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These states are basically begging you to get a heat pump
(arstechnica.com)
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this post was submitted on 09 Feb 2024
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I looked into it very seriously, but where I am we regularly get to -40 and are often -20 or lower. All's good up to about that point, but you'll need a gas furnace to assist much past -20. In which case, you are into it for a gas bill anyway of which 2/3 is deliver costs, so you might as well just use a furnace.
And before anyone comes apart on me, I ran off a spreadsheet using very pessimistic gas prices, all the green grants I could come up with and probably overly optimistic heat pump efficiencies at cold weather, and I couldn't make the whole system come in at a price that broke even in less than 20 years. At which point you'd be starting all over again.
So if you're in most of Canada outside of the Lower Mainland and the Niagra Peninsula, and probably a good chunk of the US, no.
Are we talking Celsius or Fahrenheit? -20 F is pretty cold. I think the vast majority of people in North America never experience weather like that. For most areas, occasional supplemental heating by traditional electric heating should be sufficient and avoid the gas hookup issue. It’s not very efficient but only needing it a few times per winter that should be acceptable.
Celsius
It's not about being efficient. If it were just that, no problem, a few nights of expensive heat isn't going to change the equation much over a year. It's a matter of not freezing because there's no way it can keep up whether inefficient or not.
So if you're going to be spending 5k on a furnace anyway, and have to keep a gas bill active, it's just not going to save enough money to pay the heatpump back, especially since you're buying a particularly expensive model in order to have one that works at middle cold temperatures.
I think a powerful enough heater of any kind should keep your warm—so economics is the main question. Perhaps an electric heater that powerful would be too expensive or use too much power.
But regardless, it sounds like you live in an exceptionally cold climate so you may have challenges that the rest of us don’t. I haven’t really heard heat pumps recommended for arctic climates, mainly for temperate ones. My climate is borderline subtropical so I think it will be economical for me.