In Utah, a natural gas furnace costs less to run than a heat pump at the average prices in federal data. The gap is $6.12 per million Btu of heat delivered. That compares fuel and efficiency on the same unit. It is not a yearly bill, and it says nothing about what the equipment costs to buy. A few local facts can still tip the decision toward the heat pump.
The short answer for Utah
Start with the numbers. Computed from EIA residential prices and ENERGY STAR efficiencies, a million Btu of heat delivered costs $10.13 with a natural gas furnace at 97% AFUE. A heat pump at 8.1 HSPF2 (a seasonal COP of about 2.4) costs $16.25. Electric resistance baseboard, the system a heat pump most often replaces in a house with no gas, costs $38.57.
The gas furnace wins on running cost by $6.12 per million Btu. The heat pump lands much closer to gas than to baseboard, but it does not catch gas at Utah’s average prices.
Two cautions. These figures are running costs for the same unit of heat, so they are not a yearly bill. A bill depends on the size of the house, how tight it is, and how many winter hours the system actually runs. And they say nothing about installation, which is a separate calculation. For the wider picture of how Utah homes stay warm, see Heating a Home in Utah.
The takeaway: if a gas line already serves the house, the furnace is the cheaper system to run, and the heat pump’s real advantage is over electric baseboard, not over gas.
What each option costs to run in Utah
Here is the comparison, with each system’s efficiency and its cost per million Btu of heat delivered into the house.
| System | Efficiency used | Cost per million Btu delivered |
|---|---|---|
| Natural gas furnace | 97% AFUE | $10.13 |
| Heat pump | 8.1 HSPF2 (seasonal COP about 2.4) | $16.25 |
| Electric resistance (baseboard) | 100% | $38.57 |
Behind the electric figures sits a residential price of 13.16 cents per kWh, the average through July 2026, from the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s Electric Power Monthly, Table 5.6.B. It is a statewide average, so your utility and rate plan may differ. The gas figure comes from EIA’s average residential natural gas price, converted at about 1,037 Btu per cubic foot. The gas price itself is not reproduced here. Your actual rate should come from your gas utility’s bill or rate sheet.
Fuel price is only half the story, because efficiency decides how much of each purchased unit becomes heat. One kWh carries 3,412 Btu. Baseboard turns all of it into heat. A heat pump at a seasonal COP of about 2.4 moves roughly that multiple of the electricity’s energy into the house. A 97% furnace wastes almost nothing from its fuel. So a cheap fuel in a poor machine can lose to a pricier fuel in a good one, and the table already accounts for that.
One detail matters when you shop. The 8.1 HSPF2 used here is the ENERGY STAR minimum for ducted systems. For the same label, ENERGY STAR asks 8.5 HSPF2 of non-ducted units, because they have no duct losses and must beat that head start to earn the badge (ENERGY STAR criteria). These are minimums, not typical values. What HSPF2 Measures, and Why Ductless Asks for More explains the rating in detail. When comparing two heat pumps, compare HSPF2 to HSPF2, since SEER2 only measures cooling.
How cold it gets, and what that does to a heat pump
The reference city for Utah is Salt Lake City, where NOAA’s 1991-2020 normals count about 5,154 heating degree days a year (base 65°F). That total adds up, day by day, how far the average temperature sat below 65°F. Twice the degree days means roughly twice the fuel for the same house, so this is the number that turns a climate into a cost.
The coldest month has a mean daily minimum of 24.2°F. That is an average night, not a record low, and it sits below freezing. Winter here is a real heating season, though not an Arctic one.
That is one station. A mountain county in the same state can run far colder, and a heat pump priced for the valley floor will not behave the same way up the canyon. If your home is at higher elevation, treat these numbers as a floor for how hard winter works, not a ceiling.
The $16.25 heat pump figure uses a seasonal efficiency. It is an average across the whole heating season, and in deep cold a heat pump’s efficiency drops. On the coldest nights its real cost per million Btu runs above that seasonal figure, and a backup system carries part of the load. That backup is either electric resistance strips inside the unit or a furnace. Resistance strips deliver heat at the $38.57 rate, so how often they run matters. How Cold Is Too Cold for a Heat Pump covers how cold-climate models behave and why the answer depends on the model and the house.
No single temperature cutoff makes a heat pump a bad idea in Utah. The better question is how much of the winter it will cover and what covers the rest. Ask any installer how the backup is set up and when it switches on, because that is where a heat pump’s running cost can drift toward baseboard.
What homes in Utah already heat with
The EIA’s 2020 Residential Energy Consumption Survey is blunt about it. In Utah, 90% of homes heat mainly with a furnace, and 86% use natural gas as the main heating fuel. Electricity is the main fuel for 13%.
For central heat pumps, steam or hot-water boilers and propane, the survey does not publish a figure (the estimates were suppressed as unreliable). For fuel oil or kerosene, it reports none, meaning too few households were found to publish a number. Neither is the same as zero. It means the survey cannot say how many homes use them.
These shares describe what was installed, not what anyone should buy. They largely reflect which fuel was cheap and available when the houses were built, and Utah’s gas-and-furnace pattern is strong. They are also statewide shares from a national survey, not a count for your county or your street.
For a typical Utah house, this means the ductwork and the gas line are probably already there. A heat pump can often use the existing ducts, so the swap is a mechanical change, not a rebuild. A house without a gas line changes the math entirely: the fair comparison is heat pump against baseboard or other electric heat, $16.25 against $38.57 per million Btu.
A boiler house is a different conversion. With radiators and no ducts, a heat pump means either new ductwork or ductless heads. Ductless or Central walks through that choice. If your house has a boiler or no ducts, price the ductless path first, since the duct-ready shortcut does not apply.
When the other choice wins
Running cost is one input, and sometimes it loses. The gas furnace is cheaper per million Btu, but several Utah situations point the other way.
No gas service, or a need for cooling
Without gas service, the furnace is not on the table. Getting a line to the house is a separate project, and the heat pump at $16.25 clearly beats baseboard at $38.57. Cooling is the other tilt. Salt Lake City logs about 1,420 cooling degree days a year (NOAA, 1991-2020 normals), enough that many households want air conditioning. A heat pump heats and cools with one machine. A furnace-plus-air-conditioner setup means two. If you were going to replace the cooling anyway, the heat pump’s higher fuel cost buys a unit that does both jobs.
Dual fuel and aging equipment
Dual fuel pairs a heat pump with a gas furnace. The heat pump handles the milder hours, and the furnace takes over on the coldest nights. That setup fits the pattern above: the pump works where its seasonal efficiency holds, and gas, the cheaper fuel in this comparison, covers deep cold when the pump’s efficiency drops. The cost is carrying two systems.
An old system with years left argues for patience. A working furnace costs nothing to replace today, and the running-cost gap is a few dollars per million Btu, not a reason to scrap sound equipment. Repairing a Furnace or Replacing It lays out when repair stops making sense. Keep a healthy furnace running, and revisit the question when the repair bills or the cooling need arrive.
Common questions
Is a heat pump cheaper to run than a gas furnace in Utah?
Not at the average prices used here. A million Btu costs $10.13 with a 97% AFUE gas furnace and $16.25 with a heat pump at 8.1 HSPF2. The furnace is $6.12 less per million Btu.
Does a heat pump still work on Utah’s coldest nights?
It keeps running, but its efficiency drops in deep cold, and a backup (resistance strips or a furnace) carries the hardest hours. The $16.25 figure is a seasonal average, so it understates cost on the coldest nights.
Is the cost per million Btu my annual heating bill?
No. It compares fuels on the same unit of delivered heat. Your bill depends on the size and tightness of the house, thermostat habits and your utility’s actual rates.
Do most Utah homes heat with natural gas?
According to the EIA’s 2020 survey, 86% of Utah homes use natural gas as the main heating fuel, and 90% use a furnace. Those are statewide shares, so your county may look different.