Propane to electric heat conversion in Jasper and the North Georgia mountains: what that same heat actually costs on a heat pump.

The comparison almost everyone gets wrong

Propane is sold by the gallon and electricity by the kilowatt-hour, so a direct price comparison is meaningless. The only fair unit is cost per million BTU actually delivered into the house — which means you have to account for what each system wastes.

A propane furnace at 80% AFUE throws roughly one fifth of every gallon out the flue. A heat pump does the opposite: it moves more heat than the electricity it consumes, because it is relocating heat rather than creating it. That is why the arithmetic surprises people.

Why this is a different calculation above 1,800 feet

Most heat pump advice on the internet is written for Atlanta. Pickens County is not Atlanta. Jasper sits around 1,500 feet, Bent Tree and much of Big Canoe run 1,800 to 2,600, and the Burnt Mountain shoulder goes past 3,000. Design temperature drops roughly 3–5°F against the metro baseline, and ridge exposure adds wind-driven infiltration on top of it.

That changes the equipment specification, not the conclusion. A single-stage builder-grade heat pump derates badly as outdoor temperature falls and hands the load to resistance strip heat, which is the most expensive heat in the house. A properly selected cold-climate inverter unit holds usable capacity into the teens and keeps the strips off.

Getting that selection right is the whole job. Getting it wrong is why some of your neighbours will tell you heat pumps do not work up here.

What a conversion actually involves

A propane conversion is rarely a like-for-like box swap, and any quote that treats it as one is hiding scope. The work usually spans three trades:

1. Load calculation. A room-by-room Manual J against your real envelope, elevation and exposure — not a rule-of-thumb square-footage guess.
2. Electrical capacity. Many mountain homes on 100A or 150A service cannot carry a heat pump plus emergency strip heat. The load calc tells us before we sell you equipment, not after.
3. Air-side work. Duct static, return sizing and line-set routing. Heat pumps move more air at lower temperature than a furnace does, so undersized returns become audible immediately.
4. Propane decommissioning. Terminating the lease, removing or abandoning the tank to code, and capping the gas piping.

Where to go from here

The five sections of this site each solve a different part of the decision. If you are early, start with the cost math. If you have already decided and are working out feasibility, start with electrical.

• The full BTU and fuel-inflation analysis — if you want to check our arithmetic.
• Equipment and mountain engineering — what actually holds capacity at design temp.
• Getting the tank and the lease off your property.
• Whether your electrical service can carry it.
• Community-specific logistics for Big Canoe, Bent Tree, Marble Hill and Talking Rock.

Common questions about converting from propane in North Georgia

Where these numbers come from

• U.S. Energy Information Administration — energy conversion calculators — heat content of a gallon of propane
• EIA weekly heating oil and propane prices — the $/gallon series behind the worked examples
• AHRI Directory of Certified Product Performance — verify any quoted HSPF2, SEER2 and capacity rating
• NOAA U.S. Climate Normals — station data behind the 13-18°F design temperature range

Every contractor in this network holds a current Georgia Conditioned Air or Electrical Contractor license. You can confirm any license yourself before you sign anything — Georgia Secretary of State license lookup.