In New Hampshire, a natural gas furnace costs less to run than a heat pump, as long as a gas line already serves the house. The heat pump still beats electric baseboard by a wide margin. The gap between the two comes down to fuel prices and efficiency, and a few local facts about winter and housing stock decide how much it matters for you.
The short answer for New Hampshire
Start with the cost of delivering one million Btu of heat to the house. Computed from EIA residential prices and ENERGY STAR efficiencies, a natural gas furnace at 97% AFUE costs $18.50. A heat pump at 8.1 HSPF2 (a seasonal COP of about 2.4) costs $33.07. Electric resistance baseboard, at 100% efficiency, costs $78.52. The furnace runs $14.57 less per million Btu than the heat pump.
Read those numbers for what they are. They compare fuels on the same unit of heat, at statewide average residential prices. They are not a yearly bill, because a yearly bill depends on the size, insulation and layout of your house. They are not the price of the equipment either, and installation costs can easily change the long-run math.
The picture splits in two. Against gas, the heat pump loses on running cost. Against everything else on the electric side, it wins easily: baseboard costs more than twice what the heat pump does for the same heat. For a house with no gas service, the question is no longer heat pump versus gas. It becomes heat pump versus oil, propane or baseboard, and FACTS here carry no price for oil or propane, so those need a delivery quote.
If gas is already piped to your street and your furnace works, gas is the cheaper system to run; if it is not, the heat pump is the cheapest electric way to heat.
What each option costs to run in New Hampshire
| System | Efficiency used | Cost per million Btu delivered |
|---|---|---|
| Natural gas furnace | 97% AFUE | $18.50 |
| Heat pump | 8.1 HSPF2 (seasonal COP about 2.4) | $33.07 |
| Electric resistance (baseboard) | 100% | $78.52 |
The electricity behind the table is 26.79 cents per kWh, the average residential price in the EIA’s Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.B, year-to-date through July. It is a statewide average. Utilities and rate plans differ, so use it to compare fuels and to estimate, not as a stand-in for your bill. The gas figure comes from EIA’s residential natural gas price, converted at about 1,037 Btu per cubic foot. Your utility’s current gas rate is the one to trust.
Efficiency matters as much as the fuel price because a kilowatt-hour holds 3,412 Btu, and what the equipment does with it varies wildly. Baseboard turns each unit of electricity into exactly one unit of heat. A heat pump moves heat that already exists outdoors, so at a seasonal COP of about 2.4 it delivers more than twice the heat per kWh. That is why electricity at 26.79 cents still produces $33.07 per million Btu with a heat pump and $78.52 with baseboard. A furnace at 97% AFUE wastes almost nothing, and gas is simply the cheaper fuel per Btu here.
One detail helps when you read spec sheets. The $33.07 figure uses 8.1 HSPF2, the ENERGY STAR minimum for ducted systems. ENERGY STAR asks 8.5 of non-ducted (ductless) systems for the same label, because they have no duct losses and must be better to earn it. (What HSPF2 Measures, and Why Ductless Asks for More goes deeper.) SEER2 rates cooling and HSPF2 rates heating, so compare the same letter across two units. Those numbers are minimums for the label, not typical values.
Compare systems on cost per million Btu delivered, never on fuel price alone, and ask each installer which efficiency rating they used.
How cold it gets, and what that does to a heat pump
Manchester Airport, the reference station here, logs about 6,172 heating degree days a year (base 65°F) and about 773 cooling degree days, per NOAA’s 1991-2020 Climate Normals. Heating degree days add up how far the daily mean temperature sat below 65°F across the year, and twice the degree days means roughly twice the fuel for the same house. Six thousand is a long, serious heating season. The coldest month’s mean daily minimum is 17.1°F, so a typical January night is well below freezing for months.
That is one station in the southern part of the state. A mountain county can run far colder, and the north of the state should expect a harder winter than these figures show.
Here is where the heat pump number needs care. The $33.07 uses a seasonal average efficiency. In deep cold a heat pump’s efficiency drops, and the colder the night, the more of the heat comes from a backup, either electric resistance strips or a furnace. On the coldest nights, the system is working at a cost closer to the baseboard figure than the heat pump figure for those hours. The seasonal number blends mild shoulder-season days, where it shines, with hard nights, where it struggles. For a closer look at how far these machines can go, see How Cold Is Too Cold for a Heat Pump.
Treat the heat pump as a system with a backup on the coldest nights, and ask your installer what the backup is and how it is controlled.
What homes in New Hampshire already heat with
The EIA’s 2020 Residential Energy Consumption Survey gives the state’s installed base. By equipment, 53% of homes heat with a furnace and 25% with a steam or hot-water boiler. For central heat pumps the survey does not publish a figure, because the estimate was suppressed as unreliable. That is not the same as zero.
The fuel numbers say more. Fuel oil or kerosene leads at 40%, ahead of natural gas at 28%, then propane at 15% and electricity at 9%. This is a state where gas is not the default, and where a large share of houses were built when oil was the cheap choice. These shares describe what was installed, not what is best now, and they are state figures from a national survey, not a count for your town.
Two practical consequences follow. A house without a gas line cannot use the $18.50 furnace figure at all, because there is no gas to burn. That is a large group in New Hampshire, and for those homes the running-cost comparison starts with the heat pump’s $33.07 against whatever oil or propane quote you can get. A boiler house is a different conversion, since hot water and radiators have no ductwork. A ductless system avoids that problem, and Ductless or Central lays out the tradeoffs. For the wider context, see Heating a Home in New Hampshire.
Before comparing anything, check what your house has: a gas line, a boiler or a duct system decides which conversion you are actually pricing.
When the other choice wins
The cheaper-to-run system is gas, and plenty of New Hampshire situations still point to the heat pump. The first is the obvious one: no gas service. If the nearest main is not on your street, a heat pump costs $33.07 per million Btu to run, against baseboard at $78.52, with oil and propane needing their own quotes.
Air conditioning is the second. Manchester sees about 773 cooling degree days a year, enough that many households want cooling, and a heat pump provides it while a gas furnace does not. If you would otherwise buy a furnace and a separate central air conditioner, the heat pump replaces both, and the equipment side of the ledger changes in ways this running-cost comparison cannot show.
Dual-fuel is the third. A heat pump paired with a furnace lets the heat pump carry the milder days while the furnace takes over in deep cold, when heat pump efficiency falls. In a climate with 6,172 heating degree days and a 17.1°F coldest-month minimum, that pairing is a real option for houses that already have gas.
The last case runs the other way: an old furnace with years left. Running cost is only part of the decision, and a working furnace you already own has no purchase price still to pay. Repairing a Furnace or Replacing It covers when the repair is worth it. If the furnace is near the end of its life, that is the moment to price a heat pump.
If gas is unavailable, if you need cooling, or if your furnace is near the end of its life, price a heat pump (alone or with a furnace as backup) before you default to another gas unit.
Common questions
Is a heat pump cheaper to run than electric baseboard in New Hampshire?
Yes. On the same unit of heat, the heat pump at 8.1 HSPF2 costs $33.07 per million Btu, while electric resistance baseboard costs $78.52. Both use the 26.79 cents per kWh residential average from EIA.
Does a heat pump still work on the coldest nights?
It keeps running, but efficiency drops in deep cold. The coldest month in Manchester has a mean daily minimum of 17.1°F, and a backup (electric strips or a furnace) carries the hardest hours. The $33.07 figure is a seasonal average that already blends those conditions.
Can a house with a boiler and radiators use a heat pump?
Often, yes, usually through a ductless system, since radiators have no ducts to reuse. RECS 2020 shows 25% of New Hampshire homes use a steam or hot-water boiler, and it does not publish a figure for central heat pumps. Get an installer’s assessment of your layout before assuming anything.
Is the cost per million Btu the same as my yearly heating bill?
No. It compares fuels on the same unit of heat at average prices. Your bill depends on the size, insulation and air leakage of the house, your utility’s rates and how you run the system. Use it to rank options, then ask for quotes or estimates specific to your home.