Firewood vs. propane vs. natural gas vs. heating oil vs. heat pump vs. electric radiant heat — at current national averages, with firewood at $350 a cord

October 2026  •  Prices: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) national averages

The short answer: gas first, firewood second, heat pump third — and nothing else is close

If you only remember one thing, make it this: the cheapest heat in America today is natural gas, the next cheapest is firewood at $350 a cord, and a heat pump comes in third — comfortably ahead of propane, far ahead of heating oil, and at well under half the cost of electric radiant heat.

That ranking matters most for the households that cannot get natural gas at all. Gas pipelines do not reach many rural homes, and for those families the real choice has never been “gas or something else.” It is heat pump, firewood, propane, oil, or electric — and on that list, a modern wood stove and a heat pump are the two low-cost ways to stay warm this winter.

Compare heat, not sticker prices

A gallon, a therm, a cord, and a kilowatt-hour are not comparable things, and the price on each one tells you almost nothing by itself. A gallon of propane holds less energy than a gallon of heating oil. A cord of hardwood holds as much raw energy as roughly 175 gallons of propane. And no heater delivers all the energy it burns — a furnace loses some up the flue, while a heat pump does the opposite and delivers more heat than the electricity it consumes.

So every fuel below is converted the same way: price divided by the energy in one unit, then adjusted for how efficiently a typical modern system turns that energy into heat in the room. The result is the only fair number — the cost of one million British thermal units (MMBtu) of heat actually delivered to your home. One MMBtu is about the heat in eight gallons of heating oil, and a typical home in a cold-to-moderate climate needs roughly 50 MMBtu of delivered heat over a full heating season. Multiply the per-MMBtu cost by 50 and you get a season cost you can hold up against your own bills.

Your home may need more or less than 50 MMBtu — a small, tight house in North Carolina will need less, a drafty farmhouse in Minnesota a good deal more — but the ranking barely moves, because the ranking comes from the fuel prices, not from the size of the house.

The ranking at today's prices

Reading the table: the “vs. natural gas” column uses natural gas at $15.26 as the baseline. Firewood at $20.25 is +33% against gas, a heat pump at $24.39 is +60%, propane at $34.07 is +123%, heating oil is +193% at its $44.68 winter-average forecast figure and +242% at today's $52.24, and electric radiant heat at $53.66 is +252%. At $350 a cord, a season of wood heat costs about $1,013 — roughly $691 less than propane, $1,599 less than heating oil at this week's $6.15 a gallon, and $1,670 less than heating the same home with electric baseboards or radiant panels. Natural gas saves about $250 a season against firewood, and firewood edges out a heat pump by about $207 — and neither gas nor a heat pump comes with a stack of wood in the yard when the power goes out.

Turned the other way, firewood is about 41% cheaper than propane, 61% cheaper than heating oil at today's price, and 62% cheaper than electric radiant heat — and about 17% cheaper than a heat pump. The only fuel that undercuts wood is natural gas, by about a quarter over a season, and only where a pipeline reaches the house.

Cost per million BTU of heat delivered to the home. Firewood is priced at $350 per cord, mixed hardwood at 24 million BTU per cord, in an EPA stove at 72% efficiency. Furnaces are figured at 85% efficiency and the heat pump at a seasonal COP of 2.2 — the average for heat pumps already installed in homes. Heating oil uses this week's $6.15/gallon; at the EIA winter-average forecast of $5.26/gallon, oil would be $44.68 per MMBtu — still the second most expensive heat here.

Firewood at $350 a cord: second-cheapest heat in the country

A cord of seasoned mixed hardwood — a true cord, 128 cubic feet of stacked wood — carries about 24 million BTU of raw energy. Burned in a modern, Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)–certified stove at 72% efficiency, it delivers about 17.3 million BTU to the house. At $350 a cord, that is $20.25 for every million BTU delivered, and about 2.9 cords — $1,013 — for a 50 MMBtu season.

Two honest qualifications belong with that number. First, the stove matters: burn the same cord in an older, less efficient stove and the cost per delivered MMBtu climbs. Even so, wood still beats propane, oil, and electric radiant heat by a wide margin. Second, the wood matters: seasoned means 20% moisture or less. Wet, green wood wastes heat boiling off water, smokes more, and builds creosote faster — which raises chimney-fire risk and is especially hard on newer catalytic and secondary-combustion stoves that are built to burn clean and hot. Seasoned wood at 20% moisture or less burns cleaner and reduces creosote buildup.

And then there is the version of the math no utility can match. Homeowners who cut, split, and season their own wood — or buy it well ahead and season it themselves — are not paying $350 in cash at all. They are paying in chainsaw fuel, bar oil, and their own time. Value that time at zero, as many wood burners cheerfully do, and firewood is the cheapest heat on this page by a mile. Value it honestly and it still lands in second place.

Natural gas: cheapest heat in the country, if a pipe reaches you

Natural gas is priced here at $13.44 per thousand cubic feet (Mcf), the EIA national average for October 2026. Through a furnace at 85% efficiency, that is $15.26 per million BTU delivered and about $763 for a 50 MMBtu season — roughly 57 Mcf of gas — the lowest number in this comparison.

The catch is availability, not price. Many American homes cannot connect to a gas pipeline at all, and extending a line to a rural home can cost more than years of savings. Where gas is available, it is the clear winner on fuel cost alone. Where it is not, the comparison that actually matters starts with firewood and the heat pump.

Heat pump: it moves heat instead of making it

A heat pump is the one electric system that belongs in a conversation about cheap heat, because it does not convert electricity into heat — it moves heat from outdoors in. At a seasonal coefficient of performance (COP) of 2.2 — the average for heat pumps already installed in homes, not just new units sold today — it delivers 2.2 units of heat for every unit of electricity it uses. At the national average of 18.31 cents per kilowatt-hour, that works out to $24.39 per million BTU delivered and about $1,220 a season — about 6,661 kilowatt-hours — third place overall, behind firewood, and the cheapest option that heats and cools with the same machine.

Its weakness is the coldest weather. On a mild day a heat pump may run well above a COP of 2.2; in deep cold its efficiency falls, and many systems lean on electric resistance backup strips below that, which cost exactly what baseboard heat costs. Cold-climate models have narrowed that penalty a lot, but a homeowner in a genuinely cold region should size the system for it — and will often find a heat pump paired with a wood stove is the cheapest comfortable combination of all: the pump carries the mild and shoulder-season load, and the stove carries the bitter nights.

The efficiency assumption, stated plainly: every heat pump figure in this article uses a seasonal heating COP of 2.2. That is the average for heat pumps already installed in homes — an older installed base, much of it rated around HSPF 8.2 on the old scale (roughly HSPF2 7.0 to 7.5), with real-world seasonal performance typically a little below the rating. A typical new unit sold today does better, at roughly COP 2.5 (about HSPF2 8.5). HSPF2 is the heating efficiency rating. Do not judge heating cost by SEER or SEER2: those are cooling ratings, and they do not set what the machine costs to run in January.

The sensitivity is worth knowing, because COP is where heat pump economics live or die. Buy a typical new unit today at a COP of 2.5 and delivered heat falls to $21.46 per million BTU — still behind firewood at $350 a cord. Run the season at a COP of 3.0 — a higher-rated unit, or a milder climate — and it falls further to $17.89 per million BTU, within sight of natural gas. Let sustained deep cold drag the seasonal COP to 2.0 and the same electricity delivers heat at $26.83 per million BTU, well behind firewood. The $24.39 figure used here is the installed average: what the heat pumps already in homes deliver, not just what a new unit promises.

Propane: convenient anywhere, at a rural premium

Propane at $2.65 a gallon is the fuel of necessity for many homes beyond the gas line: it stores in a tank in the yard, runs a furnace, water heater, and stove, and a truck can reach almost any address. The cost of that convenience is $34.07 per million BTU delivered through an 85% furnace, and about $1,704 for a 50 MMBtu season — roughly 643 gallons.

That is about 68% more per unit of heat than firewood at $350 a cord. Propane prices also swing with the season and with how far the truck has to travel, and a household that fills in summer usually pays less than one caught buying in January. None of that makes propane a bad fuel — it is clean, automatic, and asks nothing of the homeowner at 6 a.m. — but on fuel cost alone, it is not a cheap way to heat.

Heating oil: this fall's price shock

Heating oil is where this winter hurts most. At this week's national average of $6.15 a gallon, oil delivers heat at $52.24 per million BTU through an 85% burner — about $2,612 for a 50 MMBtu season, roughly 425 gallons. That is more than double the cost of firewood and nearly as expensive as electric baseboard heat.

Even the kinder number is expensive. The EIA's winter-average forecast is $5.26 a gallon, which works out to $44.68 per million BTU delivered and about $2,234 for the same season. Oil heat is concentrated in the Northeast, where winters are cold and alternatives are not always simple to install, so many oil households cannot switch quickly. For those who can add a wood stove as a second heat source, every million BTU the stove carries instead of the burner saves roughly $32 at today's oil price.

Electric radiant heat: simple, clean at the panel, and the most expensive here

Electric radiant heat — baseboards, wall panels, radiant floors, and space heaters — turns essentially every watt it draws into heat in the room, so it is 100% efficient at the point of use. The problem is the price of the watt. At 18.31 cents per kilowatt-hour, resistance heat costs $53.66 per million BTU delivered, the highest figure in this comparison, and about $2,683 for a 50 MMBtu season — roughly 14,654 kilowatt-hours.

That does not make radiant heat useless. It has no flue, no fuel delivery, no combustion in the house, very low installation cost, and it is excellent for a single cold room, a small addition, or backup heat. As the main heat for a whole house through a cold winter, though, it costs about 2.6 times what firewood costs for the same warmth — and it stops entirely in a power outage, right when heat matters most.

What a full heating season costs

Per-million-BTU figures rank the fuels, but households pay season bills, not BTU bills. The table below turns the same verified prices into full-season totals for two homes: a typical home needing 50 million BTU of delivered heat, and a colder or larger home needing 80 million BTU. The fuel amounts in parentheses are what each home actually has to buy.

The percentage gap against natural gas is the same at both home sizes — +33% for firewood, +60% for a heat pump, +123% for propane, +193% for heating oil at its winter-average forecast and +242% at today's price, and +252% for electric radiant heat — because the percentages come from the per-MMBtu costs, not from how much heat the home needs.

For the typical 50 MMBtu home, the spread between the cheapest and most expensive option is about $1,920 in a single season — $763 for natural gas against $2,683 for electric radiant heat. Firewood at $1,013 sits $691 below propane, $1,599 below heating oil at today's price, and $1,670 below electric radiant, while trailing natural gas by $250 and edging out a heat pump by $207.

For the colder or larger 80 MMBtu home, every gap widens with the load: firewood at $1,620 (4.6 cords) saves about $331 against a heat pump, $1,106 against propane, $2,559 against heating oil at today's price, and $2,673 against electric radiant heat in one season.

As a cross-check, the EIA's own projected average household spend for this winter (November through March) is $640 for natural gas, $1,246 for propane, $1,196 for electricity, and $2,115 for heating oil. Those figures use average national usage for each fuel's typical customers, so they do not match the 50 MMBtu table dollar for dollar — but they line up with these figures at average national usage, and they tell the same story in the same order: gas lowest, oil highest, and electric and propane in between, with firewood slotting in just behind gas.

What the fuel bill does not capture

Fuel cost is the biggest yearly number, but it is not the only one. A heat pump costs more to install than a set of baseboards and also gives you air conditioning. A gas furnace is inexpensive to run and useless without a gas line. Oil and propane arrive by truck in large, lumpy bills. A wood stove asks for storage space, a sound chimney, and a few minutes of work morning and evening — and in return it heats through a power outage that leaves every electric system on this page cold, and every furnace without a generator silent.

Regional prices move the details, too. These are national averages: electricity costs far more in Hawaii and New England than in the Southeast, propane is cheaper in the Midwest than in the Northeast, and firewood prices follow local timber and local demand. Run your own utility rate and your own cord price through the same arithmetic — price per unit, divided by the energy in that unit, adjusted for efficiency — before you make a final decision. The method travels even when the averages do not.

The bottom line for a homeowner deciding today

If natural gas reaches your home, take it — at $15.26 per million BTU delivered, nothing else beats it on fuel cost. If it does not, the honest short list is two names long: firewood at $20.25 and a heat pump at $24.39. Firewood is clearly ahead on fuel cost alone, and many households will still do best with both — the heat pump for mild weather and cooling season, the stove for cold snaps, outages, and the simple pleasure of a real fire.

What the numbers no longer support is drifting into the expensive end of the table by default. Propane at $34.07, heating oil at $52.24 at today's price, and electric radiant heat at $53.66 per million BTU all cost roughly one and a half to two and a half times what firewood costs for the same delivered warmth. Over one season in a typical home, that difference is $691 to $1,670. Over ten winters, it is the price of a very good stove, a processor, and a woodshed — with change left over.

How these numbers were calculated

Prices are EIA national averages for October 2026: natural gas $13.44 per thousand cubic feet, propane $2.65 per gallon, heating oil $6.15 per gallon this week with an EIA winter-average forecast of $5.26 per gallon, and electricity 18.31 cents per kilowatt-hour. Firewood is priced at $350 per cord, with a cord of mixed hardwood figured at 24 million BTU. Furnaces and oil burners are figured at 85% efficiency, an EPA-certified wood stove at 72%, electric radiant heat at 100%, and a heat pump at a seasonal COP of 2.2 (the average for heat pumps already installed in homes; a typical new unit is about COP 2.5). Cost per million BTU delivered equals the unit price divided by the energy delivered from that unit at the stated efficiency. Season totals multiply that figure by 50 million BTU (typical home) or 80 million BTU (colder or larger home). Seasoned firewood means wood dried to 20% moisture or less.

Sources: U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), Short-Term Energy Outlook and Winter Fuels Outlook, October 2026; EIA Weekly Heating Oil and Propane Survey, week ending October 19, 2026; EIA Electric Power Monthly (residential average 18.31 cents per kilowatt-hour). Full URLs: https://www.eia.gov/analysis/ ; https://propanepricepergallon.com/ ; https://www.chooseenergy.com/electricity-rates-by-state/ ; https://calculatorai.app/blog/winter-heating-costs-2026 ; https://extension.okstate.edu/fact-sheets/true-cost-of-energy-comparisons-apples-to-apples.html

Short version — ready to copy and share

What does heat cost today? At current national averages, per million BTU of heat delivered to your home: natural gas $15.26, firewood $20.25 (at $350/cord, +33% vs. gas), heat pump $24.39 (+60%), propane $34.07 (+123%), heating oil $52.24 (+242% at today's price; $44.68 and +193% at the winter-average forecast), electric radiant $53.66 (+252%). Firewood is about 41% cheaper than propane, 61% cheaper than heating oil at today's price, 62% cheaper than electric radiant heat, and about 17% cheaper than a heat pump. For a typical home this winter that is about $763 for gas, $1,013 for firewood (2.9 cords), $1,220 for a heat pump, $1,704 for propane, $2,612 for oil, and $2,683 for electric radiant heat. No gas line where you live? Firewood and a heat pump are the two cheapest ways to stay warm — and only one of them works when the power goes out.

Premium Firewood Supply LLC  •  (336) 486-0313  •  premiumfirewoodsupplyllc.com