On Ohio’s average residential prices, a natural gas furnace costs less to run than a heat pump, and both beat electric baseboard by a wide margin. The gap is real but not enormous, and it only matters if the house has a gas line. Equipment cost, air conditioning and the coldest nights pull the decision in other directions, so fuel price is where the comparison starts, not where it ends.
The short answer for Ohio
Here are the numbers, computed from EIA residential prices and ENERGY STAR efficiencies. Delivering one million Btu of heat to the house costs $13.77 with a natural gas furnace at 97% AFUE. A heat pump at 8.1 HSPF2 (seasonal COP about 2.4) costs $23.09 for the same heat. Electric resistance baseboard, at 100% efficiency, costs $54.81. The cheapest to run here is the gas furnace, at $9.32 less per million Btu than the heat pump.
Read that as a price per unit of heat, not a yearly bill. It compares the same amount of warmth from three systems, and says nothing about equipment or installation costs. Square footage, insulation, window quality and thermostat habits decide how many million Btu a house actually burns through in a winter. A leaky 1950s ranch and a tight new build will land far apart on the same three rates.
The heat pump figure is also deliberately conservative. It uses the ENERGY STAR minimum for a ducted unit, a seasonal average, so a model rated above that does better than $23.09 on paper. Heat pump performance also slips in deep cold, which matters in Ohio and gets its own section below.
If the house already has a gas line and a furnace in good shape, the furnace is the cheaper system to run; if it has no gas, the heat pump is the cheaper electric choice, at $23.09 against $54.81 for baseboard.
What each option costs to run in Ohio
| System | Efficiency used | Cost per million Btu delivered |
|---|---|---|
| Electric resistance (baseboard) | 100% | $54.81 |
| Heat pump | 8.1 HSPF2 (seasonal COP about 2.4) | $23.09 |
| Natural gas furnace | 97% AFUE | $13.77 |
Behind the table sits one electricity price: 18.70 cents per kWh, the average residential price for Ohio, year-to-date through July, from the EIA’s Electric Power Monthly (Table 5.6.B). It is a statewide average, and utilities and rate plans differ. The furnace line comes from the EIA’s average residential natural gas price, converted at about 1,037 Btu per cubic foot. The gas price itself isn’t quoted here, so your own utility’s current rate is the number to check against your bill.
Why efficiency matters as much as the fuel price
One kilowatt-hour holds 3,412 Btu. Baseboard turns all of it into heat, one unit of electricity for one unit of warmth. A heat pump moves heat from outdoors instead of making it, so at a seasonal COP of about 2.4 each kWh yields roughly that many times more heat. That is why the same 18.70 cents buys heat at $23.09 through a heat pump and $54.81 through baseboard. The furnace wins on the opposite logic: little is lost up the flue at 97% AFUE, and the fuel is cheap per Btu.
The label also changes with the equipment type. ENERGY STAR asks for 8.5 HSPF2 from a non-ducted system but 8.1 from a ducted one, because a ductless unit has no duct losses and must do better to earn the same badge. We unpack that in What HSPF2 Measures, and Why Ductless Asks for More. Ask for the exact HSPF2 of the model you are quoted, and compare it only with another HSPF2, never with a SEER2 figure.
How cold it gets, and what that does to a heat pump
Columbus is the reference station here, and its NOAA 1991-2020 normals show about 5,233 heating degree days a year (base 65°F). Heating degree days add up, across every day, how far the average temperature sat below 65°F. Twice the total means roughly twice the fuel for the same house. That is a long heating season, and the coldest month’s mean daily minimum is 22.0°F, below freezing. One airport station can’t speak for the whole state, though. Other parts of Ohio can run colder or milder than Columbus.
A mean minimum of 22.0°F is an average of the coldest month’s nights. Plenty of individual nights run below it. The $23.09 figure uses a seasonal efficiency, so it blends mild shoulder-season days, when a heat pump is at its best, with the hard nights when output per kWh falls. In deep cold the unit works harder for less heat, and a backup takes over: resistance strips inside the air handler, or a gas furnace.
Backup choice changes the bill. Strips deliver heat at the $54.81 baseboard rate, so every hour they run eats into the savings. A furnace as backup delivers it at $13.77. This is the logic behind a dual-fuel setup, which we come back to below. The details of cold-weather performance, and where it varies by equipment, are in How Cold Is Too Cold for a Heat Pump.
Plan for the coldest nights before you buy: ask what backup heat comes with the heat pump and how it is sized to carry a night colder than the 22.0°F average.
What homes in Ohio already heat with
The EIA’s 2020 Residential Energy Consumption Survey (state tables) shows the installed base. Furnaces are the main equipment in 77% of Ohio homes, central heat pumps in 5%, and steam or hot-water boilers in 5%. By fuel, natural gas leads at 64%, electricity follows at 23%, and propane is at 7%. For fuel oil and kerosene, the survey does not publish a figure, because the estimate was suppressed as unreliable. That is not the same as zero.
Those shares describe what was installed, not what is best. They reflect which fuel was cheap and available when the houses were built, and they are state numbers, not a count for your street. For a deeper look at regional practice, see Heating a Home in Ohio.
The comparison shifts with the house. Many of the homes in the 23% on electricity and the 7% on propane have no natural gas line, which makes the gas furnace at $13.77 an irrelevant benchmark. Propane has no price in our data, so ask your supplier for the current rate. Against baseboard, the heat pump’s $23.09 stands on its own. A boiler house is a different conversion altogether. Hot-water radiators have no ductwork, so a heat pump means installing ducts or going ductless, and Ductless or Central covers that choice.
If there is no gas line, compare the heat pump with baseboard or propane quotes, not with the gas furnace.
When the other choice wins
The cheaper-to-run system is not always the right buy. Start with air conditioning. Columbus logs about 1,068 cooling degree days a year, so cooling is a real load, not a luxury. A heat pump heats and cools with one set of equipment, and ENERGY STAR sets its minimum at 15.2 SEER2 for the cooling side. If the central air conditioner is also near the end of its life, a furnace-only replacement means buying cooling separately, and one heat pump may cover both jobs.
A dual-fuel setup is the middle road for homes that already have gas. The heat pump handles the mild and moderate hours, and the gas furnace carries the coldest nights at $13.77 per million Btu instead of strips at $54.81. It costs more up front for two systems, but it keeps the cheaper heat for the stretch where a heat pump struggles most.
Then there is the system that still works. A furnace with years left has already been paid for, and replacing it early to chase a running-cost difference of $9.32 per million Btu in the other direction makes little sense. The question is the repair bill against the remaining life, which Repairing a Furnace or Replacing It walks through.
When the furnace runs fine but the air conditioner is failing, get a quote for a heat pump or a dual-fuel pairing before replacing the air conditioner alone.
Common questions
Is a heat pump cheaper to run than electric baseboard in Ohio?
Yes. On the EIA price of 18.70 cents per kWh, a heat pump at 8.1 HSPF2 delivers a million Btu for $23.09, against $54.81 for baseboard. The gap comes from efficiency, since both use the same electricity.
Does a heat pump still work during an Ohio winter?
It does, with a caveat. At Columbus, the coldest month’s mean daily minimum is 22.0°F, and a heat pump’s efficiency drops in deep cold. A backup, either resistance strips or a furnace, carries the hardest nights, and how much of the winter it runs depends on the unit and the house.
Does the $9.32 gap tell me my yearly savings?
No. It is the difference per million Btu of heat delivered, using average state prices. Your yearly cost depends on how many million Btu your house needs, so insulation, size and thermostat habits all change the total. Your utility’s actual rates will also differ from the averages.
What HSPF2 rating should I look for?
ENERGY STAR’s minimums are 8.5 HSPF2 for non-ducted split systems, and 8.1 for ducted split systems and single-package equipment. These are the floor to earn the label, not a recommendation for a particular house. Compare heating ratings with heating ratings, since SEER2 only measures cooling.