Illinois Heating

Heat pump vs furnace in Whiteside County, Illinois

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Which costs less to run in Whiteside County?

A gray outdoor condenser unit with a top-mounted fan sits on a concrete pad beside a dark blue horizontal lap-sided wall, lit from above at night.

Heat pump

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

A beige gas furnace standing on a concrete basement floor against a dark blue wall, with galvanized metal flue ductwork above it and gas piping and a flexible conduit at its right 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?

  • Steady, even comfort

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

    A dimly lit living room at night with a light blue armchair holding an open book and a navy cushion, a lit tripod floor lamp, a low wooden bookshelf with baskets and framed photos, and a curly brown dog sleeping on a patterned rug.

  • 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 light blue and navy pillows and a blue fringed throw, a wooden coffee table with a woven tray and potted plant, a navy built-in bookcase with books, baskets and plants, a table lamp, and a large window showing green trees and white flowering shrubs.

  • No gas line, nothing burning in the house

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

    A stainless steel stovetop kettle sits on a black induction cooktop set into a white marble counter, with navy cabinets below, a white subway tile backsplash, a crock of wooden utensils, and blue hydrangeas in a glass vase near a window.

Where does a furnace shine?

  • Strong, steady heat in hard cold

    Winter nights here average 17°F, and a furnace is built to put out hard heat right through nights that cold without losing ground. You get the same strong, steady warmth overnight as you do at dinnertime.

    A dark blue two-story house with a white-trimmed covered porch at dusk, with lit windows, a small lit tree, lanterns along a shoveled walkway, and deep snow on the roof and yard.

  • Runs on the gas most homes here already use

    Most homes in Whiteside County, 72.8%, already heat with utility gas. If yours is one of them, a furnace just hooks into the gas line that's already run to the house.

    A row of attached houses with porches, columns and painted railings along a sidewalk, with concrete front steps, exterior gas meters and piping, and snow on the ground.

  • Proven, simple, easy to get serviced

    Parts are easy to find and most repairs are routine. Getting one fixed rarely means waiting on a specialist.

    A gloved hand holds a white pleated air filter in front of a furnace and ductwork, with wooden shelving holding storage bins and a potted plant in the background.

What winter here does to a heat pump

Your furnace or heat pump here runs eight months a year, October through May, longer than any other season does anything to your house. That is the season this decision is about. The overnight low averages 17°F across December, January and February, and it drops to freezing or below on about 140 nights a year, more than half the nights the heat is running at all.

A standard heat pump starts losing ground before it gets anywhere near that cold. Below 40°F it already puts out less heat than its rating says. Below about 35°F it often needs backup heat to keep up. Seventeen degrees, the average winter night here, is past both marks, and every single one of those 140 freezing nights is too. This is not a worst-case question. It is most nights, most winters.

Fourteen nights a year here reach 0°F or below. That is the specific case for a cold-climate heat pump, the kind built and tested to hold most of its capacity at 5°F. A two-winter field test of prototype cold-climate models found backup heat carried only a small share of the load between 0°F and 35°F, and running on backup alone was rare even above 0°F. That is a real answer for the coldest 14 nights. It does not change what happens on the other 140.

A navy front door on a light blue clapboard house, with a blue snow shovel leaning on the porch and snow covering the wooden steps and white railings.

What each one costs to run, and what to buy

A gas furnace costs less to run here, $1.33 against $2.12 per 100,000 Btu of heat, at Illinois's own gas and electric prices. That gap is the federal-minimum version of each machine, with nothing added for a heat pump's backup heat on the cold nights above. A furnace also only heats. For the three months of the year cooling runs here, June through August, it does nothing at all, while a heat pump handles both from one system.

Almost three in four homes here, 72.8 percent, already heat with utility gas. Only 14 percent use electric heat. That is not proof a furnace is right for your house, but it means the gas line and the service network for furnaces are already the common case in this county, and parts and technicians who know the equipment are easy to find.

If your house already has a gas line and you want the lower running cost and the stronger showing on hard winter nights, a furnace is the plainer buy. If you want one system for heat and air conditioning and you are prepared to pay more to run it, a heat pump rated for cold climates is the version built for nights like the 140 you get here, not the standard version. What you should not buy is a standard heat pump counting on its backup strip heat to carry an Illinois winter. The numbers above say that backup will be working most of the season, not just on the rare hard freeze.

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 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.

Common questions about heat pumps and furnaces

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

    A standard heat pump can struggle to keep up on the coldest nights here. Its output falls short of its rating below 40°F, and the overnight low here averages 17°F in December, January and February, with about 14 nights a year at 0°F or below. An ENERGY STAR Cold Climate model is built to hold more of its capacity at 5°F, but a standard heat pump will lean on backup heat on those nights.

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

    Yes, a standard heat pump needs backup heat here. Its heating capacity drops below 40°F and it often can't keep up alone below about 35°F. The overnight low here averages 17°F across December, January and February, and falls to 32°F or below on about 140 nights a year, so those marks get crossed often.

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

    Yes, and here that often means the furnace carries the coldest nights while the heat pump handles the rest. A standard heat pump's output falls short of its rating below 40°F and it often needs backup heat below about 35°F. The average overnight low here in December, January and February is 17°F, so the furnace has real work to do most winters.

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

    No, a furnace costs less to run here. A gas furnace makes heat for $1.33 per 100,000 Btu at Illinois's average gas price, against $2.12 for a heat pump at the average electricity price. Both figures assume the federal minimum efficiency, and the heat pump's number doesn't include the cost of backup heat on the coldest nights.

A person in a navy hooded sweatshirt, tan work pants and a knit cap kneels beside a furnace in a basement utility area, with sheet metal ductwork, PVC and copper piping overhead and a black tool bag on the concrete floor nearby.

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