Your furnace dies on a Thursday night in January, and by Friday morning you’re on the phone trying to figure out whether to replace it with the same thing or finally make the switch to a heat pump. The decision feels urgent, and most of what you find online either oversimplifies the tradeoffs or repeats tax credit information that’s no longer accurate.
We’ve been working through this exact conversation with Westerville homeowners since we opened in 1994. One thing that shapes how we approach it: our technicians are paid an hourly wage, not a commission, and our replacement estimates are handled by a separate non-commissioned sales consultant. That structure matters because the answer to “furnace or heat pump” genuinely depends on your home, and we have no financial reason to steer you one way or the other.
Here’s what actually goes into that decision.
How Furnaces & Heat Pumps Actually Work
A furnace burns fuel (natural gas, propane, or in some cases electric resistance elements) to generate heat and push it through your ductwork. The efficiency measure is AFUE (Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency): what percentage of the fuel consumed actually becomes useful heat. A 92% AFUE furnace turns 92 cents of every dollar of gas into warmth; the other 8 cents goes up the flue.
A heat pump doesn’t generate heat at all. It moves heat through a refrigerant cycle, pulling warmth from outdoor air and transferring it inside during winter, then reversing the process to cool your home in summer. The efficiency measure is COP (Coefficient of Performance): the ratio of heat delivered to electricity consumed. A COP of 3.0 means you’re getting three units of heat for every one unit of electricity you pay for.
That distinction has one practical consequence worth naming: a heat pump handles both heating and cooling from a single system. A furnace only heats, so it requires a separate air conditioner. If you’re replacing both pieces of equipment at once, that changes the cost comparison significantly.
What Actually Drives the Decision for a Westerville Home
There’s no universal answer to the furnace versus heat pump question, and any article that gives you one without asking about your home first should be read skeptically. The variables that actually drive the decision here are fuel access, operating cost at current local rates, how your home holds up during extended cold snaps, and the honest state of available incentives right now.
Fuel Source & Real Operating Cost
Westerville homes are served by Columbia Gas of Ohio for natural gas and AEP Ohio for electricity. At current Ohio energy prices, a 92% AFUE gas furnace runs roughly $14.53 per million BTU delivered. A heat pump operating at a seasonal COP of 2.29 comes in around $23.59 per million BTU. If your home is already connected to natural gas and you’re comparing a high-efficiency furnace to a standard heat pump on operating cost alone, the furnace comes out ahead on a per-BTU basis under today’s rates.
That said, operating cost is only one piece. If you’re in an all-electric home without a gas line, or if you’re replacing both your furnace and air conditioner, the calculation shifts. A heat pump replacing two systems often closes the gap on installation cost, and its cooling efficiency typically outperforms a standard central air system.
Cold Weather Performance
Ohio winters are the number one reason homeowners hesitate on heat pumps. The concern is legitimate, though the picture is more nuanced than “heat pumps don’t work in the cold.”
NOAA’s 1991 to 2020 climate normals for John Glenn Columbus International Airport show a January normal high of 37.1°F and a normal low of 22.0°F, with 5,233 heating degree days per year. The bulk of your heating season runs through temperatures where a modern heat pump performs well. The genuinely challenging hours (sustained temperatures below 15°F) happen, but they’re not the majority of the season.
ENERGY STAR-certified cold-climate heat pumps are designed for climates like ours. To earn the Cold Climate designation, a system must demonstrate a COP of at least 1.75 at 5°F and maintain at least 70% of its rated 47°F heating capacity at that same low temperature. Even so, extended stretches of single-digit cold can push the system to lean on backup heat. If that backup is electric resistance, the cost jumps sharply: electric resistance runs roughly $53.93 per million BTU at current Ohio electricity rates, making it the most expensive heating option available on your coldest days. A furnace doesn’t have this problem. Its output stays consistent regardless of outdoor temperature, which is why homes that see extended hard freezes often do well with gas heat.
The Federal Tax Credit That No Longer Applies
This is the section most online articles are getting wrong right now. The Section 25C Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit covered 30% of a qualifying heat pump’s cost up to $2,000, and it expired for any equipment placed in service after December 31, 2025, under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed on July 4, 2025. Eligibility was tied to the “placed in service” date, meaning the system had to be installed and fully operational by that deadline. Orders placed or contracts signed before the cutoff didn’t qualify if the installation itself happened in 2026.
Ohio’s state-administered HEAR and HOMES rebate programs, which could have offered up to $8,000 for income-qualified households, hadn’t launched as of mid-2026. AEP Ohio’s utility efficiency programs remain one of the more concrete options currently available to Westerville homeowners, and it’s worth confirming what’s current before assuming a rebate you read about somewhere still applies.
Dual-Fuel Systems: A Middle Path for Ohio Winters
If you want the efficiency benefits of a heat pump for most of the season without giving up the reliability of a gas furnace during hard cold snaps, a dual-fuel system is worth understanding. The setup pairs a heat pump with a gas furnace, and the two work together rather than competing.
During mild weather, the heat pump runs efficiently, keeping operating costs low. When outdoor temperatures drop below a set point called the balance point, the system automatically switches to the furnace. The balance point isn’t a factory default; a technician sets it based on the specific equipment’s performance curve and on what the math actually says about when gas becomes cheaper than electricity at your local rates. Done correctly, you get electric heat when it’s efficient and gas heat when it’s not, without any manual switching on your end. For many Westerville homes that already have a gas line and functional ductwork, this setup addresses the cold-weather concern directly and often makes the most financial sense across the full year.
Making a Confident Decision Instead of a Pressured One
The right system for your home isn’t the one that wins a generic comparison article. It’s the one that fits your fuel access, your ductwork, your comfort priorities, and how the numbers actually pencil out at current local rates with current incentives. A Manual J load calculation (a room-by-room analysis of how much heating and cooling your home actually needs) is the technical foundation of that answer. Without it, equipment sizing is a guess.
We approach this decision the same way we have since October 1, 1994: we look at the home, run the numbers honestly, and give you a recommendation we’d stand behind whether you have a gas line or not, whether you’re replacing one system or two. If you’d like that kind of straightforward walkthrough, Care Heating and Cooling is available at (614) 482-4360.