Pennsylvania Heating

Heat pump vs furnace in Schuylkill County, Pennsylvania

Talk to a Local Pro

Quotes on either system

Which costs less to run in Schuylkill County?

A gray outdoor condenser unit with a top-mounted fan grille sits on a concrete pad beside a dark horizontal-sided wall with PVC pipes and an electrical box, lit at night.

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

    A heat pump runs long and low instead of blasting on and off. Rooms hold an even temperature all day.

    A dimly lit interior corner with a beige armchair holding a gray cushion, plaid blanket and open book, a lit table lamp and mug on a round side table, a floor lamp, dark bookshelves, and a golden-colored dog sleeping on a patterned rug beside a window showing snow 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.

  • 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 island with navy cabinets and a light stone countertop holding a stainless steel kettle on a black cooktop, with a white subway tile backsplash, stainless range hood, cream upper cabinets, a vase of eucalyptus, a bowl of green apples, a crock of wooden utensils, and a person seated at a table near windows in the background.

Where does a furnace shine?

  • Pairs with any central AC

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

    Sunlit room corner with a hardwood floor, a metal floor vent near the baseboard, sheer white curtains at a window, a woven basket with a light blue fringed throw beside a dark blue cabinet, and a blue and tan rug in the foreground.

  • 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 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

    Parts are easy to find and most repairs are routine. Getting one fixed rarely means waiting on a specialist.

    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 actually asks of a heat pump here

Your furnace, whatever kind you end up with, runs about eight months a year in Schuylkill County, October through May. Nobody here is buying a machine for a mild shoulder season. They're buying one to carry most of the year.

The overnight low averages 21°F across December, January and February. That matters because a standard heat pump starts losing ground before it even gets that cold. Below 40°F its heat output falls short of what it's rated for. Below about 35°F it often needs backup heat to keep up. Your average winter night here is below both marks, and so is every one of the roughly 125 nights a year that drop to freezing or colder, about half the nights the heat runs.

A furnace, gas or oil, doesn't have that dip. It makes the same heat on a cold night as it does on a mild one. A heat pump built to the federal minimum will be working below its best range on more than half the nights you run it.

The hardest cold is the smaller part of the picture. Only about 3 nights a year here reach 0°F or below. A heat pump certified as ENERGY STAR Cold Climate has to prove, in third-party testing, that it still makes at least 1.75 units of heat per unit of electricity at 5°F and holds onto most of its 47°F capacity at that temperature. In field tests of these units in occupied homes, backup heat covered only a small share of the load between 0°F and 35°F, and the unit running on backup alone was rare even above 0°F. So the real question for a heat pump here is not the 3 coldest nights. It's the far larger stretch in the 20s and low 30s, and that depends on the specific unit, not on heat pumps as a category.

A two-story dark blue clapboard house with white trim and a light blue front door, surrounded by deep snow, with water and a shoreline visible in the background under a clear sky.

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

On running cost alone, a gas furnace wins here. At Pennsylvania's average prices, a furnace built to the federal minimum makes 100,000 Btu of heat for $1.64. A heat pump built to the same minimum makes that heat for $2.37. An oil furnace costs more than either, $3.03, so against oil, the heat pump is the cheaper machine to run instead.

Gas is also the fuel fewest houses here have. Utility gas heats 6.3% of homes in Schuylkill County. Fuel oil heats 46.7%, fuel oil or kerosene heats close to half the homes in the county, and electricity heats 26.2%. The cheapest number on the board belongs to the fuel the fewest homeowners here are already set up to use.

For a household already heating with oil, the comparison that counts is heat pump against oil furnace, and there the heat pump is cheaper to run. For a household already on gas, a furnace stays the cheaper machine to operate. A furnace only heats. For the other four months of the year here it has nothing to do, and it needs a separate central air conditioner for summer. A heat pump heats and cools with the same equipment, which only matters for the two months of summer against the eight months of winter, but it is one less system to install and service.

Half the homes in this county were built in 1946 or earlier, which says nothing on its own about what's heating any one of them today. Worth checking, before anything else, whether gas is already run to the house. If it isn't, the choice comes down to a heat pump against whatever fuel is already there, oil or electricity, and the figures above are the ones to run against it.

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

A two-story light blue clapboard house with dark blue shutters, a white columned entry, and brick chimneys, flanked by a yellow house and a white picket fence, with plowed snowbanks along a bare road in the foreground under a clear sky.

Common questions about heat pumps and furnaces

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

    Yes, a heat pump heats through a Schuylkill County winter, including the three or so nights a year that hit 0°F. Below 40°F its output drops under its rating, and below about 35°F it typically leans on backup heat, which covers the roughly 125 nights a year here that fall at or below freezing. Field testing of cold-climate heat pumps found backup heat carried only a small share of the load even between 0°F and 35°F, and running on backup alone was rare above 0°F.

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

    Most likely, yes. Your average overnight low here is 21°F, already below the roughly 35°F mark where a standard heat pump starts to lean on backup heat, and below the 40°F mark where its output starts falling short of its rating. A heat pump built to the ENERGY STAR Cold Climate spec holds more of its capacity down to 5°F, which cuts into how much backup heat it needs, but check whether the unit you're quoted carries that rating before you assume it does.

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

    Without a gas line, your real choice is a heat pump against a furnace burning oil or propane. Against oil specifically, the heat pump wins on running cost, $2.37 against $3.03 per 100,000 Btu at Pennsylvania's prices. Electric resistance heat is also an option with no gas line, but it has nowhere near a heat pump's output per dollar, so between the two it is not the comparison worth making.

  • What if my house heats with oil or propane?

    If your house heats with oil now, a heat pump costs less to run: $2.37 against $3.03 per 100,000 Btu here. Oil heats almost half the homes in Schuylkill County, so this is the comparison a lot of your neighbors are actually making, not gas versus electric. A furnace burning propane instead of oil is a separate quote, but oil's own number already favors the heat pump.

A person in a light blue shirt and dark pants kneels beside a gray outdoor air conditioning condenser on a concrete pad, connecting hoses at the unit's service valves, with a wrench, screwdriver and tool bag on the mulch in the foreground and blue horizontal siding behind.

Tell us about the job

Takes about a minute. No obligation.

Step 1 of 3: Equipment