What's the best way to heat out of these two options?

Question

We currently have a wall furnace that runs on natural gas, but we need a new air conditioner and we noticed that some units are heat and cool units. So I am curious, should we get a heat and cool unit and use that to heat instead of the wall furnace, or are we better off going with a cooling unit only. What is the most cost effective and efficient way to heat. We are looking for a window unit of approximately 12000-18000 BTUs, we need to heat and cool about 900 square feet. What is the average BTU of a wall furnace? Any help is appreciated. Thanks.

Answer 1

Natural gas is cheaper to run than electrical heating/cooling units and gas heating are more effective with heating and better for our environment than using electricity.(cooling only) good luck.

Answer 2

the heat/cool units you're referring to are Heat Pumps i believe. They work by drawing heat out of the air in winter and then drawing heat out of the house in summer. We live somewhere where it's at or below freezing for most of the winter, which isn't great for heat pumps. There is some heat in 32F air, but it's more efficient in slightly warmer climates.

If you're looking to replace the furnace and you live in an area that's good for heat pumps, that would be a nice way to go, but they might not make them that small. 900 sq ft is a small area, i would guess you need about 30,000 to 40,000 BTU to heat and 12,000 to 18,000 to cool. The cooling could be done separately with a wall AC unit.