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Home Heating Cost Calculator
Winter heating bills are splitting by fuel this year. The U.S. Energy Information Administration expects gas-heated homes to spend $640 on average this winter, down 9%, while oil-heated homes face a 21% jump. Price your own house below: size, climate, insulation, fuel, and thermostat, on one ledger, checked against those national averages.
Sources: EIA Short-Term Energy Outlook, October 7, 2026 (winter 2026-27 averages); DOE Energy Saver (thermostat setback guidance). The model is a rule-of-thumb estimate, not a Manual J load calculation: degree-days, loss factors, and efficiencies are printed in the questions below, and every fuel price is editable. Replace the defaults with your own bill for a number you can act on.
Step 1 — The house
Step 2 — The fuel
Defaults: gas $1.35 per therm, electricity 17 cents per kWh, heating oil $4.60 per gallon, propane $2.60 per gallon. Edit the price to match your last bill. The fuel comparison below reprices automatically.
Step 3 — The thermostat
Rule of thumb, per the Department of Energy: each degree of setback held for 8 hours saves about 1% of heating cost, up to 10% for a 7 to 10 degree setback. Each degree above 68°F on the daytime setting adds about 3%. Heat-pump owners: keep setbacks to 2 or 3 degrees, or backup resistance heat eats the saving.
The itemized ledger
| Line item | Figure |
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Same house, every fuel
Your home, your thermostat, five fuel bills. This is the comparison that decides a fuel switch or a heat-pump quote.
| Fuel | Season cost | Average month |
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Step 4 — The savings plan
Heating cost questions
- How much does it cost to heat a home for a winter?
- The U.S. Energy Information Administration's October 7, 2026 Short-Term Energy Outlook puts average winter spending at $640 for homes heating with natural gas (down 9% from last winter), $1,196 for electricity (up 4%), and $1,246 for propane (down 3%). Homes heating with oil face spending up 21%, with the oil price averaging about 34% higher. Your own bill depends on your home's size, insulation, climate, and thermostat, which is what this calculator prices.
- What does this calculator assume?
- It is a rule-of-thumb model, not a Manual J load calculation. Season heating degree-days: cold climate 5,500, moderate 3,800, mild 2,000. Heat-loss factors per square foot: poor insulation 0.40, average 0.27, good 0.18 BTU per hour per degree Fahrenheit. Delivered heat is degree-days times 24 times square feet times the loss factor. Equipment efficiencies: gas furnace 80%, electric resistance 100%, heat pump COP 3.0, oil furnace 85%, propane furnace 80%. Every price is editable, so replace the defaults with your own bill.
- Why is electric resistance heat so expensive?
- At the defaults, an 1,800 square foot moderately insulated home costs $2,031.70 a season on resistance heat, against $688.12 on natural gas and $677.23 on a heat pump at COP 3.0. Resistance heat turns one unit of electricity into one unit of heat, while a heat pump moves about three units of heat per unit of electricity. At 17 cents per kilowatt-hour and $1.35 per therm of gas, a heat pump breaks even with gas at COP 2.95, so anything above that beats gas on running cost.
- How much does lowering the thermostat save?
- The Department of Energy says turning the thermostat back 7 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit for 8 hours a day can save as much as 10% a year on heating and cooling, about 1% per degree for 8 hours. On the default home, an 8 degree setback for 8 hours saves 8%, or $59.84 of the $747.95 pre-setback season cost. A 10 degree setback for 8 hours saves $74.80. Heat pumps are the exception: deep setbacks can trigger backup resistance heat, so keep heat-pump setbacks small, 2 to 3 degrees.
- Is a heat pump cheaper than a gas furnace?
- At the defaults, yes, by a whisker: $677.23 for the heat pump against $688.12 for gas over the season. The break-even point is COP 2.95 at 17 cents per kilowatt-hour and $1.35 per therm. In mild weather most modern heat pumps run well above COP 3.0, but efficiency falls in deep cold, and backup resistance heat erases the advantage on the coldest nights. In cold climates the honest answer is that a heat pump usually wins on the season and loses on the coldest week.