Pennsylvania Heating

Heat pump vs furnace in Luzerne County, Pennsylvania

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Pros who work in Luzerne County

Which costs less to run in Luzerne County?

An outdoor condenser unit with a top-mounted fan grille sits on a concrete pad beside dark horizontal lap siding, with a small electrical disconnect box on the wall above and mulch surrounding the pad.

Heat pump

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

A beige gas furnace with two access panels stands on a concrete floor against a dark blue wall, with a metal flue pipe and plenum above and pipes and wiring to its left.

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

    Instead of short bursts of heat, it keeps a gentle, steady output going. The house stays at one comfortable temperature.

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  • No gas line, nothing burning in the house

    A heat pump runs on electricity alone. Nothing burns inside the house.

    A kitchen island with a white stone countertop holding a black induction cooktop, a light blue stovetop kettle with a wooden handle, and a ceramic jar of wooden utensils, with navy cabinets, a sink under a window, and a wicker chair in the foreground.

  • Heats and cools in one system

    Winter and summer are covered by the same outdoor unit. That's one machine to service instead of two.

    A living room with a cream sofa with blue cushions and a grey throw, a wooden coffee table holding a bowl of green apples and a jug of flowers, a jute rug, navy built-in bookshelves, a stone fireplace with a wood stove, and a white sash window looking onto a garden.

Where does a furnace shine?

  • Strong, steady heat in hard cold

    Winter nights here average 19°F, and a furnace puts out hot air right from the start, no matter how cold it gets outside. You won't notice it working any harder on the coldest night of the year than it does in early December.

    At dusk, a person in a dark coat and knit hat carries a lit lantern up a shoveled snow path toward a dark blue two-story house with white trim, a covered porch, and warmly lit windows, flanked by bare trees and deep snowbanks.

  • Runs on the gas most homes here already use

    Just over half the homes in Luzerne County already heat with gas. If your house is set up that way, a gas furnace uses the line already run to your home instead of asking you to switch how you heat.

    Snow-covered front yards and concrete steps of adjacent houses, with a dark blue metal handrail in the foreground and exterior gas meters mounted beside the foundations.

  • 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.

    Mudroom entry with a navy front door with snowy trees visible through its glass panes, snow-covered boots on a blue woven rug, a floor vent, a wooden bench with wicker baskets, a blue mug and knit blanket, and dark coats hanging on wall hooks.

What happens below 35 degrees

Winter here is long and it gets cold. Heat runs eight months a year, October through May, and the overnight low averages 19°F across December, January and February. That number matters because of how a heat pump works. A standard heat pump's heating output drops once it's below 40°F outside, and below about 35°F it often needs backup heat to keep up. Here, the average winter night is already past both marks.

This isn't a rare cold snap. Of the roughly 245 nights the heat runs, about 145 drop to freezing or below, more than half the season. A heat pump is working below its rated capacity on most winter nights, not just the worst ones. The nights that hit 0°F or below, about six a year, are a small slice of that, so a heat pump isn't fighting deep cold most of the time, but it is fighting the 32-and-under range for more than half the heating season.

A gas furnace doesn't have this problem. It burns gas to make heat, so outside air temperature doesn't change what it can put out. On the coldest night of the year it heats the same as it does in October. That's the case for strong, steady heat in hard cold made on the cards above, and the overnight numbers here are why it holds.

A two-story navy blue clapboard house with white trim, a gabled roof, a brick chimney and a blue front door under a pedimented entry, surrounded by deep snow and bare trees under a clear sky.

What it costs to run, and what that means for this county

A gas furnace is also the cheaper of the two to run here. At Pennsylvania's prices, a furnace built to the federal minimum makes 100,000 Btu of heat for $1.64. A heat pump built to the federal minimum makes the same heat for $2.37. An oil furnace costs more than both, at $3.03. Cheapest to dearest, it's gas, then a heat pump, then oil.

Half the homes in Luzerne County already heat with utility gas, so for a lot of houses here the furnace runs on a line that's already in the house. A heat pump runs on electricity, which heats about one in four homes here, and it adds something a furnace doesn't: it cools the house too, so there's no separate air conditioner to buy or maintain. Cooling here only runs about two months, July and August, against eight months of heat, so that's a smaller piece of the year, but it's one machine instead of two.

If keeping winter fuel cost as low as possible is the main goal, the furnace wins on both counts here, cheaper to run and unaffected by the cold. If having one system that heats and cools without a gas line in the house matters more, a heat pump does that, but expect it to lean on backup heat through a good part of the winter, since most of the season here falls in the range where a standard heat pump struggles. A cold-climate rated heat pump is built to hold more of its capacity at low temperatures than a standard one, which narrows that gap, but it doesn't change which fuel costs less per Btu at Pennsylvania's prices.

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

A two-story navy blue clapboard house with white trim, a covered front porch and light blue front door, surrounded by deep snow 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?

    It can, but a standard heat pump alone will struggle on this county's coldest nights. Below about 40°F its heat output falls short of its rating, and below about 35°F it often needs backup heat to keep up. The average overnight low here is 19°F across December, January and February, well past both marks, and about 145 nights a year sit at or below freezing.

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

    Most homes here would want it. A standard heat pump's output falls short of its rating below 40°F and it often needs backup below about 35°F, and the average winter night in Luzerne County is 19°F. A cold-climate model built to the ENERGY STAR spec holds up better in that range, but it is worth checking which kind is being quoted before deciding backup heat isn't needed.

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

    Yes, and in Luzerne County that pairing makes sense. The heat pump would carry the milder nights, then the furnace would take over once it gets below about 35°F and the heat pump's output and efficiency drop off. With an average winter low of 19°F here, and 145 nights a year at or below freezing, the furnace would have real work to do.

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

    No, a gas furnace costs less to run here. At Pennsylvania's fuel prices, a gas furnace makes 100,000 Btu of heat for $1.64, against $2.37 for a heat pump built to the federal minimum. That gap holds for a home heating eight months a year, October through May.

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.

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