Shipments of air-source heat pumps, air-furnaces and ACs in the U.S. 2003-2024

In 2024, there were more shipments of air-source heat pumps than of air furnaces in the United States. The landscape of home heating is shifting, with heat pumps having increased their market share since 2012. In 2022, over half of all heating systems sold in the U.S. were heat pumps. However, in the cooling segment, central air conditioners were still significantly more popular than heat pumps, despite heat pumps generally being able to both cool and heat.

Most homes still heat with fossil fuels

Despite the growing popularity of heat pumps, over half of all U.S. homes still used fossil fuels for heating in 2023. Utility gas was the most popular heating fuel, with bottled, tank, or LP gas being present in roughly five percent of homes. Nearly 42 percent of housing units had heating systems running on electricity. That includes heat pumps, but also electric heaters of different types.

Heat pumps dominate the south

There were, nevertheless, big regional differences when it came to heat pump adoption. Most of the states with the highest share of homes using central heat pumps were in the south of the United States. In South and North Carolina, Alabama, and Tennessee, over a third of households had central heat pumps installed, while that percentage only amounted to 13 percent in the U.S. as a whole. There were several states, such as New York, California, Massachusetts, or Iowa, where less than five percent of homes had heat pumps.