Illinois Heating

Heat pump vs furnace in Kane County, Illinois

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Which costs less to run in Kane County?

An outdoor air conditioning condenser unit on a concrete pad beside a dark blue horizontal-lap sided wall at night, with a wall-mounted disconnect box and insulated refrigerant lines running to the unit.

Heat pump

To heat your home here$2.12per 100,000 Btu

A beige furnace with louvered panels stands on a concrete floor in a basement corner with dark blue painted block walls, a metal flue pipe rising to the ceiling, and a bare hanging light bulb.

Furnace

To heat your home here$1.33per 100,000 Btu

At Illinois's gas and electricity prices, a gas furnace makes the same heat as a heat pump for at least 37% 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

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

    Kitchen with light wood cabinets, white marble-look countertops and backsplash, a navy blue island with wooden stools, an induction cooktop with a steel kettle, two blue pendant lights, stainless refrigerator and black wall oven.

  • Steady, even comfort

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

    A golden retriever sleeps on a woven rug in a living room with a navy plaid armchair holding an open book and a gray fringed throw, beside a dark fireplace, potted plants, a lit table lamp and mug, and a frosted window at night.

  • 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 cream sectional sofa with navy and light blue cushions and a fringed blue throw sits beneath a white-framed window overlooking green garden foliage, with a rustic wooden coffee table holding a vase of flowers, a blue mug on a book, and a wooden bowl, beside a dark blue built-in cabinet.

Where does a furnace shine?

  • Strong, steady heat in hard cold

    Overnight lows in Kane County average 18°F through December, January and February. A furnace burns gas to make heat, so it keeps putting out hot air on those cold nights instead of struggling to keep up.

    A blue two-story house with lit windows and a snow-covered roof at dusk, with a cleared paved walkway between deep snowbanks, a lamp post at left, and snow-laden conifers behind.

  • Runs on the gas most homes here already use

    Most homes in Kane County already have gas line run to them, since 86.1% of occupied homes here heat with utility gas. A furnace just uses what's already there.

    A row of brick houses with dark blue painted porch columns and stone front steps, with a gas meter and piping beside the stairs and snow covering the ground along the sidewalk.

  • Proven, simple, easy to get serviced

    The design is simple and well understood. That keeps service calls short.

    A gloved hand holds a square pleated air filter in front of a furnace in a basement, with a shelving unit, potted plant, and woven basket in the background.

What the cold actually does here

Winter is the long season in Kane County. Heat runs eight months, October through May, against three months of cooling. Whatever you install spends most of its life keeping the house warm, not cool.

The overnight low averages 18°F across December, January and February. That is below both marks that matter for a heat pump. 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 18°F average, most winter nights here sit under both lines.

It is not just the average. About 140 nights a year fall to freezing or below, more than half the nights the heat runs at all. On those nights a standard heat pump is working below its rated output, not as an exception but as the normal case for the season.

The extreme cold is rarer. About 10 nights a year reach 0°F or below, a small slice of the 140 freezing nights. A heat pump built for this climate, carrying the ENERGY STAR Cold Climate mark, is tested to still produce 1.75 units of heat per unit of electricity at 5°F and hold at least 70 percent of its warm-weather capacity there. A standard heat pump is not built or tested to that standard.

A two-winter field test of cold-climate heat pumps in occupied homes found backup heat carried only a small share of the load between 0°F and 35°F, and the system running on backup alone was rare even above 0°F. That is the case for a cold-climate model. A standard heat pump, without that rating, leans on backup more and sooner.

A two-story navy blue house with white trim, a columned front porch and light blue door, fronted by a snow-covered lawn and cleared walkway, with bare trees and neighboring houses on either side.

What it costs to run, and what the house already has

A gas furnace is cheaper to run on Illinois's current prices. The math works out to $1.33 per 100,000 Btu of heat for a furnace against $2.12 for a heat pump at the federal minimum, better than a third less for the furnace. That heat pump figure is its rated efficiency alone, with nothing added for the backup heat it will lean on through those 140 freezing nights, so the real gap on a cold night runs wider than the number shows.

Most houses here are already set up for gas. Utility gas heats 86.1% of homes in Kane County, a little under nine in ten. Electricity heats 11.5%, about one in ten. If your house is one of the nine in ten, a furnace runs on the line already in the house. A heat pump would be the less common choice for your street, not the standard one.

A furnace only heats. It has nothing to do the other four months of the year, June through August, when cooling runs. A heat pump heats and cools from the same system, which matters if the house does not already have central air.

None of this says what is behind your walls now, or how old the furnace or heat pump already there might be. If your house came with a furnace and a separate air conditioner, replacing the furnace alone is the simpler swap. If you are weighing a heat pump, check whether it carries the Cold Climate rating. That rating, not the word heat pump alone, is what decides how it holds up on the 140 nights a year this county spends at or below freezing.

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

A two-story navy blue house with light blue shutters, white trim, a small columned front porch and stone foundation, with a snow-covered lawn, bare trees, and a concrete walkway leading to the sidewalk.

Common questions about heat pumps and furnaces

  • Can a heat pump heat a house through an Illinois winter?

    It can, but not alone through the coldest stretch. Below 40°F a standard heat pump puts out less than its rated heat, and below about 35°F it often needs backup. The overnight low here averages 18°F across December, January and February, well under both marks, so a heat pump here needs a backup heat source for a typical winter night, not just the rare cold snap.

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

    Yes. The average winter night here drops to 18°F, and about 140 nights a year fall to freezing or below, all of them past the point where a standard heat pump's output and efficiency start to drop. Cold-climate heat pumps hold up better in that range, but even they are built with backup heat in mind for the coldest nights.

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

    Yes, and it is a common setup here. The heat pump carries the heat down to the point where it loses efficiency, and the furnace takes over below that. The furnace already in the house runs on the gas most homes here have, so it is there for the coldest nights without extra running cost from the heat pump trying to keep up.

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

    No, not at Illinois's current prices. Heating with a heat pump runs $2.12 per 100,000 Btu here against $1.33 for a gas furnace, so the furnace costs less to make the same heat. That gap comes from the price of electricity against natural gas in Illinois, not from either machine running poorly.

A person in a dark blue shirt and cap kneels on a basement floor opening the panel of a gray furnace beside sheet-metal ductwork and a water heater, with an open tool bag on the floor nearby.

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