A homeowner in Beaverton asked your comfort advisor how much the heat pump would save her, and your advisor gave the number he has been giving since 2024. She had her September bill on the counter. The two numbers did not match, the appointment got quiet, and she said she would think about it. That was not a closing failure. Your savings math is quoted off an electricity rate that no longer exists.
On September 14, 2026 the National Energy Assistance Directors Association published its Winter Heating Report, projecting the average US household will spend $1,030 to heat this winter, up 8.7% or $82 on last winter and more than two and a half times the rate of inflation. Inside that average the fuels moved apart. Natural gas is up 5.8%, electricity is up 9.0%, propane is up 8.7% and heating oil is up 31.3%. Oregon matters here more than most states, because roughly half of Oregon homes heat with electricity.
This is fixable, and the fix is in what you publish and quote rather than in how hard your team closes. What follows is what the report says, six ways an 8.7% heating bill lands in an HVAC pipeline, how it hits Oregon, South Dakota, Wyoming and Ohio differently, and what to put in front of a homeowner in October.
What the September 2026 Winter Heating Report Actually Says
The report says heating will cost more this winter for every fuel, and that the gap between electricity and natural gas widened again. NEADA published it on September 14, 2026, putting the average household winter heating cost at $1,030, an increase of $82 or 8.7% on last winter, against inflation running at well under half that.
The Four Fuels, and Which One Your Sale Depends On
Electricity is rising faster than natural gas this winter, which is the single fact that matters to an HVAC sales conversation. Households heating with electricity face a 9.0% increase, natural gas households 5.8%, propane households 8.7% and heating oil households 31.3%. Electricity is the fuel a heat pump runs on and natural gas is the fuel it usually replaces, so the product you have spent two years learning to sell just got relatively more expensive to operate in every market where both fuels are available.
The Five Year Picture Is the One That Changed Your Pitch
Across five years the divergence is much larger than one winter suggests. Since the 2021 to 2022 heating season, NEADA puts electricity up 35.7% and natural gas up 16.9%. Heating oil is up 62.1% and propane is down 14.7%, the only common heating fuel cheaper than it was five years ago. A savings comparison built in 2022 and never rebuilt is now wrong in both directions: too generous about electricity and too pessimistic about propane.
Why This Is a Demand Story Rather Than a Weather Story
The affordability numbers in the report tell you what kind of buyer walks into this heating season. About one in six US households is behind on a utility bill, residential utility debt stands near $23 billion, and 2024 saw 13.4 million electric disconnections and 1.7 million natural gas disconnections. NEADA is asking Congress to raise LIHEAP funding from $4 billion to $7 billion. Executive director Mark Wolfe put it this way: this is a warning that too many families are entering winter with no room left in their budgets. That household still needs heat in January. What it does not have is an easy yes to a five figure replacement.
Six Ways an 8.7% Heating Bill Lands in Your Pipeline and Margin
A higher heating bill does not arrive as a marketing problem. It arrives as six things going slightly wrong, each blamed on the sales team before anyone checks the rate.
1. Your Savings Comparison Is Quoted Off a Rate That Has Expired
An operating cost comparison is only as current as the tariff behind it, and most contractor comparison sheets have not been rebuilt in two years. The homeowner has the bill in front of them and you have a spreadsheet from 2024, so the first number you say out loud costs you authority for the rest of the appointment. Rebuild the comparison whenever your utility's rates change, and date it on the page.
2. In Oregon the Increase Landed Directly on the Heating Fuel
Oregon is the state in this set where a national electricity increase is a heating increase rather than a lighting increase. Roughly half of Oregon homes heat with electricity, so the 9.0% national figure compounds on top of local rises rather than sitting beside them. On April 1, 2026 the Oregon Public Utility Commission let Portland General Electric raise residential rates about 5%, around $8 a month, and Pacific Power about 3%, around $4 a month, across roughly 1.5 million Oregon households. That was the sixth consecutive year of approved increases, leaving rates more than 50% above where they were five years ago. A Portland or Salem homeowner is not reacting to a report. They are reacting to six bills in a row.
3. The Lead Changed Its Wording From Replace to Lower
Homeowners worried about a bill search for the bill, not for the equipment. The query that used to read furnace replacement near me now reads why is my heating bill so high, or how to lower heating costs, or is a heat pump cheaper than gas. Those searches carry real buying intent and they land on utility pages and news articles rather than on contractor sites, because almost no HVAC company has written the page that answers them properly for its own metro.
4. Your Finance Approval Rate Is About to Fall
Consumer credit quality and utility arrears move together, and one in six households is now behind. A homeowner carrying a past due power bill is a homeowner whose finance application is more likely to be declined or approved at a lower amount than the job you scoped. If your sales process presents a single system at a single price and waits for the lender, you will lose deals in November that you would have kept with a good, better, best structure and a second lender.
Pull your last 90 days of finance applications and calculate two numbers: the approval rate, and the average approved amount against the average quoted amount. If approved amounts are running below what you quote, your close problem is a structuring problem. Build a second option that fits the approved number rather than discounting the first one.
5. Repair Is Winning the Repair Versus Replace Conversation
A household with no slack in its budget repairs a fifteen year old furnace rather than replacing it, and that is rational. Repair revenue is lower margin, arrives in emergencies, and consumes the technician hours you would rather sell as installs. The answer is not to argue harder for replacement. It is to make every repair leave behind a maintenance agreement, a dated condition report and a scheduled follow up, so the replacement happens on your calendar rather than on a Saturday in January.
6. The Utility Is Giving Your Customer Advice Before You Are
Every utility in a rising rate environment publishes conservation guidance, rebate pages and bill assistance information, and those pages rank. By the time a homeowner calls you they have already read that they should lower the thermostat, seal the ducts and check for a rebate. That is not bad advice, and treating it as competition is a mistake. The opportunity is that none of those pages can tell a homeowner in Eugene what a specific system costs to run in their own house at their own rate, which is the only question they actually want answered.
Where the Heating Bill Bites Hardest: Oregon, South Dakota, Wyoming and Ohio
The same national increase produces four different sales conversations here, because the dominant heating fuel, the local rate history and the regulator all differ.
Oregon: The State Where the Electricity Increase Is the Heating Increase
Oregon carries more exposure to a rising electricity price than almost any state in the country, because electricity is the heating fuel for about half its homes. The Oregon Department of Energy puts the share of Oregon homes heated with electricity near 50%, against 42% of US households nationally on 2024 Energy Information Administration figures. When NEADA says electric heating households face a 9.0% rise, that lands on half the doors in Portland, Salem and Eugene as a heating bill rather than as a line item.
Two Oregon specifics make the conversation different from anywhere else in this article. The first is the rate history: the Oregon Public Utility Commission approved increases for Portland General Electric and Pacific Power effective April 1, 2026, the sixth year running, leaving residential rates more than 50% higher than five years ago, and Portland General Electric asked for nearly 4% more for the following year on July 31, 2026. The second is who is driving the load. Industrial power consumption in Oregon grew close to 70% over the last decade while residential demand grew about 10%, so the homeowner reading about data centers in the Willamette Valley already suspects the increase is not about them. Commission chair Letha Tawney has framed the rates as reflecting the real cost of delivering power safely and reliably. Your customer has framed them differently.
Write the page that gives an Oregon homeowner a straight answer: what a ducted heat pump, a ductless system and a high efficiency gas furnace each cost to run per month at the current Portland General Electric or Pacific Power residential rate, dated, with the assumptions shown. Say plainly where gas still wins and where it does not. Most companies selling HVAC services in Oregon publish a rebate page and a phone number, which is the one thing the utility already does better.
| State | The heating fuel that matters and what it did | The local rate story behind the national number | What belongs in front of the homeowner |
|---|---|---|---|
| Oregon | Electricity, for about half of homes. Up 9.0% this winter and 35.7% in five years | Sixth straight year of increases approved by the Oregon Public Utility Commission, April 1, 2026, rates more than 50% above five years ago | Dated running cost per month at the actual PGE or Pacific Power residential rate |
| South Dakota | Propane across rural counties, up 8.7% this winter but still 14.7% below 2021 | The only common heating fuel that is cheaper than five years ago, in a state with one of the longest heating seasons | Reliability and response time, because the fuel cost argument is weakest here |
| Wyoming | Gas and electric heating against extreme heating demand and long drive times | The Public Service Commission approved a 10.2% Rocky Mountain Power increase in April 2025, about $14 a month, after 5.5% in January 2024 | A service plan that prices the drive, and equipment sized for the coldest week, not the average |
| Ohio | Natural gas, up 5.8% this winter and 16.9% in five years, the mildest increase of the four | PUCO ruled on AEP Ohio distribution rates on April 2, 2026 and added a minimum charge for new data center customers | Dual fuel rather than a straight heat pump swap, plus the Apples to Apples supply conversation |
South Dakota, Wyoming and Ohio: Three Different Answers to the Same Bill
South Dakota is the state where the fuel cost argument helps you least, and knowing that is worth more than repeating it. Propane heats a large share of rural South Dakota homes, and propane is the one common heating fuel NEADA shows below its 2021 level, down 14.7% over five years even after an 8.7% rise this winter. A Sioux Falls or Aberdeen homeowner on propane has not experienced the squeeze the report describes, so an appointment that opens with rising energy costs will not connect. What does connect in a state with a long, severe heating season and a thin technician pool is response time: what happens at minus 20 on a Sunday, how fast someone reaches Rapid City, and whether the part is on the van. Sell reliability, and let the South Dakota Public Utilities Commission handle the rate story.
Wyoming has the rate history to justify the conversation and the geography that decides your margin. The Wyoming Public Service Commission approved an $85.5 million increase for Rocky Mountain Power in April 2025, about 10.2%, adding roughly $14 to a monthly residential bill from that June, and that followed a 5.5% general increase in January 2024. So a Cheyenne or Casper homeowner has lived the same story as an Oregon one. The difference is that in Wyoming your cost to serve is dominated by distance. A call to Gillette is a half day whatever the ticket, which makes maintenance agreements and first visit resolution worth more per customer here than almost anywhere, and makes an undersized system a return trip you pay for twice.
Ohio is where the honest answer is dual fuel, and where almost nobody says so. Natural gas heats most Ohio homes and gas rose only 5.8% this winter, the mildest of the four fuels, which means a straight gas furnace to heat pump conversion in Columbus, Cleveland or Cincinnati is a harder sell on running cost than it was two years ago. Ohio also has retail supply choice: the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio runs the Apples to Apples charts that let a residential customer compare gas and electric suppliers on price and contract terms. A contractor who explains dual fuel properly, and who tells a homeowner that their supply rate is worth checking before they buy anything, wins the trust that the conversion sale needs. On the electric side, PUCO ruled on AEP Ohio's distribution rate case on April 2, 2026 and layered a minimum monthly charge on new data center customers, so the question of who pays for load growth is live in Ohio too.
What Homeowners Type in October When the Bill Goes Up
October search behavior moves from equipment words to bill words, and whoever ranks for the bill words owns the heating season.
The October Query Is About the Bill, Not the Box
Bill driven searches convert at a lower rate per visit and a higher rate per dollar, because the homeowner is early and unclaimed. Why is my electric bill so high, what does a heat pump cost to run, and should I repair or replace my furnace all carry a real purchase within one season. They are also the questions your competitors answered with a generic post and no local numbers, which is what leaves the opening.
Publish the Running Cost Math, With the Rate and the Date on the Page
A page that shows its assumptions outranks and outconverts a page that states a conclusion. Give the rate you used, the date you checked it, the system sizes, the assumed run hours and the resulting monthly cost, then show the same math for the alternative. Search engines and AI assistants lift that kind of passage cleanly because it answers the question completely in one block, and homeowners forward it to their spouse, which is the actual conversion event in a replacement sale.
Answer the Comparison Before the Utility Does
The utility will publish conservation advice and the rebate list, and it will rank for them. What it will not do is tell a homeowner which of two specific systems is cheaper to run in their own house, because it cannot take sides on equipment. That is the gap. A contractor page that compares a ducted heat pump, a dual fuel system and a high efficiency furnace at the local rate is the only page in the market that answers the whole question, and it is cheap to build.
Take the five questions your comfort advisors are asked most often about running costs and write one page for each, with your metro in the heading and today's utility rate in the body. Date every page. Rebuild them the week your local commission approves a rate change. Four hours of work each buys you the only content in your market that is both local and current.
What Replaces a Savings Pitch Built on Old Rates
The durable move is to sell the bill rather than the system, which changes what you advertise, recommend and attach.
Sell the Bill, Not the Equipment
Homeowners do not buy efficiency ratings, they buy a smaller number on a statement they already resent. Lead with what the monthly bill becomes, show the arithmetic, and be honest where the answer is a few dollars. Contractors who overstate savings win the sale and lose the referral, because the first February bill settles the argument for them.
Make Dual Fuel the Default Recommendation Where Gas Is Cheap
Dual fuel is the correct answer in a market where gas rose 5.8% and electricity rose 9.0%, and it is also the higher ticket. A heat pump paired with the existing or a new gas furnace runs on whichever fuel is cheaper as the temperature moves, which protects the homeowner from exactly the divergence the report describes. Most companies present it as an upsell at the end. Present it as the recommendation and the conversation changes.
Build the Maintenance Base That Survives a Bad Winter
Maintenance agreements are what a capital constrained heating season leaves you with, and they are bought at the same moment the bill arrives. A plan sold in October produces two visits, priority scheduling in a cold snap, and a documented system history that makes the replacement conversation easy in two years. Companies that entered 2026 with a large plan base are the ones quoting calmly now.
How Leadnox Approaches a Heating Season Priced Like This
Leadnox builds HVAC contractors the local pages and paid demand that answer a bill question, which is a different brief from advertising system replacement.
Local Pages That Carry Real Rates
Leadnox writes and ranks the running cost pages a homeowner reads before they call, built around the actual residential rate in the metro and dated so they stay credible. For an Oregon contractor that means pages naming Portland, Salem and Eugene, the current Portland General Electric and Pacific Power residential rates, and a straight comparison of heat pump, dual fuel and gas running costs. Written that way, the passage is lifted cleanly by search engines and AI assistants and it arrives with a homeowner who already trusts the numbers.
Paid Demand Aimed at Bill Intent, Not Just Equipment Intent
Leadnox runs performance marketing against installed systems and splits budget between urgent no heat demand and the bill driven research demand that shows up in October. That means separate campaigns, separate landing pages and separate measurement, because a homeowner asking what a heat pump costs to run is eight weeks from buying and should not be counted, or bid on, like a no heat call.
Automation That Catches the October Question
Leadnox builds the follow up and answering systems that keep an eight week research cycle from leaking. A homeowner who asks about running costs in October and hears nothing until they call a competitor in December was never lost on price. Scheduled follow up tied to the first inquiry, a financing option that arrives before it is asked for, and an answering system that catches the evening call recover a meaningful share of that work.
The Numbers to Watch From October Through March
Four metrics tell you whether you have adjusted to this heating season or are still selling the last one. Review them monthly beside the install schedule.
Cost Per Installed System, by Product
Cost per installed system is marketing spend divided by systems actually installed, split by product type. Splitting it matters this year because heat pump and dual fuel campaigns are moving in different directions, and a blended number will hide which one is carrying the other. Run it monthly and expect the answer to change as rates change.
Finance Approval Rate and Approved Amount
Finance approval rate is the share of applications approved, and approved amount against quoted amount tells you whether your offer fits the market. With one in six households behind on a utility bill, both numbers are likely to soften this winter. A gap between approved and quoted is a signal to restructure the offer rather than to discount it.
Repair to Replace Ratio
Repair to replace ratio is the count of repairs against replacements over the same period, and it moves before revenue does. A rising ratio means budget pressure is reaching your customers and your install revenue will follow in about a quarter. It is also the early warning to push maintenance agreement attach on every repair call.
Maintenance Plan Attach and Retention
Maintenance plan attach is the share of service calls that end in an agreement, and retention is the share that renew. Together they tell you how much of next winter is already sold. In a season where homeowners defer replacement, the plan base is the asset that keeps technicians busy and puts you first in line when the system finally fails.
Frequently Asked Questions
The average US household is projected to spend $1,030 on heating this winter, up 8.7% or $82 on last winter, in the NEADA Winter Heating Report published September 14, 2026. The increase differs sharply by fuel: natural gas is up 5.8%, propane 8.7%, electricity 9.0% and heating oil 31.3%. That is more than two and a half times the rate of inflation.
Lead with the arithmetic rather than the claim, because Oregon customers can check it. Roughly half of Oregon homes heat with electricity, and residential rates are more than 50% higher than five years ago after a sixth straight year of increases approved on April 1, 2026. Publish running costs at the current Portland General Electric or Pacific Power rate, dated, and say where gas still wins.
It depends on the local rate ratio, and that ratio moved against heat pumps this year. Electricity rose 9.0% this winter and 35.7% over five years, while natural gas rose 5.8% and 16.9%. In markets with cheap gas the honest answer is often a dual fuel system that switches between fuels by temperature. Run the numbers at your own utility's current residential rate before quoting a saving.
Household utility arrears and consumer credit quality move together. About one in six US households is behind on a utility bill and residential utility debt sits near $23 billion, so more homeowners carry past due balances into a credit check. Expect a lower approval rate and lower approved amounts this winter, and build a second system option priced to the amount lenders actually approve.
Advertise the bill question, not the equipment. In October homeowners search for why their heating bill is high, what a system costs to run, and whether to repair or replace, all of which sit weeks ahead of a purchase. Pages that show running cost math at the local utility rate, with the date on the page, capture that demand before the first cold snap turns it into an emergency call.
Your Savings Math Is Older Than Your Customer's Last Bill
Leadnox builds HVAC contractors in Oregon, South Dakota, Wyoming and Ohio the local pages and paid demand that answer a running cost question at today's utility rate. The outcome is a lower cost per installed system and a pipeline that fills before the first cold snap.