The January FPL bill versus a gas line in the alley: which heat belongs in your Ormond Beach house
January here has fewer than a quarter of July's degree days. That single fact decides most of this comparison, but not all of it.
What the January bill is telling you
Florida Power & Light sends an Ormond Beach household its highest bills in July and August, and the January bill is a different animal. If it is high, the usual suspect is a heat pump running its electric resistance strips too much, because strips make heat the expensive way. If it is modest, the heat pump is doing its job on the compressor. A January bill that is a fraction of a July bill is normal and healthy. A January bill that rivals July means something is wrong with the equipment or the thermostat, not that you need a gas line.
That matters because the question on this page, Peoples Gas or all-electric, is usually asked after a bad January bill. The bill may be the wrong reason. Here is the right way to decide.
The climate the decision is made in
Ormond Beach logs about 226 heating-degree days in January against 522 cooling-degree days in July alone. The normal January low is around 48, with occasional freezes and record lows in the twenties in a handful of years. A furnace here might log a few hundred running hours before spring; an air conditioner logs thousands. Any heating decision has to be made knowing that the cooling equipment is the main event and the heat is a short season tacked on.
Gas furnace, heat pump, strips: one table
| Compared | Heat pump (all-electric) | Gas furnace + air conditioner | Dual-fuel heat pump |
|---|---|---|---|
| Fuel | FPL electricity | Peoples Gas for heat, FPL for cooling | Both; switches to gas only on the coldest nights |
| Heat on a 48-degree night | Compressor, efficient and cheap | Burner, fast and warm | Compressor |
| Heat on a 28-degree night | Compressor plus electric strips | Burner | Burner |
| Equipment outdoors | One unit, does both jobs | Air conditioner only | One unit |
| Equipment indoors | Air handler with strips | Furnace with coil on top | Furnace with heat pump coil |
| Annual service | One system | Two systems, including combustion check | Two systems |
| Rebates | FPL instant rebate on high-efficiency models | Peoples Gas water-heater rebates only; none on the furnace | FPL rebate on the heat pump portion |
| Where it’s available | Everywhere | Only where a gas main reaches the street | Only where gas reaches |
| Air feel at the register | Warm | Hot | Depends on the night |
| Best fit | Most Ormond Beach houses | Houses already on gas with a working furnace | Large houses already on gas |
A recommendation for each kind of local house
The 1950s-60s block cottage in Ellinor Village, Rio Vista or Ormond Terrace. Heat pump, without much debate. The heating hours are too few to justify a second system, the houses are small, and most have no gas service to begin with. If the cottage has a gas water heater and a main at the street, a dual-fuel setup is a luxury rather than a saving.
The 1970s-80s ranch in The Trails or Woodmere. Heat pump at replacement. Many of these houses have an aging gas furnace under a 2000s air conditioner. When the air conditioner fails, replacing the pair with a heat pump and air handler simplifies the house to one system, collects the FPL rebate, and ends the annual combustion inspection. Keep the gas line for the water heater and the range if you like them.
The 1990s-2000s two-story in Breakaway Trails or Hunter’s Ridge. Heat pump, two of them for two zones, unless the house is already on gas with a furnace in good shape. Then dual-fuel is the reasonable middle: the heat pump carries the mild nights and the furnace the handful of hard freezes.
The large riverside or beachside estate. The one case where gas earns its place. Houses with pool heaters, gas ranges, outdoor kitchens and a main already in the yard can run dual-fuel heat on the main systems and keep the warm-register feel on cold mornings. The cooling side still deserves high-efficiency heat pumps for the FPL rebate and the summer bill.
Anything west of I-95 toward DeLand and the fern country. Heat pump, because Peoples Gas’s listed territory largely stops short of west Volusia. The few propane furnaces out there are serviceable; most owners move to a heat pump at replacement.
The Ormond-by-the-Sea cottage or condo. Heat pump or ductless heat pump. Salt air is hard enough on one piece of outdoor equipment; two is worse, and the beach is a few degrees milder on cold nights anyway.
If you already have gas
Keep the furnace running safely. A gas furnace in Ormond Beach may fire for only a few hundred hours all winter, but its heat exchanger ages with time and humidity, not hours, and the annual inspection with a combustion analyzer is not optional. When the furnace reaches the end of its life, that is the moment to ask the question on this page again, and the answer for most houses will be the heat pump that has been cooling the place all along. Cook’s installs and services every option in the table, from its Palm Coast headquarters, with financing available and the FPL rebate explained.
Gas line or heat strips: what callers want settled
Is natural gas available on my street?
Peoples Gas lists Ormond Beach, Holly Hill, Daytona Beach, Port Orange, South Daytona and unincorporated Volusia in its tariff, but a listed city doesn’t mean a main on every street. Peoples Gas can tell you whether service reaches your address; we can tell you whether it’s worth the connection once you know.
My heat pump 'defrosts' and blows steam. Is that a problem?
No. On a cold, damp morning frost forms on the outdoor coil, and the system reverses briefly to melt it, which looks like steam. It’s normal several times an hour below about 40 degrees. A coil that stays iced for hours is the problem, not the steam.
Does Peoples Gas pay anything toward switching?
Its published rebates are for water heaters, several hundred dollars for switching from electric to gas and somewhat less for replacing gas with gas, not for furnaces. The FPL rebate goes the other way, toward high-efficiency heat pumps. We’ll quote both honestly.
Can a heat pump really keep up on the January nights that hit the twenties?
A modern one, sized for the summer load, keeps up with help from its electric strips on those few nights. Older heat pumps leaned on strips more. If the strips run all winter, the system is undersized, faulty or very old, and that’s a service call rather than a reason to switch fuels.
Pick the heat that fits the house
Call Cook's for a fuel-by-fuel quote on your Ormond Beach home.