In addition, 90% of survey respondents with heat pumps said they would recommend them, and 82% said their HVAC contractor was very influential or somewhat influential in their decision to have a heat pump installed. 

The results correspond to AHRI data showing that more heat pumps than gas furnaces were sold in the U.S. every year since 2022. 

“If you had asked me 10 years ago if I thought heat pumps were going to outpace furnace sales in the United States, I would have laughed and fell onto the floor,” said Patty Gillette, senior director of marketing at METUS. “No chance I thought that was going to happen.” 

Some 37% of survey respondents said they had a heat pump in their home, with homeowners in the Northeast and the West reporting the highest rates of ownership, 54% and 49%, respectively. Heat pump adoption in the Midwest and the South were lagging, the survey showed. 

“I do believe the Midwest, the Southwest, and the South are huge opportunities for heat pumps,” Gillette said. “And I think it’s a matter of time before we see similar growth there.” 

The coronavirus pandemic, because it meant that more people started working from home and viewed their homes differently, added momentum to heat pump adoption, Gillette said. 

“People changed the way they lived in their homes, and they needed to have heating and air conditioning in the garage or the room over that old shed that they didn’t use,” she said. “And then once they installed one heat pump, it became a lot easier for them to consider it for more applications in their homes.” 

Although the survey did not target homeowners with heat pumps, Gillette said those with them may have been more likely to respond, perhaps accounting, partially, for the ownership rates the survey found. According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), 13% of U.S. homes had a central heat pump in 2020, the most recent year for which EIA statistics are available. 

“I think people who have heat pumps love them, and I bet they would be more inclined to respond than someone with a traditional furnace, which is a pretty low-interest product with consumers,” Gillette said. “That’s my gut. I don’t have numbers to say that.” 

The survey was the second such METUS heat pump survey, and Gillette said she expects the company to conduct the survey annually for a while.  

“It gives us a lot of credibility to have the data to fall back on,” she said. 

METUS will use the survey results in its marketing, especially on social media platforms, to further spread the word about heat pumps, Gillette said. 

“It’s a little scary to put in technology that you’re not familiar with, but when you see it all the time socially, when you see it in your neighbor’s homes, you feel a lot more confident about it,” she said. 

The results will also be used, Gillette said, to stress to contractors how much influence they have over homeowners’ HVAC purchasing decisions. 

“We train thousands of contractors every year, and we will reinforce the importance of their point of view with homeowners,” she said. 

Contractors, Gillette added, are the HVAC authority for many homeowners. 

“When we show contractors how influential they are with consumers, the idea is to open their (homeowners’) eyes, to take the time to explain why an all-electric heat pump would be better than simply a push-pull installation of the same furnace that they’ve had in their basement for years,” Gillette said. 

The METUS survey also found: 

• Respondents between the ages of 31 and 44 — Millennials — showed the most concern about burning fossil fuels in their homes, with 77% saying that was a concern for them. They were followed by Generation X (68%), Baby Boomers (62%), homeowners between the ages of 25 and 30 (54%), and those over the age of 78 (50%).

• More than three-quarters of respondents — 77% — said they were aware of federal and state tax credits for home upgrades. 

• Some 75% said they always or often take energy efficiency into account when considering home improvements. 

• Greater energy efficiency, better heating, and cost savings were the top three benefits of heat pump ownership, according to respondents who had them. 

• Among respondents with conventional HVAC systems, 93% said they were concerned about their utility bills, 66% said their home cooling costs rose last summer, and 65% said their heating costs rose during the most recent winter. 

• The largest knowledge gap when it comes to heat pumps was found in the Midwest, with 60% of respondents there saying they had no in-depth knowledge of heat pumps or had never heard of them. The smallest knowledge gap was in the West, with 36% of respondents there reporting they had never heard of or had no in-depth knowledge of heat pumps.