Skip to content 
In most Berks County homes, a modern cold-climate heat pump costs less to run than an oil or propane furnace, and roughly the same as a high-efficiency natural gas furnace. Your fuel price decides it, not the equipment. If you heat with oil or propane, a heat pump system installation usually wins on running cost.
Key Takeaways
- Fuel price decides the winner. Oil and propane homes almost always save with a heat pump. Natural gas homes are close to a coin flip.
- Cold climate ratings are real. An ENERGY STAR cold climate heat pump has to hold at least 70 percent of its rated heating capacity down to 5 degrees Fahrenheit.
- Sizing beats brand. A properly sized average unit will outperform an oversized premium one every winter.
- The federal credits are gone. The 30 percent energy efficient home improvement credit ended for property placed in service after 31 December 2025.
- Dual fuel is the honest answer for a lot of Berks County houses. Heat pump for most of the season, existing furnace for the cold snaps.
How Each System Actually Makes Heat
A furnace burns something. Gas, oil, or propane goes into a burner, the flame heats a metal heat exchanger, and a blower pushes air across it and out through your ducts. If you are replacing an older system, proper heating installation matters just as much as the equipment itself because sizing, ductwork, and setup all affect comfort and operating cost. Burn more fuel, get more heat. That is the whole idea.
A heat pump does not burn anything. It moves heat that already exists in the outdoor air into your house, using a refrigerant circuit and a compressor. Even at 20 degrees Fahrenheit there is usable heat energy in the air outside. The machine concentrates it and brings it indoors.
That difference is why the two are measured on completely different scales.
The two efficiency numbers, in plain terms
AFUE is Annual Fuel Utilization Efficiency. It tells you what share of the fuel you buy turns into heat in your house. A 95 percent AFUE furnace turns 95 cents of every fuel dollar into heat. Nothing that burns fuel can go past 100.
HSPF2 and COP measure a heat pump. Because the machine is moving heat rather than creating it, it can deliver more heat energy than the electrical energy it consumes. A COP of 3 means three units of heat out for one unit of electricity in. That is not a marketing trick. It is how refrigeration works, running backwards.
Do Heat Pumps Actually Work Through a Berks County Winter?
Yes, if you buy the right one. The heat pumps people complain about are mostly ten to twenty years old, or they were sized for a mild climate and installed here anyway.
The standard to look for is the ENERGY STAR Cold Climate designation. To carry it, a ducted split system has to hit an HSPF2 of at least 8.1 and, more importantly, prove low temperature performance: a coefficient of performance of at least 1.75 at 5 degrees Fahrenheit, while still holding at least 70 percent of the heating capacity it makes at 47 degrees. Those thresholds are published in the ENERGY STAR heat pump criteria.
In plain terms: at 5 degrees, a cold climate unit is still producing seven tenths of its normal heat and still returning nearly twice the energy it draws. Berks County rarely spends much of the season below 5 degrees.
What happens on the coldest nights
Every heat pump has a balance point. That is the outdoor temperature where the heat it can make equals the heat your house is losing. Above the balance point, the heat pump handles everything. Below it, something has to make up the difference.
That something is either electric backup strips, which are expensive to run, or a furnace. Which one you have is the single biggest factor in whether your January bill feels reasonable or feels like a mistake.
Running Costs by Fuel Type
We are not going to print a dollar figure and pretend it fits every house in Kutztown and the surrounding towns. Your bill depends on your insulation, your ductwork, your thermostat habits, your electric supplier, and what you paid for your last oil fill. Anyone quoting you an exact annual saving without seeing your house is guessing.
What we can do honestly is tell you which direction each fuel points.
| Your current heat | Likely running cost vs a cold climate heat pump | Our usual recommendation |
| Heating oil | Heat pump clearly cheaper in most winters | Strong case to switch |
| Propane | Heat pump clearly cheaper in most winters | Strong case to switch |
| Electric resistance or baseboard | Heat pump dramatically cheaper | Switch, almost without exception |
| Natural gas, older furnace under 80 percent AFUE | Heat pump usually cheaper | Worth pricing both |
| Natural gas, modern 95 percent AFUE furnace | Roughly level, varies by rate | Keep the furnace, add a heat pump for cooling and shoulder season |
The row people are surprised by is the last one. If you already have a good gas furnace, ripping it out to save on heating rarely pays. But it with a heat pump so the heat pump carries autumn and spring, and the furnace only fires in deep cold, often does. If you heat with oil or propane, our heat pump installation team can price the switch for your house.
The one number worth working out yourself
Take your last full year of fuel spend. Divide it by the number of heating months you actually ran the system. That is your real monthly heating cost. Bring that number to any contractor, ours included. A quote that cannot beat it is not worth signing.
Dual Fuel: The Setup We Recommend Most Often Here
A dual fuel system, sometimes called a hybrid, is a heat pump paired with a gas or propane furnace on the same ductwork. A single thermostat switches between them based on outdoor temperature.
Here is why it fits Berks County housing so well. A lot of homes around Topton, Mertztown and Fleetwood have a serviceable furnace and no air conditioning, or an air conditioner on its last legs. Replacing the air conditioner with a heat pump costs a little more than replacing it with a plain condenser, and it converts the furnace into a backup instead of the whole heating system.
- You get cooling, which you were buying anyway
- You get cheaper heat for the eight or nine months a year that are not brutally cold
- You keep the furnace for the cold snaps, so you never gamble on a system you have not lived with yet
- You are not writing a cheque for equipment that still has service life in it
If your existing furnace repair and service history has been clean and the heat exchanger is sound, this is usually the honest recommendation over a full changeout.
What Changed With the Tax Credits
This one matters, because a lot of articles still online have not caught up.
The federal Energy Efficient Home Improvement Credit paid 30 percent of qualified costs, up to 2,000 dollars a year for heat pumps and up to 600 dollars for a furnace, boiler or central air conditioner. According to the IRS guidance on this credit, it applied to qualifying property placed in service before 31 December 2025. Property placed in service after that date does not qualify.
So if a salesperson is still building a 2,000 dollar federal credit into your quote maths, that quote is wrong. Ask them to redo it. Utility level rebates and manufacturer promotions can still exist and change through the year, and those are worth asking about specifically by name. The blanket federal credit is not on the table anymore.
Call F&H at (610) 349-2181 and we will price both options with the current rules, not last year’s. No credit gets written into a number we hand you unless we can show you where it comes from.
Sizing Is Where Most of the Money Is Won or Lost
An oversized system short cycles. It blasts heat, satisfies the thermostat quickly, shuts off, and repeats. That wears out components, leaves rooms uneven, and on a heat pump it wrecks efficiency, because a heat pump is at its best running long and steady.
The right way to size is a Manual J load calculation. That is a room by room heat loss and heat gain assessment based on your actual square footage, insulation, window area and orientation. It is not a guess based on the old unit’s nameplate, and it is not a rule of thumb per square foot.
This matters more in older Berks County stock than almost anywhere. A 1920s farmhouse with blown-in insulation and replacement windows has nothing in common, load-wise, with the same house untouched. Sizing off the old furnace repeats whatever mistake was made decades ago.
What a proper assessment should include
- A room by room load calculation, not a square footage rule
- A look at the existing ductwork, because a heat pump moves more air at a lower temperature than a furnace and undersized ducts will fight it
- Electrical panel capacity check, since a heat pump plus backup strips can need more service than you have
- A written balance point and a plan for what runs below it
- The refrigerant line set condition, if you are reusing it
Where Geothermal Fits In
If you are already committed to a big change and you have the land for it, ground source is worth a conversation. Ground temperature at roughly 30 feet down stays between about 50 and 59 degrees Fahrenheit year round, according to the Department of Energy geothermal overview. A ground source system draws from that stable temperature instead of the outdoor air, so it does not lose capacity on the coldest night of the year.
The trade-off is the loop field and what it costs to put in the ground. We install and service geothermal heating and cooling systems and we will tell you plainly when your lot, your soil or your budget makes it the wrong call.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is it better to have a heat pump or a furnace?
It depends on your fuel. If you heat with oil, propane or electric baseboard, a cold climate heat pump will almost always cost less to run. If you have a modern natural gas furnace, the running costs are close, and the better move is usually to keep the furnace and add a heat pump for cooling and mild weather.
Why is my electric bill so high with a heat pump?
Usually because the backup electric strips are running more than they should. That points to an undersized unit, a balance point set too high, a refrigerant charge problem, or a thermostat set to emergency heat and forgotten. All four are diagnosable in one visit.
What is the major disadvantage of a heat pump?
The air coming out of the vents is cooler than furnace air. It is warm enough to heat the house, but it does not feel hot on your hand. People used to a furnace often read that as the system underperforming when it is working exactly as designed.
Is it okay for a heat pump to run all night in winter?
Yes. Long, steady runtime is how a heat pump is meant to work and it is the efficient way to run. Short bursts are the warning sign, not continuous operation.
Do heat pumps need a backup heat source in Pennsylvania?
Practically speaking, yes. Either electric backup strips or an existing furnace. Which one you use is the difference between a comfortable winter bill and a painful one, so it should be a deliberate decision, not whatever the installer defaults to.
How long does a heat pump last here?
Expect a shorter service life than a furnace, because a heat pump runs year round for both heating and cooling. Annual maintenance and a clean outdoor coil make a bigger difference to lifespan than the brand on the badge.
Getting a Straight Answer for Your Own House
The right system for the house next door might be the wrong one for yours. The only way to know is to have someone look at the ducts, the panel, the insulation and your actual fuel bills, and then say what they would do.
Call F&H Heating, Cooling & Plumbing at (610) 349-2181 and ask for a heat loss assessment and a side by side quote on both options. You will talk to Bob or Logan, not a call center. Quotes are free. Monday to Friday, 8am to 8pm. We serve Berks County and the Lehigh Valley. You can also reach us through our contact page.
F&H Heating, Cooling & Plumbing
20 Spruce Street, Topton, PA 19562
Phone: (610) 349-2181
Hours: Monday to Friday, 8am to 8pm. Closed Saturday and Sunday.
Licensed, bonded and insured. PA Master Plumber PA037966. In business since 1980.
Serving Topton, Kutztown, Fleetwood, Mertztown, Reading, Hamburg, Sinking Spring, Allentown, Emmaus, Macungie, Breinigsville, Coopersburg, Pottstown and Harleysville.
