuel system, and plenty of homes run that way. The heat pump handles the milder nights and the furnace takes over when it gets cold enough that the heat pump stops pulling its weight. That split matters here, since the overnight low averages 23°F in December, January and February, well below the point where a standard heat pump's output falls behind its rating.

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

    No, a furnace is cheaper to run here. At Pennsylvania's average fuel prices, a gas furnace makes heat for $1.64 per 100,000 Btu against $2.37 for a heat pump built to the federal minimum. Gas is also what most homes in Beaver County already use, with utility gas heating 70.2% of homes against 16% for electricity.

A person's arm in a blue sleeve reaches to adjust a round wall-mounted thermostat, with a living room containing a navy sofa, coffee table and fireplace visible behind and a tool bag below.

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