Illinois Heating

Heat pump vs furnace in Macoupin County, Illinois

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Which costs less to run in Macoupin County?

An outdoor air conditioning condenser unit with a top-mounted fan sits on a concrete pad beside a dark blue horizontal lap siding wall with an electrical disconnect box above it, photographed at night.

Heat pump

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

A beige sheet-metal furnace stands on a concrete basement floor against a dark blue painted block wall, with galvanized flue ducts rising to the ceiling and a flexible metal conduit and PVC pipe at its left side.

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?

  • Covers a long cooling season

    May through September is five months of cooling here. A heat pump handles both sides of that, so you're not running one system all summer and switching gears for the rest of the year.

    A covered porch with a ceiling fan, wicker sofa with cream cushions and blue and white pillows, wicker armchairs, a wooden coffee table with a tray, a navy rug, potted plants and a hanging fern, and a glass of iced tea on a round wicker table, with green trees beyond the railing.

  • 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 and light blue cushions and a blue throw, a wooden coffee table with a mug, bowl, books and white hydrangeas, flanked by table lamps and a bookshelf, in front of a large window overlooking a green garden.

  • 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 white subway tile backsplash, stainless range hood, a stainless kettle on a black cooktop set in a light countertop above navy cabinets and a wall oven, with a potted plant, utensil crock and wooden cutting board nearby and a dining area with pendant light in the background.

Where does a furnace shine?

  • Runs on the gas most homes here already use

    A little over half the occupied homes in Macoupin County already heat with utility gas. If that's your setup, a gas furnace uses the line already run to your house instead of asking you to change how your home gets its heat.

    A row of houses with covered porches, white railings and exterior gas meters, with snow on the ground beside a concrete sidewalk in low sunlight.

  • Pairs with any central AC

    A furnace's blower and ducts carry cooled air too. Adding central AC uses the same system.

    A metal floor vent set into a wood floor near a window with sheer white curtains, a white baseboard, a dark blue cabinet at right, and a patterned rug in the foreground.

  • Fast, strong heat on demand

    A furnace pushes out hot air within minutes of switching on. A cold house warms up fast.

    Entryway with a dark navy glass-paned door showing snow outside, winter boots on a tiled floor beside a blue runner rug, a sheer curtain at a window, a wooden bench with a blue throw and steaming mug, and coats hanging on wall hooks.

What the cold does to a heat pump here

Winter here is long and it bites. Heat runs seven months, October through April, and the overnight low averages 24°F across December, January and February. About 105 nights a year dip to freezing or below, roughly half the nights the heat is even on. A standard heat pump starts losing ground before it gets anywhere near that cold. Below 40°F its output falls short of what it's rated for. Below about 35°F it often needs backup heat to keep up. Every single one of those 105 freezing nights here falls under both marks. This is not a storm that passes through. It is most of the winter.

So the furnace question and the backup question are the same question here. A standard heat pump in Macoupin County is going to lean on backup heat through a lot of its working nights, not just the rare deep freeze. That changes what you're actually buying. You're not buying a heat pump that covers winter and occasionally gets help. You're buying a heat pump that shares winter with something else most of the season.

There is a way around this. Heat pumps built and tested to the ENERGY STAR Cold Climate standard hold onto at least 70 percent of their 47°F heating capacity even at 5°F, and keep making more heat than the electricity they use at that temperature. Field tests of cold-climate units in real homes found backup heat carried only a small share of the total load between 0°F and 35°F, and the units rarely ran on backup alone unless it dropped below 0°F. That matters here because this county only sees 0°F or below about 3 nights a year. A cold-climate heat pump is built for a county that looks almost exactly like this one. A standard heat pump is not.

A two-story navy blue house with white trim, a small columned front porch and light blue front door, with a shoveled concrete walkway leading across a snow-covered front yard and bare trees overhead.

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

Set the cold aside and look at the bill. A gas furnace built to the federal minimum makes 100,000 Btu of heat here for $1.33. A heat pump built to the same minimum makes the same heat for $2.12. That's Illinois's own gas and electric prices doing the math, not a guess, and it holds before you even factor in what a standard heat pump spends on backup heat during those 105 cold nights. Gas is the cheaper fuel to heat with here, and by a wide enough margin that it's worth saying plainly: at these prices, a furnace beats a heat pump on running cost.

The county's homes back this up. Utility gas already heats 51.4 percent of homes here, better than one in two. Propane heats another 20.7 percent. Electric heat sits at 24.6 percent, the smallest of the three. Most of your neighbors are heating with gas in one form or another, and the furnace is the machine built to use it.

None of this touches summer. Cooling runs five months here, May through September, and a furnace has no part in that, it only heats. A heat pump heats and cools from the same system, and if your air conditioner is old or due anyway, that's a real point in its favor. But if the air conditioning is fine and the question is just how to heat the house for seven months a year at the lowest cost, this county's prices and its climate both point the same way: a gas furnace, paired with whatever central air you already have, costs less to run and does not depend on backup heat on the nights you need it most. A heat pump only closes that gap if it carries the Cold Climate rating, and even then it will not beat gas on price here.

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

A blue house entrance with a window-topped door, white trim and light blue railings, concrete steps partly covered in snow, a snow shovel leaning near the door, and snow-laden shrubs on both sides.

Common questions about heat pumps and furnaces

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

    Yes, but a standard heat pump loses ground as it gets cold. Below 40°F its heat output falls short of its rating, and here the overnight low falls to 32°F or below on about 105 nights a year. If you want a heat pump that holds its output in weather this cold, look for one with the ENERGY STAR Cold Climate mark, built to keep at least 70 percent of its 47°F capacity down at 5°F.

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

    Most likely, yes. A standard heat pump's heating efficiency drops below about 35°F, and in Macoupin County that is about half the nights the heat runs, 105 out of roughly 210 from October through April. Only about 3 nights a year reach 0°F, so backup heat is there for real cold snaps, not most of the winter.

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

    Yes, and in Macoupin County it covers a weak spot a heat pump has on its own. Below about 35°F a standard heat pump often needs backup heat, and the overnight low here averages 24°F across December, January and February. A furnace already in the house can serve as that backup instead of the electric strip heat a heat pump normally falls back on.

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

    No, a gas furnace costs less to run here. At Illinois's fuel prices a furnace makes the same heat for $1.33 per 100,000 Btu against $2.12 for a heat pump, both figures for a machine built to the federal minimum. That is at least 37% less for the furnace, and the heat pump's figure does not include whatever backup heat it needs on the coldest nights.

A gloved worker in dark blue coveralls kneels beside a gray outdoor heat pump unit on a concrete pad, connecting insulated copper refrigerant lines to brass service valves, with pliers and a cordless drill lying on gravel in the foreground.

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