Illinois Heating

Heat pump vs furnace in Kankakee County, Illinois

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Which costs less to run in Kankakee County?

An outdoor air conditioner condenser unit on a concrete pad beside a dark blue horizontal-siding wall at night, with conduit and a small electrical box on the wall and grass surrounding the pad.

Heat pump

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

A beige gas furnace with louvered front panels stands on a concrete floor against a dark blue painted block wall, with galvanized flue ducts rising from its top and metal and plastic pipes running along the wall beside it.

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?

  • 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 white sofa and blue throw, navy built-in shelves holding pottery and books, a wooden coffee table with a bowl and green hydrangeas, and a large curtained window overlooking a 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.

    A kitchen with navy lower cabinets, white marble-look countertops, white subway tile backsplash and a stainless range hood, with a blue kettle on the cooktop, a wooden cutting board, potted plants, a utensil crock, and a marble island holding a blue mug and a wooden bowl of citrus.

  • Steady, even comfort

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

    A dimly lit living room at night with a dark blue armchair holding an open book and knit throw, a lit table lamp, a stone fireplace with a log basket, and a yellow Labrador sleeping on a patterned rug.

Where does a furnace shine?

  • Strong, steady heat in hard cold

    Nights here average 20°F through December, January and February. A furnace puts out hot air from the start and keeps it coming no matter how cold it gets outside, so the house stays warm straight through those nights.

    A two-story white clapboard house with lit windows and a wreath on the front door at dusk, with a shoveled wet walkway between deep snowbanks leading to the porch.

  • Runs on the gas most homes here already use

    Most homes in Kankakee County already have gas line run to them. If yours is one of them, a furnace just uses what's already there instead of asking for a new setup.

    A row of brick houses with covered porches and light blue railed front steps along a snow-lined sidewalk, with a person in dark clothing walking away in the distance under bare trees.

  • Pairs with any central AC

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

    A metal louvered floor register set into a light wood plank floor near a glass door with sheer curtains, beside a gray cabinet with a round knob.

What the cold does to a heat pump here

Winter here is long and it gets genuinely cold. Heat runs eight months a year, October through May, and the overnight low averages 20°F across December, January and February. That 20°F average matters more than it sounds like it should, because a standard heat pump starts losing ground before it even gets there. Below 40°F its heat output falls short of its rated capacity, and below about 35°F it typically needs backup heat to keep up. Kankakee County sits below both marks most of the winter. About 130 nights a year here fall to freezing or below, more than half of the nights heat runs at all, and every one of those nights is already past the point where a standard heat pump is straining.

That does not mean a heat pump cannot heat your house. It means it needs help doing it on the coldest nights, and it needs backup heat more here than it would in a milder state. Cold climate heat pumps are built for exactly this. To carry the ENERGY STAR Cold Climate label, a unit has to still produce 1.75 units of heat per unit of electricity at 5°F and hold onto at least 70 percent of its 47°F capacity at that same temperature, verified by outside testing, not the manufacturer's word. Field testing on prototype cold climate units backs this up in practice: across two winters in occupied homes, 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. Nights that cold are not common here anyway. Only about 9 nights a year drop to 0°F or below, a small slice of the 130 freezing nights. So the real question for your house is not whether a heat pump can survive Kankakee winters. It is whether the one you install is built for them.

A row of two-story wood-sided and brick houses with covered front porches, snow-covered roofs, icicles, and deep snowbanks along a cleared street under a clear blue sky.

What it costs to run, and what that means for your AC

At Illinois's current fuel prices, a gas furnace is cheaper to run than a heat pump, $1.33 against $2.12 per 100,000 Btu of heat, better than a third less. That gap is built on each machine running at the federal minimum efficiency, and the heat pump's number has nothing added for the backup heat it will likely draw on during the coldest stretches, so on an actual cold night here the real gap is probably wider, not narrower. For a county where heat runs eight months a year, that difference shows up on every winter bill, not just a few. It is also why gas already heats a little over three in four homes here, while electricity heats a little over one in ten.

A furnace only does one job. It heats your house for those eight months and then has nothing to do the other four, so it has to be paired with a separate central air conditioner for summer. A heat pump does both jobs in one system, the same machine that heats your house from October through May cools it from June through August. If your ducts and electrical setup can already support one, that is one piece of equipment instead of two, and one less thing to maintain or replace later. Which one wins out for your house comes down to what you weigh more: the lower running cost and the familiarity of a furnace paired with AC, or a single system that handles both seasons and a cold climate heat pump built to hold its own on the coldest nights Kankakee sees.

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

Snow-covered front steps and white railings lead to a dark navy door with a nine-pane window on a light blue clapboard house, with a snow shovel leaning beside the door and snow-laden shrubs on either side.

Common questions about heat pumps and furnaces

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

    It can, but not alone on the coldest nights. Below 40°F a standard heat pump puts out less than its rated heat, and only a fraction of that once temperatures drop into the teens, so it needs backup heat for the stretches it can't keep up. Here the overnight low averages 20°F across December, January and February, well past that mark.

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

    Yes. A standard heat pump often needs backup heat once it's below about 35°F outside, and here the overnight low falls to freezing or below on about 130 nights a year, over half the nights the heat runs. Even a cold climate model, built to hold most of its capacity at 5°F, is tested against that same drop in output as temperatures fall.

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

    Yes, and here that pairing earns its keep. The heat pump handles the milder nights, and the furnace takes over once it's below about 35°F, which is where a standard heat pump's efficiency drops and it starts to lean on backup heat anyway. That split matters in this county, where overnight lows average 20°F in December, January and February and fall to freezing or below on about 130 nights a year.

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

    No, a furnace costs less to run here. Illinois's electricity and gas prices put the heat pump at $2.12 per 100,000 Btu of heat against $1.33 for the furnace, so the furnace makes the same heat for at least 37% less. That gap doesn't include backup heat, which a standard heat pump needs on the roughly 130 nights a year here that drop to freezing or below.

A man in a blue shirt, dark pants and cap kneels on a concrete basement floor working on a gray furnace connected to metal ductwork, with an open tool bag beside him.

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