Illinois Heating

Heat pump vs furnace in Henry County, Illinois

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Installers who work in Henry County

Which costs less to run in Henry County?

An outdoor condenser unit on a concrete pad at night beside a dark horizontal-lap sided wall, with a wall-mounted disconnect box and refrigerant line above it, lit from overhead.

Heat pump

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

A beige residential furnace with a louvered upper panel stands against a dark blue basement wall, with a metal flue pipe rising from its top and copper and steel pipes running along the 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?

  • 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

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

    A kitchen with a white stone-topped island over navy cabinetry, a stainless kettle on a black cooktop, a wooden open shelf holding bowls, mugs and a potted plant, and a ceramic vase of green flowers beside a woven stool.

  • Steady, even comfort

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

    A dark blue armchair with an open book and gray fringed throw sits beside a lit fireplace and a lamp-topped side table, with a golden-colored dog curled asleep on a patterned rug and snowy trees beyond the window.

Where does a furnace shine?

  • Strong, steady heat in hard cold

    Henry County nights average 18°F through December, January and February. A furnace burns gas to make its heat, so it doesn't run out of strength when the temperature drops that low.

    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 Henry County already heat with gas, 72.9% of them. If your house is hooked up for it, a gas furnace just uses the line that's already there.

    A row of wood-sided houses with covered porches, stone columns and an exterior gas meter along a snow-covered street, with a person in dark clothing walking on the sidewalk in the distance.

  • Pairs with any central AC

    Most central air systems are built around a furnace. The two share the blower, the ducts and the thermostat.

    A metal floor vent set into hardwood flooring near a window with sheer leaf-patterned curtains, with sunlight casting leaf shadows and a gray rug at lower right.

What the cold here does to a heat pump

Winter here is long and it gets genuinely cold. Heat runs eight months a year, October through May, and the overnight low averages 18°F across December, January and February. That's not a mild climate with a few rough nights. About 135 nights a year, over half the nights in the heating season, fall at or below freezing.

A standard heat pump starts losing ground before it even gets that cold. Below 40°F its heat output comes in under its rating. Below about 35°F it often needs backup heat to make up the difference. Henry County's average winter low of 18°F is below both marks, and every one of those 135 freezing nights is too. This is not a county where a heat pump deals with cold a few nights a year. It is dealing with it most of the winter.

The 12 nights a year that hit 0°F or below are a smaller problem than they sound. A field test of cold-climate heat pumps running through two winters in occupied homes found backup heat carried only a small share of the load even between 0°F and 35°F, and running on backup alone was rare above 0°F. So the deep cold snaps are not where a heat pump struggles most. It's the long stretch of ordinary freezing nights, the 135 of them, where a standard model is working below its rating night after night.

If a heat pump is on the table here, it should carry the ENERGY STAR Cold Climate mark. That designation requires at least 1.75 units of heat per unit of electricity at 5°F and at least 70 percent of the unit's 47°F capacity still available at that temperature, checked by independent testing. A standard heat pump built to the federal minimum was not tested to do that, and Henry County asks for exactly that, night after night, for a third of the year.

A row of houses along a snowy street, with a blue clapboard house with a white porch and icicles in the foreground and brick houses behind it under a clear sky.

What it costs to run, and what the house is already set up for

Run the numbers at Illinois's own prices and gas wins. A gas furnace makes 100,000 Btu of heat for $1.33. A heat pump makes the same heat for $2.12. That's electricity at $46.51 per million Btu against gas at $10.64, and it holds even though the heat pump figure assumes nothing but its federal minimum seasonal rating, with no backup heat added in for the cold nights above. A gas furnace costs at least 37 percent less to run here.

Most houses in Henry County are already built around gas. 72.9% of homes here heat with utility gas, close to three in four. Another 10.5% run on propane. Only 13.9% heat with electricity. A furnace is not a new idea for a house here. It's what the gas line already running to most of these homes was put there to do.

A heat pump still earns its place in the summer. It heats and cools from one system, so a house that gets one takes care of its air conditioning at the same time, with nothing burning indoors. A furnace only heats. For the four months a year heat isn't running at all here, it has no part in the house. Whichever way the furnace-versus-heat-pump question goes, the air conditioner question is still there to answer separately, or answered already if the heat pump is doing both jobs.

Sources: NOAA nClimDiv · NOAA 1991–2020 seasonal normals · EIA SEDS 2024 · 10 CFR 430.32 · PNNL Building America guide · PNNL-37127 field study · ENERGY STAR product criteria · Census ACS 2020–2024

A two-story navy blue house with white trim, a light blue front door and small covered porch, surrounded by snow-covered lawn and bare trees, with a cleared concrete walkway leading to the steps.

Common questions about heat pumps and furnaces

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

    Yes, but a standard heat pump struggles on the coldest nights here. Below 40°F it puts out less heat than its rating, and below about 35°F it often needs backup heat, and the overnight low here averages 18°F across December, January and February. A cold climate model holds up better: to earn that label it has to make real heat at 5°F and keep most of its capacity at that temperature.

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

    With a standard heat pump, yes. Its output drops below 40°F and it often needs backup heat below about 35°F, and every one of the roughly 135 nights a year here that fall to freezing or below is colder than that. A cold climate heat pump needs it less: in field testing, backup heat covered only a small share of the heat used between 0°F and 35°F, and running on backup alone was rare even above 0°F, which happens here on about 12 nights a year.

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

    Yes, that's a dual fuel setup, and it suits the cold here. The heat pump carries the house most nights, and the furnace takes over once it gets too cold for the heat pump to keep up or run efficiently, both marks that fall well above the 18°F average overnight low here in December, January and February.

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

    No, a furnace costs less to run here. A gas furnace makes heat for $1.33 per 100,000 Btu against $2.12 for a heat pump, both at the federal minimum efficiency and Illinois's average fuel prices. That gap holds before adding anything for the backup heat a standard heat pump needs on the coldest nights.

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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