Heat Pump or Furnace: What Works in a New Hampshire Winter
Cold climate heat pumps really do work here, but they are not the right answer for every house. What we look at before recommending one.
By Chris Wheeler, Co-owner ·
We get asked this constantly, and the honest answer is that it depends on the house more than it depends on the equipment.
Ten or fifteen years ago the advice was simple. Heat pumps did not work in New England, and anybody who told you otherwise was selling something. That is no longer true. Cold climate models hold useful capacity well below zero now, and we install a lot of them. But the old advice stuck around, and so did some overcorrection in the other direction, where every house is supposedly a candidate. Neither is right.
Here is what we actually look at.
How well does the house hold heat
This matters more than the brand on the box. A heat pump delivers a large volume of moderately warm air, steadily, over long run times. That works beautifully in a house that holds what you put into it. In a house with an uninsulated attic and original windows, the heat pump ends up leaning on backup electric heat every cold snap, and backup electric heat is the most expensive way to warm a room in this state.
If your insulation is poor, the money is better spent there first. We will tell you that even though it means we sell you less equipment this year. A tightened up house makes every heating system cheaper to run, and it lets you buy a smaller heat pump when you do get one.
What you are heating with now
The math changes a lot depending on what you are leaving behind.
If you are on oil or propane, a heat pump usually wins on operating cost, sometimes by a wide margin, and you stop scheduling deliveries and worrying about a tank. If you are on natural gas, it is closer, and it can go either way depending on your rate and your house.
We will not quote you a payback number in a blog post. Fuel prices move, electric rates move, and anybody who gives you a confident number without looking at your last twelve months of bills is guessing. Bring us your bills and we will do the arithmetic honestly.
Ductwork, or the lack of it
If you already have good ducts in reasonable shape, a ducted heat pump is a clean swap and the house feels the same as it always did.
If you have hot water baseboard and no ducts, running new ductwork through a finished house is invasive and expensive. That is usually where ductless mini splits make sense instead, one head per zone. Different install, different price, different look on the wall. Some people love the flexibility of zoning each room. Some people do not want a unit visible in the living room. Both reactions are legitimate and you should see one in person before you decide.
Do you want to keep a backup
A lot of our customers land on a hybrid setup. The heat pump does the work for most of the season, and the existing furnace or boiler picks up the coldest stretches. You get the operating cost savings through the shoulder seasons and the deep winter, plus the reassurance of a fuel burning system when it is ten below and the power has been flickering.
It costs more up front because you are maintaining two systems. For some households the peace of mind is worth it, especially rural properties where an outage means a long wait. For others it is money that would have been better spent on insulation.
What we will not do
We will not tell you a heat pump is a drop in replacement that will feel identical. It will not. The air is cooler, the run times are longer, and the way you operate the thermostat changes. Most people adjust within a few weeks and never think about it again, but you should know going in.
We also will not size one off a rule of thumb. Square footage times a number is how you end up with an oversized system that short cycles and never dehumidifies properly in the summer. A proper load calculation looks at your insulation, your windows, your air sealing, and your actual orientation. It takes longer and it is the reason the system works.
If you are weighing this for your own house, call us and we will come look at it. Free estimate, and if the answer is that you should insulate the attic first and revisit next year, that is what we will say.