What your bills look like after converting from gas to electric

The honest starting point

If you replace a gas furnace with a central heat pump, your electricity bill will go up. Your home’s heating moves from one bill to the other; it would be strange if it did not.

The whole question is what happens to the total of the two.

What works in electricity’s favour

The heat pump’s efficiency. It moves heat rather than making it. For every kilowatt-hour it consumes it delivers the equivalent of two to three in heat. A conventional electric furnace, or a baseboard, does one for one.

Quebec’s residential rate. Hydro-Québec has among the lowest residential rates in North America. The same reasoning would reach a different conclusion elsewhere.

The gas account’s fixed charges. If the conversion lets you close the account entirely, the monthly fixed charges disappear too — not just the consumption.

What works against it

Backup heat. During cold snaps the electric backup takes over and runs at baseboard efficiency. It is the most expensive part of the system. The better sized and more cold-climate capable your heat pump, the less this weighs.

The settings. Aggressive thermostat setbacks trigger the backup every morning, which can cancel a good share of the advantage.

The building envelope. A poorly insulated house is expensive to heat whatever the energy source. Converting does not fix that.

How we give you a real number

We do not work from averages. At the evaluation we start from your actual consumption over the last twelve months — your Énergir and Hydro-Québec bills — and estimate what each becomes after conversion, informed by your home’s load calculation.

You get both scenarios side by side: gas replacement and electric conversion, with the applicable rebates deducted.

The number people forget

One figure often enters the conversation too late: a heat pump also cools. If you were going to replace the air conditioner in the next few years anyway, that cost drops out of the electric scenario entirely.

And if the numbers do not favour it?

We will tell you. We install gas furnaces and have been a certified Énergir partner since the 1970s — we have no reason to push everyone toward electricity.