Pennsylvania Heating

Heat pump vs furnace in Mercer County, Pennsylvania

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Installers who work in Mercer County

Which costs less to run in Mercer County?

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

Heat pump

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

A beige residential furnace with a louvered front panel stands on a concrete floor in a basement corner with dark blue walls, connected to a galvanized metal flue pipe rising to the ceiling.

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

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

    A living room at dusk with a navy armchair holding an open book and a gray throw, a beige sofa with plaid and navy pillows, a lit table lamp by a window showing bare trees and snow, a golden retriever lying on a patterned rug, a wooden coffee table with a mug, a stone fireplace surround and a lantern candle.

  • 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.

    Kitchen with a navy blue island topped by light stone counter holding an induction cooktop and stainless kettle, with white upper cabinets, wall oven, stainless refrigerator, glass pendant lights and a window with greenery outside.

  • 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 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.

Where does a furnace shine?

  • Runs on the gas most homes here already use

    Gas heats 62.9% of homes in Mercer County, so the line is likely already run to the house. A furnace just hooks into what's there instead of asking for a new fuel source.

    A two-and-a-half-storey gray-painted brick house with a gabled roof, covered porch with columns, and light blue front door, flanked by red brick houses, with snow on the front yard and sidewalk.

  • 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 a wood floor near a baseboard and window with a sheer white curtain, with a wooden table holding books and a blue mug on the left and a blue sofa with a fringed throw on the right.

  • 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.

    Entryway with a dark blue door and window showing snowy trees, sheer curtain lifting above a floor vent, snow-dusted boots on a woven rug, and a wooden bench with a blue mug, folded blanket and basket.

What winter here does to a heat pump

Winter is the long season here. Heat runs about eight months, October through May, against two months of cooling. Whatever you buy will spend most of its life heating this house, so get that part right first.

A standard heat pump starts losing ground before the cold even gets serious. Below 40°F its heat output falls short of its rating, and below about 35°F it often needs a backup heat source to make up the difference. The average overnight low here across December, January and February is 20°F. That's not an occasional dip below those marks, it's below both of them on a typical winter night.

Look at how often this actually happens. About 145 nights a year here fall to 32°F or below, out of roughly 245 nights across the eight months the heat runs. That's over half of every winter night below freezing, and every one of those nights is already past the point where a standard heat pump is working at a disadvantage.

The deep cold is rarer. About 7 nights a year reach 0°F or below, a small slice of the 145 freezing nights. A standard heat pump is not built for those nights. A heat pump carrying the ENERGY STAR Cold Climate designation is tested to still make at least 1.75 units of heat per unit of electricity at 5°F, and to hold onto 70 percent of its 47°F capacity at that temperature. That's a different machine than the federal minimum unit priced in the running cost above. Field tests of prototype cold-climate heat pumps back this up: in occupied homes, backup heat covered only a small share of the heat needed between 0°F and 35°F, and running on backup alone was rare even above 0°F.

So the plain question for this county is not whether a heat pump can work here. It's which heat pump. A standard model will lean on backup heat for more than half the winter nights in an average year. A cold-climate model is built to keep working through the kind of cold Mercer County actually sees.

A two-story navy blue clapboard house with white trim, a light blue front door, and a brick chimney, surrounded by deep snow, bare trees, and a stone retaining wall with stone steps leading up to the entry.

What it costs to run, and what's already in the walls

Run the two machines here and the furnace costs less. 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 at its federal minimum efficiency, with nothing added for backup heat on the coldest nights, so for a standard heat pump here the real difference is likely larger, not smaller.

That cost gap matters more here because of what's already heating most houses in the county. Utility gas heats 62.9% of homes in Mercer County, a little over three in five. Electricity, the number that includes heat pumps and electric resistance heat together, heats only 18%. If a gas line already runs to your house, you're in the majority here, and a furnace uses what's already there.

A furnace only heats. It has nothing to do for the four months a year outside the heating season. A heat pump runs the air conditioning too, the same system doing both jobs. Two months of cooling a year is a short season, but it's a second job the furnace can't do on its own, and pairing a furnace with central air means running two separate systems instead of one.

So the choice here comes down to what you're weighing against the lower running cost. A furnace costs less to run and matches how most homes in the county are already set up to heat. A heat pump costs more to run at a standard efficiency, asks more of its backup heat on more than half the winter's nights unless it carries the Cold Climate rating, and in exchange gives you one system instead of two. If you already have a gas line and no particular want for heat pump cooling, the furnace is the plainer answer. If you're set on a heat pump, the cold-climate version is the one built for what winter here actually does.

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 granite steps lead to a white storm door on a dark blue clapboard house, with a stacked stone wall at left and a lean-to shed full of split firewood at right.

Common questions about heat pumps and furnaces

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

    A standard heat pump struggles once it gets cold here, not fails outright. Below 40°F it puts out less heat than its rating, and below about 35°F it typically needs backup heat. Mercer County's overnight low averages 20°F in December, January and February, and about 145 nights a year drop to freezing or below, so a standard heat pump alone will come up short most winter nights. A cold-climate model, rated to hold most of its capacity down to 5°F, closes most of that gap.

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

    With a standard heat pump, yes. Its heating efficiency drops below about 35°F, and Mercer County sees around 145 nights a year at or below freezing, so backup heat will be doing real work most winters. A cold-climate heat pump needs less of it. Field testing of cold-climate models in occupied homes found backup heat supplied only a small share of the output between 0°F and 35°F, and running on backup alone was rare even above 0°F, which matters here since only about 7 nights a year drop that low.

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

    Yes, and in Mercer County it solves the heat pump's weak spot. A heat pump loses capacity below 40°F and often needs backup below about 35°F, and your overnight low averages 20°F all winter. Pair it with your existing furnace and the furnace covers the cold nights while the heat pump handles the milder ones.

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

    No, a furnace costs less to run here. At Pennsylvania's average fuel prices, a furnace makes the same heat for $1.64 per 100,000 Btu against $2.37 for a heat pump, both at their federal minimum efficiency. The heat pump's number also leaves out backup heat, which it will likely need on Mercer County's colder nights, so its real cost of keeping a house warm here runs higher still.

A person in gloves kneels beside a gray outdoor air conditioning condenser on a concrete pad next to blue lap siding, connecting hoses to brass service valves, with an open tool bag on the mulch nearby.

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