Home / Guides / Heat pump vs furnace

Heat pump vs furnace

A furnace makes heat by burning fuel, or by electric resistance, and pushes it through ducts. A heat pump moves heat. In heating season it moves heat from outdoors in. In cooling season the same machine moves heat out. There is no flue on a heat-pump-only system.

In a cold climate the comparison is not “heat pump versus a furnace that ran last year.” It is capacity at the design temperature, the backup you keep, the ductwork you already have, and the price of electricity versus the fuel you would have burned. Efficiency Maine publishes a comparison with stated fuel and electricity assumptions. Those assumptions are on our cost page, dated, and they are not a promise about your house.

Some Mass Save Heat Pump Installer Network contractors also list conventional furnaces and boilers in the equipment field of the state file. That is a service the file records. It is not a recommendation to keep a furnace.

Related: cold-climate heat pumps.

Last reviewed 2026-11-03. Publisher: ElectrifyRadar.