Illinois Heating

Heat pump vs furnace in Coles County, Illinois

Get a Local Quote

Match with a pro in Coles County

Which costs less to run in Coles County?

A gray outdoor condenser unit on a concrete pad beside a dark blue horizontal-lap sided wall at night, lit by a wall-mounted light above, with an electrical disconnect box on the wall behind it.

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?

  • Covers a long cooling season

    Cooling runs May through September here, five months of real use. A heat pump handles all of that itself, so you get one system doing the work instead of switching between two.

    A covered porch with a navy-painted beadboard ceiling and wood-bladed ceiling fan, furnished with wicker seating with navy cushions, a round wicker coffee table holding a glass of iced tea on a tray, potted ferns and a palm, and green trees beyond the railing.

  • Steady, even comfort

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

    A navy upholstered armchair with ottoman, open book and throw blanket sits beside a lit fireplace and white built-in bookshelves, with a golden-colored dog lying on a gray rug and snow visible through the window.

  • 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.

    A living room with a light blue sofa and navy cushion in front of a large three-pane window overlooking green trees, with a rustic wood coffee table, woven rug, navy cabinetry and bookshelves, a wall lamp, and potted plants.

Where does a furnace shine?

  • Runs on the gas most homes here already use

    Just over half the homes in Coles County already heat with gas. If yours is one of them, the gas line and venting are already in place, so a furnace fits in without adding new fuel infrastructure to the house.

    A row of attached townhouses with brick and painted facades, front stoops with black metal railings, and exterior gas meters, beside a sidewalk with patchy snow and bare trees.

  • Fast, strong heat on demand

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

    A mudroom entry with a dark navy glass-paned door showing snowy trees outside, fur-trimmed boots on a jute mat, a wooden bench with a blue blanket and mug, hanging coats, pale blue cabinets, a sheer curtain, and a floor vent.

  • Proven, simple, easy to get serviced

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

    A gloved hand holds a pleated air filter in front of a furnace and ductwork, with a blue shelving unit holding folded towels, a plant and a wicker basket at right.

What winter here does to a heat pump

Heat runs seven months a year in Coles County, October through April. Cooling runs five. Whatever you buy spends more of the year heating than cooling, so the heating side of the choice carries more weight.

The average overnight low across December, January and February is 23°F. That's not a cold snap, that's a typical night. About 105 nights a year here drop to freezing or below, close to half the nights in the heating season. A standard heat pump puts out less than its rated capacity once it's below 40°F outside, and it often needs backup heat below about 35°F. Every one of those 105 freezing nights here falls below both marks.

The cold rarely goes much further than that. Only about 4 nights a year reach 0°F. So the real question isn't whether a heat pump can get through the coldest night of the year here. It's whether it can carry the other hundred-odd nights in the 20s and 30s without leaning on backup heat for months straight.

A standard heat pump built to the federal minimum will lean on that backup heat often in a winter shaped like this one. An ENERGY STAR Cold Climate heat pump is built to a different mark: at 5°F it still has to make at least 1.75 units of heat for every unit of electricity it uses, and hold onto at least 70 percent of its 47°F heating capacity, checked by outside testing. In a two-winter field test of prototype cold-climate heat pumps, backup heat covered only a small share of the load between 0°F and 35°F, and running on backup alone was rare even above 0°F.

Snow-covered dark steps with white railings lead to a navy front door on a light blue clapboard house, with a snow shovel leaning beside the door.

What it costs to run, and what to buy

At Illinois's own fuel prices, gas wins on cost. A furnace makes 100,000 Btu of heat for $1.33. A heat pump at the federal minimum makes that same heat for $2.12, and that number doesn't include the backup heat it will reach for on those freezing nights. A gas furnace is the cheaper of the two to run here.

Utility gas already heats 51 percent of homes in this county, electricity 41.2 percent. That's close to the statewide split, 75.3 percent gas, 18.6 percent electric. Gas is the fuel most homes here are already built around, and a furnace burns it directly, no conversion to backup heat needed.

A heat pump does one thing a furnace cannot: it cools. The same system that heats through those seven cold months also covers the five months of cooling season, where a furnace does nothing and needs central air alongside it.

So it comes down to what you want from the system. If running cost through a long winter matters most, a furnace on the gas most homes here already have is the cheaper, simpler choice. If you want one system that heats and cools, a heat pump can do that here, but given how often this county sits below 40°F and 35°F, it should be an ENERGY STAR Cold Climate model, not a standard one.

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 row of two-story wood-sided houses in dark blue and light blue with covered porches, flanked by brick houses, with snow on the roofs, icicles along the eaves, and a plowed snowbank along the street.

Common questions about heat pumps and furnaces

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

    A standard heat pump alone will not get through it. Below 40°F its heat output falls short of its rating, and below about 35°F it typically needs backup heat, and almost every night here from October through April falls below one or both marks. An ENERGY STAR Cold Climate model holds onto more of its capacity in cold weather, but even those are commonly installed with a backup heat source for the coldest nights.

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

    Yes, plan on it. A standard heat pump's efficiency drops below about 35°F and its heat output falls short of its rating below 40°F, and the average overnight low here is 23°F, so backup heat is doing real work most winter nights, not just on the rare cold snap.

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

    Yes, and here that pairing is worth a look. A heat pump handles the mild nights and the whole cooling season, while the furnace covers the about 105 nights a year that drop to freezing or below, so neither machine has to do a job it struggles with.

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

    No, a furnace costs less to run here. A gas furnace makes the same heat for $1.33 per 100,000 Btu against $2.12 for a heat pump, at least 37% less, because Illinois gas is cheap relative to electricity and the furnace turns more of what it burns into heat.

A person's hand in a light blue shirt adjusts a dial on a white wall-mounted thermostat on a dark navy wall, with a living room containing a gray sofa, coffee table and a tool bag in the background.

Tell us about the job

Takes about a minute. No obligation.

Step 1 of 3: Equipment