My electrician is coming Thurs to install an additional 100A subpanel, and

You're in NC right? Sounds about right. By the time you get to NJ, they really aren't viable. 3 ton is 36K BTU, my furnace is 120K. I have a 5 ton AC, which would be 60K BTUS, too small, which is why they have backup resistance heat and that would come into play too much here. I wonder where they mostly disappear? North of DC?

That would be a huge benefit for most of the season. Early on it would get it usable much earlier, it would allow use for maybe another month at the end, and in between it would tune it to the slightly higher temp you want. It also depends on how many collectors. Want it hotter, just add more, they aren't that expensive, it's just you need the room.

IDK, I'm not sure a heat pump is any better than cheap nat gas. I've never seen a heat pump pool heater here.

Right, in the middle of NC.

Heat pumps work very well here. If I lived much north of here I would probably install a heatpump if installing an AC. I doubt the cost would be much different. They are about the same thing with a reversing valve. Use it on the days it was above say around 25 to 30 deg F and switch to some other type of heat when it got colder.

I am talking about the air type HP and not the ones that have coils in the earth or wells.

The resistance heat that comes on when it is much below 25 F starts to be very costly in many areas.

I don't know where the heat pumps start to dissapear,but there are charts that show how cold and hot it is on the average over the US. From this you can tell if the HP makes sense for the area.

The HP is often sized for AC. You want a unit that will run long enough to take the humidity out of the air. That can make ballancing the HP size somewhat difficult, especially where you would need a big one to heat the house in a nothern climite.

I'm in FL now and it seldom gets below 40 here. My electric bill was $70 for January. In CT it would have been closer to $100 plus the cost of heating oil, another $150 or so. They work well in milder climates. Remember some years back when the all electric house was touted as the future? Yeah, not with the cold temperatures and high electric rates in the Northeast.

  Depends on how cold it is , last year we burned about 5 cords . We're still adjusting to increased space and as we're still working on the house I expect the amount of wood needed will drop . I noticed last winter that as I installed more sheetrock the consumption went down . We're down to just the kitchen/dining area with no finished ceiling - it is insulated though . It will get tongue and groove boards , I'm trying to decide if I need plastic sheeting to block airflow heat loss too . This is a vaulted ceiling that's over 11 feet to the peak because I felt a regular 8' ceiling would feel oppressive - it's a single 24 x 24 foot room . I'm pretty sure we lose more heat there than any other single area .

That's a lot of wood. I shudder to think how much we'd need in Michigan. Our heating costs are pretty low, though. Around $100/month for the four coldest months. The air-conditioning is more expensive.

You're right about the ceiling. Nobody wants to feel like they're living in a cigar box.

Cindy Hamilton

They did the math at my wife's club and the heat pump won.

  You're right about AC costing more , just got our bill from the mail box - our highest ones are June July and August .If I had to buy wood at a hundred bucks a cord our total heat bill would be similar to yours ... a qualifier here , much of the wood we burned last year was not seasoned , I figure if it had been it would have been under 4 cords . I'm trying to get ahead of that curve this year - I will be purchasing some firewood , it'll be offcuts from a railroad tie operation at a lot less than $100 a cord . It should give me enough of a boost to get the rest of this year's and all of next year's wood cut/split/stacked .   IMO that vaulted ceiling really adds a lot of character to the house . Our finish out is going to be quite retro , similar to the style of the midtown Memphis houses constructed in the late teens and early 1920's . Plinth blocks and 3 piece baseboards (base , cap and shoe mold) , door headers with crown mold (small) and other trim . Our master bath has a clawfoot tub that was made in 1911 , the vanity is a solid oak washstand that I have modified with a top set bowl and  faux hand-pump style faucet . I had to modify the top drawer for plumbing , but it's still usable and functional . Bathrooms will get retro black and white mosaic tiles , the rest of the house will get prefinished 3/4" solid oak . Oh , and all doorways will be minimum 36" cuz we ain't gettin' any younger ... there are 2 French door units onto the deck big enough that if I need to I can ride the Harleys right into the house . If I had to pay labor for this project this place would be a 900 sf cracker box ... but I managed to learn a little from a lifetime of construction work .

The all elecrtric houses are great. Mine is all electric.

The qualifier is you have to be in an area that is not much different than in the middle of NC where I am or warmer in the winter and the electric rates are not very high. As discussed the heat pump does not work well much below 25 deg F. The resistance electric heat is way expensive if used very much. I bet in the north where it stays below 20 deg much of the time there no way to use electric heat of any kind cost wise.

I remember the so called Gold Madalion homes that were the big thing around this area about 50 years ago. I may be remembering wrong, but think when I was very little I was in someones house that had that madalion on it. Then there were the commercials about heating with oil and how inexpensive it was. The first oil I bought was around 1972 just before the big oil crisis. It was less than 20 cents per gallon delivered. The very next time or two I filled up the tank I had sticker shock. Not sure what it is now, probably over $ 2 per gallon.

Before that oil crisis it seemed the most houses had very little to no insulation on it. Dad had his 6 room house worked over (it was built before WW2) around 1960 and an oil furnace put in to replace two oil burning stoves. I remember he saying it was a 100,000 btu unit. It did do a good job of keeping the house warm even though there was no insulation in the walls. Not sure about the cealing.

Down the street from me in CT was a small development of about 25 houses, all electric. About 24 of them converted to other forms of heat. Electric was .21/kwh. Heating with resistance electric makes no sens there.

Last year there I paid about $2.30 for oil. Few years back it topped at $3+

In the 70s in Chicagoland, Con Ed had a deal with home builders to promote "All Electric" houses. Advertised how "clean" it was. Was about the time when Braidwood and other nuclear reactors were popular. Builders loved it because it made the appliances cheaper. As I recall, that program didn't last long once electric bills started to skyrocket.

Northern Illinois gas had a similar program to encourage gas use. I can recall the house we lived in had a gas driveway light. Essentially a pilot light with a mantel, like a Coleman lantern. Ran 24/7. That got replaced with a traditional electric lamp when gas prices spiked.

My house was built in 1959. No insulation, except the attic. Chicago suburb. The attic has about 8" of what looks like rock wool, probably put in later. It's brick, and the outer walls are drywall on furring. I was going to frame and insulate those walls, but since fracking my heating/AC costs aren't high enough to justify that. If I remodel my kitchen, I will frame/insulate the outside wall.