Pennsylvania Heating

Heat pump vs furnace in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania

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Pros who install both

Which costs less to run in Montgomery County?

An outdoor air conditioning condenser unit on a concrete pad against a dark horizontal-sided wall at night, lit by a wall light, with conduit and an electrical disconnect box to the right and gravel and plants around the pad.

Heat pump

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

A beige gas furnace with metal flue pipe and ductwork stands on a concrete floor against a dark blue basement wall.

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?

  • 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.

    Living room with a cream sofa holding navy and blue cushions and a grey fringed throw, a wooden coffee table with a glass vase of greenery, a dark blue built-in shelving unit, a stone column, and a large window looking onto a green garden.

  • 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

    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 a white marble-look island counter over navy cabinetry, a black induction cooktop with a stainless steel kettle, two light blue pendant lamps, wooden stools, a bowl of green apples, a wooden shelf with plants and dishes against a blue wall, and a built-in oven.

Where does a furnace shine?

  • Runs on the gas most homes here already use

    Just over half the homes in Montgomery County already heat with utility gas, so the line is likely already run to your house. A furnace puts that connection to use instead of leaving it idle.

    A row of porch-fronted houses along a sidewalk with patchy snow, showing stone porch piers, blue painted railings and columns, and gray gas meters with pipes mounted at the base of the stonework.

  • 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 metal floor vent set into a hardwood floor near a window with a sheer white curtain, with a potted plant in a woven basket, a jute rug, and a blue throw over a wooden-legged stool.

  • Fast, strong heat on demand

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

    A mudroom entry with snow-covered boots on a tiled floor, a floor vent, a wooden bench with a blue plaid throw and steaming mug, a sheer curtain, a dark blue door, and a snowy conifer landscape outside the window.

Will a heat pump keep up on the coldest nights here

Winter is the long season in Montgomery County. Heat runs seven months, October through April, against four months of cooling. Whatever you install is mostly a heating system that also happens to cool, so the question is how it handles January, not July.

The overnight low here averages 25°F across December, January and February, and it drops to freezing or below on about 115 nights a year, more than half the nights in the heating season. A standard heat pump starts losing ground before it even gets that cold. Below 40°F its heat output falls short of its rating. Below about 35°F it often needs backup heat to make up the difference. Every one of those 115 freezing nights falls under both marks. The average winter night here does too.

That does not mean a heat pump quits. Cold-climate models are built and tested for 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, and still produce 1.75 units of heat for every unit of electricity at that temperature, checked by outside testing. A two-winter field test of prototype cold-climate heat pumps in real homes found backup heat carried only a small share of the load between 0°F and 35°F, and the system ran on backup alone only rarely, even above 0°F. The nights that actually reach 0°F here are rare too, about one a year.

So a cold-climate heat pump can carry a house through a Montgomery County winter. A standard heat pump will lean on backup heat more often than you would like, because the nights it needs that backup are most of the season, not the exception.

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 each one costs to run, and what to weigh against it

At Pennsylvania's prices, a gas furnace is the cheapest of the three to run: $1.64 to make 100,000 Btu of heat, against $2.37 for a heat pump and $3.03 for an oil furnace. A furnace built to the federal minimum, burning gas at $13.12 per million Btu, beats a heat pump built to the federal minimum, running on electricity at $52.07 per million Btu, by at least 30 percent. If your house already has a gas line, which is true of about half the homes in the county, that cost gap is the strongest argument for staying with gas.

A heat pump is still cheaper to run than oil. Oil comes to $3.03 per 100,000 Btu here, a heat pump $2.37. If your furnace runs on oil now, about one in ten homes in the county heat this way, switching to a heat pump costs less to run than what you have, even before you weigh anything else.

The running-cost numbers only cover heating. A furnace does not cool your house. It pairs with a separate central air conditioner, and with a summer here that averages 85°F in the afternoon across June, July and August, you need that second system regardless. A heat pump does both jobs with one piece of equipment, and it has nothing to do for the other five months of the year the way a gas furnace does once summer comes.

What this comes down to: if the lowest running cost for heat alone is what matters most, and you already burn gas, a furnace wins on the numbers. If you are choosing equipment for the whole year, replacing oil, or want one system instead of two, a cold-climate heat pump is built for the winters this county actually has.

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

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 a standard heat pump needs help on the coldest nights here. Its output falls below its rating once it's under 40°F outside, and it often needs backup heat below about 35°F. The average overnight low across December, January and February here is 25°F, and about 115 nights a year drop to freezing or below, so that's not a rare exception, it's most of the winter.

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

    On most winter nights here, yes. The overnight low averages 25°F across December through February, and a standard heat pump's output drops once it's below 40°F and often needs backup below about 35°F. A cold climate model holds onto more of its capacity in that range, but Montgomery County's winter lows still sit well under both marks most nights the heat runs.

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

    Yes, and here that's called a dual fuel system. The heat pump handles the mild nights, and the furnace takes over when it gets cold enough that the heat pump stops being the cheaper way to heat your house. Either machine can also just fail years apart from the other, so keeping both means a breakdown in January doesn't leave you with no heat.

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

    No, a gas furnace costs less to run here. A gas furnace makes 100,000 Btu of heat for $1.64 at Pennsylvania's prices, a heat pump for $2.37. Gas is already the most common way homes in Montgomery County heat, which is part of why it comes out cheaper here.

A man in a blue shirt kneels in a basement to work on an open furnace with ductwork overhead, beside a black tool bag filled with hand tools.

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