Illinois Heating

Heat pump vs furnace in Lake County, Illinois

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Which costs less to run in Lake County?

An outdoor air conditioning condenser unit on a concrete pad beside a dark blue horizontal-lap sided wall at night, with a wall-mounted disconnect box and insulated refrigerant lines running to the unit.

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?

  • 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.

    Living room with a white-framed sash window overlooking a green garden, a potted plant and books on a wooden bench below, a navy built-in bookcase at left, and a pale sofa with a navy knit throw and blue table lamp at right.

  • No gas line, nothing burning in the house

    There's no gas line to the unit and no flame anywhere in it. Carbon monoxide isn't part of the picture.

    A kitchen with a navy blue island topped by a white stone counter holding a black induction cooktop, a white kettle, green apples on a wooden tray and a blue striped towel, with pale grey cabinets, a window, a potted plant and a wooden stool nearby.

  • 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 with a lamp, a gray armchair holding an open book and navy pillow, a beige sofa, built-in shelves, and a yellow Labrador sleeping on a woven rug beside a wooden table with candles.

Where does a furnace shine?

  • Strong, steady heat in hard cold

    Winter nights here average 19°F, and a furnace puts out the same hot air no matter how far the temperature drops. You won't feel it struggling to keep up on the coldest nights.

    A blue two-story house with lit windows and a snow-covered roof at dusk, with a cleared paved walkway between deep snowbanks, a lamp post at left, and snow-laden conifers behind.

  • Runs on the gas most homes here already use

    Most homes in Lake County already have the gas line a furnace needs, since utility gas heats 83.2% of homes here. If your house is one of them, hooking up a furnace is straightforward, no new fuel source to bring in.

    A row of attached houses along a snowy sidewalk, with concrete front steps, navy and white porch railings, brick and painted siding facades, and an exterior gas meter with piping at right.

  • Fast, strong heat on demand

    The air coming from the vents feels genuinely hot. That's welcome on a freezing morning.

    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.

What winter here does to a heat pump

Your furnace or heat pump runs eight months a year here, October through May, and the overnight low averages 19°F across the three coldest months. That one number decides most of this argument. A standard heat pump's output starts falling short of its rating below 40°F, and below about 35°F it often leans on backup heat to keep up. Lake County's average winter night is below both marks.

This is not a handful of bad nights. About 135 nights a year here drop to freezing or below, more than half the nights across the eight months the heat runs. On every one of those nights, a standard heat pump is working below the point where it puts out its full rated heat. Ten nights a year reach 0°F or below, a smaller slice, and that's where a cold-climate model earns its keep: to carry the ENERGY STAR Cold Climate label, a heat pump has to deliver at least 1.75 units of heat per unit of electricity at 5°F and hold onto 70 percent of its 47°F capacity at that temperature, checked by outside testing. A standard heat pump carries no such guarantee at those temperatures.

That doesn't mean the house goes cold. Field tests of cold-climate heat pumps running through two winters in occupied homes found backup heat only covered a small share of the load between 0°F and 35°F, and the system almost never ran on backup alone unless it was already below 0°F. A heat pump built for this climate, paired with backup for the coldest nights, keeps up through a Lake County winter. A heat pump bought to the federal minimum is a different machine, and this is where it struggles.

A two-story navy blue house with light blue shutters, white trim, a small columned front porch and stone foundation, with a snow-covered lawn, bare trees, and a concrete walkway leading to the sidewalk.

What it costs to run, and what the house already has

Run the two side by side on what they burn and gas wins clearly: $1.33 per 100,000 Btu for a furnace against $2.12 for a heat pump, both at the federal minimum and Illinois's average fuel prices. That's gas costing at least 37 percent less to make the same heat, and it holds for all eight months the heat runs, not just the cold snaps. A heat pump closes some of that gap by doing your air conditioning too, June through August, while a furnace only heats and sits idle the other four months of the year.

What's already running your street matters here too. Utility gas heats 83.2 percent of homes in Lake County, a little over four in five. Electricity heats 14.7 percent, a little over one in ten. A gas furnace keeps you on the fuel most of your neighbors already use. A heat pump means no gas line and nothing burning in the house, which is worth something on its own, but if your home came with a gas furnace, switching means new electrical work and possibly a backup heat source sized for a 0°F night.

If your house already runs on gas and the furnace works, a furnace built for this climate costs less to run and has no trouble with a 19°F average or a 0°F night. If you want one system for heat and air conditioning, or you'd rather not have gas in the house, a heat pump will do the job here, but look for one rated for cold climates, not the federal minimum, because this county spends more than half its heating season below freezing.

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

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.

Common questions about heat pumps and furnaces

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

    It can, but not at full strength on the coldest nights. Below 40°F a standard heat pump puts out less than its rated capacity, and below about 35°F it often needs backup heat to keep up. The average overnight low here is 19°F, and about 135 nights a year fall to freezing or below, so that backup heat is doing real work most winters.

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

    Most homes here will want it. The average winter low in Lake County is 19°F, well below the 35°F mark where a standard heat pump typically needs help and the 40°F mark where its output starts falling short of the rating. A cold-climate model holds up better in the teens and near zero, but field tests still show backup heat stepping in during the coldest stretches, even if it only supplies a small share of the total heat.

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

    Yes, and in Lake County that is how most heat pumps end up working. The furnace handles the coldest nights, the roughly 135 a year that fall to freezing or below, while the heat pump covers the rest. That way neither machine has to carry the whole eight-month heating season on its own.

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

    No. A heat pump runs $2.12 per 100,000 Btu of heat in Lake County against $1.33 for a gas furnace, so the furnace costs less to run. That gap comes from Illinois electricity pricing against natural gas pricing, not from either machine being inefficient.

A person in a dark blue shirt and cap kneels on a basement floor opening the panel of a gray furnace beside sheet-metal ductwork and a water heater, with an open tool bag on the floor nearby.

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