Pennsylvania Heating

Heat pump vs furnace in Somerset County, Pennsylvania

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Which costs less to run in Somerset County?

A gray outdoor condenser unit with a top-mounted fan grille sits on a concrete pad beside a dark blue horizontal lap-sided wall, with a refrigerant line and small disconnect box on the wall above.

Heat pump

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

A beige furnace with louvered panels stands on a concrete basement floor against a blue painted wall, with a galvanized metal flue pipe and ductwork above and a white pipe running down the 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

    One machine handles the heat in winter and the cooling in summer. There's no second system to buy or keep up.

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  • Steady, even comfort

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

    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.

  • 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 navy blue cabinets, light speckled stone countertops, white subway tile backsplash, stainless range hood and wall oven, a kettle on a cooktop, hydrangeas in a glass jar, a bowl of lemons, and wooden stools at an island.

Where does a furnace shine?

  • Strong, steady heat in hard cold

    Winter nights here average 20°F, and that's the kind of cold where a furnace just keeps putting out hot air until the house catches up. No waiting on a slower warm-up, no dip in how warm the air feels when it's coldest outside.

    A dark navy wood-sided house with white trim and lit windows at dusk, surrounded by deep snow, bare trees and snow-covered conifers, with a shoveled path lined by small glowing path lights.

  • 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 square pleated air filter in front of a gray furnace in a basement, beside a wooden shelf with storage bins and a potted plant.

  • Pairs with any central AC

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

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What winter here does to a heat pump

Your heat runs nine months a year in Somerset County, September through May, and the overnight low averages 20°F across December, January and February. That's not a cold snap, that's the normal night. A standard heat pump starts losing ground before it even gets that cold: below 40°F it puts out less heat than its rating, and below about 35°F it usually needs backup heat to keep up. Here, every one of the roughly 145 nights a year at or below freezing falls under both marks.

That doesn't mean a heat pump leaves you cold. It means it's not working alone most of the winter. Below 40°F it's making less heat per hour than its label says, and somewhere under 35°F something else, usually electric resistance heat, is kicking in to cover the gap. That backup heat costs more to run than the heat pump itself, and on the coldest nights, the 6 or so a year that drop to 0°F or below, it may be doing most of the work.

Cold climate heat pumps change this math. To earn the ENERGY STAR Cold Climate label, a heat pump has to keep making real heat at 5°F, at least 1.75 units of heat per unit of electricity, and hold onto 70 percent of its milder-weather capacity at that temperature. Field tests of this kind of equipment in occupied homes found backup heat covering only a small share of the load between 0°F and 35°F, and running on backup alone was rare even above 0°F. That's a different machine than the standard heat pump the running-cost figures assume.

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What it costs to run each one

At Pennsylvania's average prices, a gas furnace makes 100,000 Btu of heat for $1.64. A heat pump built to the federal minimum makes the same heat for $2.37, and that figure doesn't add anything for the backup heat it leans on below 35°F, so the real gap on a cold night here runs wider than the number suggests. An oil furnace costs more than either, $3.03 for the same heat.

Gas heats about one in five homes here and oil heats a little under two in five, so if your house already has a gas line, a furnace is the cheaper machine to run and the one the fuel math favors. If your house runs on oil, a heat pump costs less to run than what you likely have now, even before counting what a cold climate model would save on backup.

Cooling doesn't change the furnace's case against itself, because a furnace only heats. It has nothing to do for the two months a year, July and August, when Somerset County runs its air conditioning, afternoons averaging 78°F. A furnace needs a separate central air system paired with it. A heat pump does both jobs with one system, which is worth something on its own if your central air is old enough to need replacing anyway.

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

Snow-covered stone steps lead to a blue storm door on a blue clapboard house, with a stacked woodpile, a snowy stone wall, and bare shrubs nearby.

Common questions about heat pumps and furnaces

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

    Yes, a heat pump heats a house through a Somerset County winter, but it runs into real limits on the coldest nights. Below 40°F a standard heat pump puts out less than its rated capacity, and below about 35°F it often needs backup heat to keep up. The overnight low here averages 20°F across December through February, and falls to 0°F or below about 6 nights a year, so a heat pump here leans on backup heat for real stretches of the winter.

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

    Most homes with a standard heat pump need backup heat here. A standard heat pump's output falls below its rated capacity once it's under 40°F outside, and it often needs backup once it's under about 35°F, and the average overnight low across December through February here is 20°F. A cold-climate heat pump holds up better in low temperatures, but check with a contractor on what backup makes sense for your house.

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

    Without a gas line, the choice is a heat pump, electric resistance heat, or a furnace burning propane or oil. Between those, a heat pump is the cheapest to run, $2.37 per 100,000 Btu against $3.03 for oil, and it heats and cools in one system. Electric resistance heat turns electricity straight into heat with none of the efficiency a heat pump gets from moving heat instead of making it, so it costs more to run than either.

  • What if my house heats with oil or propane?

    An oil furnace costs more to run here than either a gas furnace or a heat pump, $3.03 per 100,000 Btu against $1.64 for gas and $2.37 for a heat pump. If you're replacing an oil system, a heat pump is the cheaper machine to run, and it adds central air for the two months a year this county cools. Propane runs through the same kind of furnace as gas, just a different fuel tank, so the same choice applies.

A person's hand in a blue shirt adjusts a round black and silver wall thermostat on a white wall, with an open tool bag on the floor and a living room with a gray sectional sofa in the background.

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