Pennsylvania Heating

Heat pump vs furnace in Crawford County, Pennsylvania

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Which costs less to run in Crawford County?

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

Heat pump

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

A beige gas furnace with a metal flue pipe and sheet-metal plenum stands against a blue-painted concrete block wall in a basement with a bare ceiling light.

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

    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, white marble countertops, a white subway tile backsplash, a stainless steel kettle on an induction cooktop beneath a stainless range hood, a wooden open shelf holding bowls and a trailing plant, and a light blue mug and bowl of apples in the foreground.

  • 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 armchair with a gray throw blanket and open book sits by a multi-pane window at night, beside a wooden side table with a lit lamp, mug and potted plant, while a golden-colored dog sleeps on a patterned rug near a stone fireplace.

  • 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 cream sofa with blue and striped cushions and a blue knit throw sits beneath a multi-pane window with pale blue interior shutters overlooking a garden, with a rustic wood coffee table, potted plant, and dark blue panelled door nearby.

Where does a furnace shine?

  • Strong, steady heat in hard cold

    Winter nights here average 20°F, and a furnace keeps putting out hot air at that temperature without losing capacity. It doesn't have to work harder to keep up when the cold settles in for the night.

    A dark-sided two-story house with lit windows and a snow-covered roof at dusk, surrounded by snow-laden conifers and a shoveled path leading to its steps.

  • 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 large white pleated air filter in front of a dark furnace, beside wooden shelves holding a storage bin, folded clothes, and a wicker basket.

  • Pairs with any central AC

    Most central air systems are built around a furnace. The two share the blower, the ducts and the thermostat.

    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.

Can a heat pump keep up with a Crawford County winter

Your heat runs eight months a year here, October through May, and the overnight low averages 20°F across December, January and February. That is below the point where a standard heat pump starts losing ground. Below 40°F a standard heat pump puts out less heat than its rating. Below about 35°F it often needs backup heat to make up the difference. At 20°F average, you are past both marks most of the winter, and on about 135 nights a year here the temperature falls to freezing or below, every one of those nights below both marks too.

That does not mean a heat pump leaves you cold. It means it needs help on the coldest nights, usually a strip of electric resistance heat built into the unit, or a furnace it hands off to. Six nights a year here drop to 0°F or below. Those are the nights backup heat matters most. A cold-climate heat pump, the kind certified to hold at least 70 percent of its capacity and still make 1.75 units of heat per unit of electricity at 5°F, handles those nights with much less help than a standard model. A field test of these cold-climate units found backup heat covered only a small share of the output between 0°F and 35°F, and running on backup alone was rare even above 0°F. The standard heat pump common in warmer states is not the same machine as the cold-climate one built for a winter like this.

A furnace does not have this problem. It burns fuel to make heat, so outdoor temperature does not touch its output. On the coldest night of the year it heats the same as it does in October.

Snow-covered stone steps lead to a white storm door on a blue shingled house, with a stacked woodpile and snow-topped stone wall beside the path.

What each one costs to run, and what that means for your choice

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. If your house already has a gas line, that is the strongest argument for staying with gas. Utility gas already heats 47.2% of homes in Crawford County, close to half.

If your house runs on oil instead, the comparison favors a heat pump, not the furnace. A heat pump costs $2.37 against $3.03 for oil furnace. That is a real saving on every therm of heat, and it comes with central air for the other two months of the year, July and August, when a furnace does nothing for you at all. Propane runs on the same logic as oil: it costs more per Btu than electricity does here, so a heat pump heating with electricity undercuts a propane furnace on running cost the same way.

If your house runs on electric heat now, a cold-climate heat pump is very likely a straightforward upgrade. You already have the electrical setup for it, and it will heat the same house for less than whatever electric resistance heat you are running now, while also giving you cooling in summer.

So the honest answer depends on what is already in the house. Gas is the cheapest fuel here and a gas furnace is the cheapest machine to run, so if you have a gas line, that is hard to beat on cost alone. But a heat pump is the only one of the three that also cools your house, and against oil or propane it wins on running cost too. The choice is less about whether Crawford County winters are too cold for a heat pump, a cold-climate model handles them, and more about what is already piped or wired into your house, and whether you want one system that both heats and cools instead of two.

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

A blue clapboard two-story house with a brick chimney and white trim stands between a gray shingled house and a white house, with piled snow along the roadside and bare trees under a clear sky.

Common questions about heat pumps and furnaces

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

    A standard heat pump will struggle on the coldest nights here without backup heat. Overnight lows average 20°F across December, January and February, well below the 40°F mark where a standard heat pump's output starts falling short of its rating. A heat pump built to ENERGY STAR's Cold Climate spec is tested to hold most of its capacity down to 5°F, so it's a different case.

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

    Most likely, yes. A standard heat pump's output falls short of its rating below 40°F and often needs backup below about 35°F, and the average overnight low here is 20°F in December, January and February. Crawford County sees about 135 nights a year at or below freezing, so a standard heat pump would be leaning on backup heat for a good part of the winter. A cold-climate model rated to hold its capacity at 5°F needs less of it.

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

    Yes, and in Crawford County it's a common setup. The heat pump carries the mild stretches of the 8-month heating season, and the furnace takes over when it gets cold enough that the heat pump needs backup. With a furnace already in place, it can be wired in as that backup instead of electric strip heat.

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

    No, a gas furnace is cheaper to run here. At Pennsylvania's prices, a gas furnace makes 100,000 Btu of heat for $1.64 against $2.37 for a heat pump. That's with both built to the federal minimum, and the heat pump's figure doesn't include what it costs to run backup heat on the coldest nights.

A person in a dark blue long-sleeved shirt reaches toward a small white wall-mounted thermostat with a black screen, with a living room containing a sofa, coffee table and window behind, and an open tool bag with screwdrivers and pliers in the foreground.

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