Heating cost

How to use this tool

This tool prices the same delivered heat four ways: electric resistance, a heat pump, a natural gas furnace, and a propane furnace. You type the heat delivered, in Btu, and two efficiency numbers. The prices come from EIA. The result is the fuel cost of that heat. It is not a quote for equipment, and it does not include a blower, a water heater, or the rest of a house.

Pick the state first. Electricity uses that state's EIA-861 2025 residential all-in average, the same cents-per-kWh figure as the state page. Natural gas uses the EIA annual residential price for 2025. Propane uses the weekly residential price for the week shown under the results. If a state is missing from the gas or propane series, the tool substitutes the U.S. price and says so in the source line. Do not assume a silent fallback.

The Btu box starts at 10,000,000. That is an example load so the four results are non-zero. It is not a typical house and it is not a design-day calculation. Use a load from an audit or from a season you are comparing, and keep that number fixed while you change efficiency, so the four fuels stay comparable.

Electric resistance treats each kilowatt-hour as 3,412 Btu, so kilowatt-hours are delivered Btu divided by 3,412. A heat pump uses the HSPF2 you type. HSPF2 is seasonal Btu of heat per watt-hour, so kilowatt-hours are delivered Btu divided by HSPF2 times 1,000. The box starts at 8. Replace it with the rating on the unit you are comparing. A higher HSPF2 lowers the kilowatt-hours. The tool does not look up a model number.

Both furnaces divide delivered Btu by the AFUE you type to get fuel input. AFUE of 0.95 means 95 percent of the fuel's heat is delivered. The box starts at 0.95 and accepts a fraction from 0.1 to 1. Natural gas heat content is 1,036 Btu per cubic foot delivered to consumers. Propane heat content is 91,452 Btu per gallon. Those three factors are EIA figures checked October 10, 2026. Gas input is reported as therms (100,000 Btu each) and priced from the state price per thousand cubic feet. Propane input is reported as gallons. The methodology page writes the same factors next to the source workbooks.

Read the four dollar figures as a comparison of fuel cost for the Btu and the efficiencies you entered. A cheaper fuel row is not a recommendation to install that system. Installation, duct losses, and a cold-climate capacity limit are not in the arithmetic. If you want the electricity price at a single utility instead of the state average, take the cents figure from the bill calculator and remember that this heating page itself uses the state EIA-861 average.