Illinois Heating
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Heat Pump Installation in Joliet, IL

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Takes about a minute. No obligation.

Step 1 of 3: Equipment

Electricity here runs 17.91 cents a kilowatt-hour

That is higher than what most US counties pay. A heat pump runs on electricity for both heating and cooling, so that rate applies to the system year round, not just in summer.

Efficiency decides what this system costs to run

A heat pump installed to size and set up right uses less power to move the same heat. At Will County's electric rate, that difference shows up on every bill the system generates.

8 months
October through May, your system heats
3 months
June through August, it cools
20°F
the average winter night it heats against
83°F
the average summer afternoon it cools against
Isometric illustration of a cutaway house showing interior rooms, ceiling ductwork and an air handler, connected by lines to an outdoor condenser unit on a pad beside the building.
Your system heats October through May and cools June through August.

NOAA nClimDiv, 1991–2020 normals

Gas heats 87.9% of homes in Will County.

Most of the heat pumps installed here work alongside the furnace that's already in the house.

Get it installed before the season that needs it starts

Cooling runs June through August
Heat runs October through May
Climate zone 5A
A heat pump here runs through more than mostThe dew point here averages 63°F all summer, and winter brings heavy snow and ice most years.

Will County falls in climate zone 5A, a cool zone where the federal energy code treats heating as the bigger job for a system here. Any split-system heat pump installed since the start of 2023 has to meet a federal minimum efficiency to be sold at all: at least 14.3 Btu of cooling delivered per watt-hour over the summer, and at least 7.5 Btu of heat per watt-hour over the winter. That floor applies everywhere in the country, but it's the baseline any installer here is working from. A federal tax credit is also available toward the cost of a qualifying heat pump. What matters for this house is less about clearing the minimum and more about how far above it the system lands, since that's what decides the running cost on top of it.

Get it installed right, and the savings start on the first bill

Sizing and setup decide how much of every bill goes to running this system. That's fixed at installation, not after. Getting it installed right is what gets you a lower cost on the other side.

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A man in a cap, dark shirt and tan work pants walks up stone steps toward a dark blue front door, carrying a canvas tool bag, with a potted shrub beside the entry.
A white mini-split heat pump outdoor unit mounted on a concrete pad beside a gray-sided house, surrounded by gravel and green shrubs.

It runs outside, in all of it, every year

This system runs outside, in the weather, every day it's on. Will County has seen 202 damaging wind events and 89 hail events between 2015 and 2024, plus 17 winter storms with heavy snow and ice. The outdoor unit, the coil, the fan, the compressor, takes whatever hits it directly, and there's no putting it away for the season. A heat pump installed to the right size handles that load without added strain. One that's oversized or undersized is already working harder than it needs to before the weather does anything to it.

The rating is two numbers, not one

The label carries a cooling rating and a heating rating, and they're not the same number. One tells you what the system costs to run keeping the house cool, the other what it costs keeping it warm. A heat pump can rate well on one side and only average on the other, so look at both, not just whichever one the salesperson leads with.

The rating is a ceiling, not a guarantee

That number describes the equipment tested under set conditions, not the system once it's sitting outside this house hooked to this ductwork. A heat pump that's the wrong size for the space, or paired with ducts that restrict airflow, won't deliver the rating on the label no matter how high it is. The number tells you what the equipment is capable of. Getting there is a function of the installation, not just the unit.

A quote should tell you what size system is going in and why. Bigger isn't better here. A heat pump too large for the space cools the air fast but shuts off before it pulls the moisture out, then kicks back on a few minutes later. One sized right runs longer, steadier cycles and actually keeps up its end in the shoulder months when it's doing the heating alone. Ask what load calculation they ran, not just what size the old system was. Ask what happens below freezing too, since every heat pump leans on backup heat at some point in real cold, and how that's set up matters as much as the unit parked outside.

Storms here don't just stress the system, they can cut its power. Will County has seen 33 tornadoes touch down between 2015 and 2024, on top of the wind and hail that already hit the outdoor unit every year. Across Illinois, 16% of households lost power for a day or more in 2024. A heat pump needs electricity to run, whether it's heating or cooling, so an outage takes the whole system down, not just the air conditioning. Ask the installer where the outdoor unit will sit and what, if anything, breaks a fall of debris or hail before it reaches the coil. Ask what the backup heat does when the power is out, too, since that's the piece that matters most on the coldest night of the year.