For most Panama City homes, the right replacement for a worn-out heat pump is a new heat pump, sized by a load calculation for the coldest nights as well as August afternoons. A new gas furnace makes sense where the house already has gas service and a sound flue. Either way, the whole job is priced in writing first.
These are the situations where we bring a replacement number alongside any repair price. A single fault on a younger system belongs on our Panama City heating repair page instead.
Typical Bay County market ranges put a compressor at $1,500 to $3,500 and a reversing valve at $500 to $1,400. Spending that near the end of a 12 to 17 year inland service life rarely pays back.
Repair or replace, side by side →R-22 is no longer produced, and installed prices run $90 to $175 a pound on the local market, every time it leaks out. Replacement moves you to R-454B, the refrigerant new systems use.
Still running R-22 →When the thermostat shows AUX or EM HEAT most of the time, electric strips are doing the heat pump’s job at two to three times the running cost. On a tired system that often means the heat pump is finished.
Replacing in the middle of winter →One defrost board is bad luck. A defrost board, then a capacitor, then a refrigerant leak on the same unit is a pattern worth pricing against replacement.
Heating repair in Panama City →A cracked heat exchanger is a safety shutdown, not a part to nurse through one more season. It is the moment to choose between a new furnace, dual fuel, or a heat pump.
Keeping gas, or not →Equipment in its middle teens that struggles on cold mornings is far easier to replace in October than during a January cold snap, with time to compare systems properly.
Get a written quote →There are four realistic ways to heat a home in 32401 and 32405. Most houses end up with the first.
A heat pump is an air conditioner with a reversing valve: the outdoor unit that pulls heat out of the house in August moves heat into it in January. Bay County winters are long mild stretches with a handful of nights near or below freezing, the climate heat pumps handle best. That is why most of our heating replacements here are heat pump to heat pump.
Against cooling-only equipment plus strips, a heat pump of the same size usually costs a few hundred dollars to about $2,500 more (a typical Bay County market figure, not a Quincy’s quote), and it heats for a third to a half of what the strips cost to run. At roughly 14 cents a kilowatt-hour from FPL Northwest Florida, that gap is where the premium comes back.
Gas heat is a minority in Panama City, mostly in older houses with long-standing gas service. If the gas line is in place and the flue is sound, a new furnace with a matched AC coil and outdoor unit is a reasonable choice, and the air at the registers is much hotter than a heat pump’s. If the flue needs rebuilding, the numbers usually favor a heat pump.
Dual fuel pairs a heat pump with a gas furnace that takes over in the coldest hours. Straight AC with electric strips is the cheapest to install and the most expensive to heat with, so it mainly fits a house that sits empty most of the winter or is about to be sold.
A one-line quote with a model number and a total leaves out most of what decides how the new system runs. Ours lists the job line by line.
We measure the house, look at the equipment, ducts, electrical supply and thermostat, run a load calculation, and hand you a written, itemized price. Nothing is ordered until you approve it.
Most straightforward replacements are a single day of work. Changing the type of system, moving equipment, or reworking ducts can take longer, and we tell you which kind of job yours is before we start.
The crew recovers the old refrigerant, removes the old equipment, and sets the new pad, units and lineset. The circuit is pressure tested and evacuated before it is charged, then the system is run in cooling, in heating and on the strips before the crew leaves.
Register the equipment with the manufacturer. Most major brands give 10 years of parts coverage when the equipment is registered within 60 to 90 days of installation, and often only 5 years if it never was. Terms vary by brand, so check your paperwork.
Manufacturer coverage pays for parts, not labor; labor is covered for whatever period the installing contractor wrote down. Coverage can also depend on documented maintenance. Our plan is $292 a year for a single-system home, spring and fall visits.
Not sure which you have? Read the model number off the outdoor unit’s data plate before you call.
An outdoor unit plus an indoor air handler with backup strips. The most common setup in Panama City and the replacement we quote most often.
Everything in one cabinet outside, ducted through the wall or up from the slab. Replaced as one piece, usually with new duct transitions where the cabinet connects.
A cooling-only outdoor unit with electric heat in the air handler. Cheap to buy, costly to heat with, and often worth converting to a heat pump at replacement.
A furnace indoors, an AC coil on top of it and a condenser outside. A minority in Bay County, mostly in older homes with long-standing gas service.
A heat pump outside, a gas furnace inside, and one thermostat deciding which runs. A good fit for a gas home that wants to burn less of it.
Mini-split heat pumps for additions, garages and Florida rooms the ducts never reached. See ductless mini-splits in Panama City.
Typical Bay County market ranges for a new central system, installed, as published locally for 2026. They are not a Quincy’s quote.
| System size | Typical installed range |
|---|---|
| 2 ton | $7,000 to $10,500 |
| 2.5 ton | $7,500 to $11,500 |
| 3 ton | $8,000 to $12,500 |
| 3.5 ton | $8,500 to $13,500 |
| 4 ton | $9,500 to $15,000 |
| 5 ton | $10,500 to $17,000 |
| Efficiency tier | Typical added cost |
|---|---|
| 14.3 SEER2 (federal minimum) | Baseline |
| 15.2 to 16 SEER2 | $500 to $1,200 |
| Two-stage, 16 to 18 SEER2 | $1,500 to $3,000 |
| Variable-speed, 18 to 20+ SEER2 | $3,500 to $7,000 |
Typical Bay County market ranges, not a Quincy’s quote. Your price is given in writing after we measure.
Gas furnace jobs have no published range; the flue and gas piping vary too much from house to house. Financing through Synchrony is available for qualified customers, subject to credit approval. Financing options → · Panama City HVAC pricing guide →
You get both numbers on site and the decision stays with you. This is roughly how it splits on a Panama City heating system.
Even on an older heat pump or furnace
Before the repair money is spent
We have replaced heat pumps and furnaces in Panama City through 47 years of cold snaps, storms and rebuilds. Our technicians are not paid commission, so nobody at your kitchen table earns more if you pick the bigger system or the top efficiency tier.
Jeff Vaughan, Field Supervisor, New Installations, 12 years with Quincy’s
Oversees our replacement installs, heat pump and furnace alike
Pulled live from Google, in the order Google returns them. Nothing here scrolls on its own.
Quincy’s took care of us when our AC went out. Honest folks, on time, fair price. We will use them again every time.
Same day service during the hottest week of the summer. The tech walked me through what was wrong and fixed it on the spot. Did not feel sold to.
Replaced our entire system. Crew showed up when they said they would, were respectful inside the house and cleaned up everything when they left.
4.8 / 5across 199 Google reviews from Panama City, Lynn Haven, Callaway and the Beach.
Inland Panama City housing is older than most of the Beach. Three things come up on nearly every quote.
Plenty of older homes here still heat with R-22 equipment. It keeps going until the first leak or compressor fault, and then every repair involves a refrigerant nobody makes anymore. Replacing it means a new indoor coil and often a new lineset suited to R-454B.
Enclosed porches, additions and converted garages added square footage without adding return air. A new heat pump breathing through an undersized return runs loud and heats weakly, so we measure the return before settling on a size.
Hurricane Michael in October 2018 opened a lot of Panama City attics, and some ducts went back together in a rush. Torn insulation and loose joints leak heat into the attic in January, so a new system on those ducts warms the attic first.
Open the ones that apply to your house. Each one changes either the price or how well the new system heats.
A load calculation works out how much heat the house loses on a cold night and gains on a hot afternoon. In Panama City the cooling load usually sets the size of the heat pump, but the heating side decides how much backup heat the house needs.
A heat pump’s output drops as the outdoor temperature falls, and on the coldest nights electric strips make up the difference. Strips are sized in kilowatts: too small and the house drifts cold on a freezing morning, too large and the circuit carries more than it needs.
Airflow is the third piece. A heat pump delivers its heat as more air at a lower temperature than a furnace, so older houses in 32401 and 32405 often need a bigger return or a few duct changes first. How system sizing works →
A heat pump that dies on a cold night does not have to leave the house cold. If the air handler and its strips still work, set the thermostat to EM HEAT. That locks out the heat pump and runs the strips alone while the replacement is quoted and scheduled. Expect a higher power bill for those days.
Avoid the rushed like-for-like swap: whatever is on the truck, matched to an old nameplate that may have been wrong for fifteen years, with the old lineset and coil left in place. A few days on EM HEAT costs far less than a decade with the wrong system. When a heat pump stops heating →
Keeping a gas furnace makes sense when gas service is in place, the flue is sound and correctly sized, and you like hotter air. Switching to a heat pump makes sense when the flue needs rebuilding or you would rather not have combustion equipment in the house.
Dual fuel sits between the two: the heat pump handles the mild weather that makes up most of a Bay County winter, and the furnace takes the coldest hours. Setting the changeover point correctly is part of the install. For running costs, your own utility bills are the better guide. Furnace vs heat pump in Panama City →
SEER2 rates cooling efficiency; HSPF2 rates heating efficiency and deserves the same attention on a heat pump. Since 2023 the federal minimum for a new split-system heat pump has been 14.3 SEER2 and 7.5 HSPF2.
The price table above shows what each step up typically adds. Variable-speed equipment can run its compressor faster on a cold morning, which can mean less time on the strips. Whether a tier pays back depends on how long you plan to stay. What SEER2 rating you need in Florida →
A new R-454B heat pump has to be paired with an indoor coil the manufacturer lists for that refrigerant, which on most heat pump homes means a new air handler too, usually as old as the outdoor unit anyway.
The lineset, the copper lines between the two units, can be flushed and reused if it is the right size and sound. Undersized, kinked or risky R-22 linesets get replaced. Your quote says which. The R-410A to R-454B change →
Heat pump thermostats need a wire that cooling-only and furnace thermostats do not: the one that drives the reversing valve, plus a separate stage for the auxiliary strips. A thermostat left wired for straight AC runs the strips far more than it should, so we check the wiring and setup on every heat pump install. Thermostat problems →
Our office sits on FL-79 in Panama City Beach, and Panama City is a daily route for us. We replace heating systems throughout 32401 and 32405, from downtown and Millville to Hiland Park and Cedar Grove.
What people ask us most often before they replace a heating system, with the answers we give on the phone.
Weighing repair against replacement? Tell us the age of the system and what failed, and we will tell you which way it usually goes.
📞 Call (850) 235-8834Typical Bay County market ranges for a new central system, installed, run from $6,500 to $17,000, and most 1,500 to 2,000 square foot homes land between $8,000 and $13,500. A heat pump usually costs a few hundred dollars to about $2,500 more than cooling-only equipment. Those are market ranges, not a Quincy’s quote; yours comes in writing after we measure.
Yes. Gas furnaces are a minority in Bay County, but plenty of older Panama City homes still have one. Depending on the gas service and the flue, we replace it with a new furnace, pair a new furnace with a heat pump as dual fuel, or convert the house to a heat pump.
In this climate it is often the better choice. One outdoor unit handles the cooling and most of the winter heating, with electric strips as backup on the coldest nights. Keeping gas makes more sense when the gas service is already there, the flue is sound and you prefer the hotter air a furnace delivers. Dual fuel is the middle option.
On a heat pump system, rarely. A new R-454B outdoor unit needs an indoor coil the manufacturer lists for that refrigerant, and the air handler is usually as old as the outdoor unit. With a gas furnace, a young furnace in good condition can sometimes stay while the coil on top of it and the outdoor unit are replaced.
Set the thermostat to EM HEAT. That locks out the heat pump and runs the electric strips alone while the replacement is quoted and scheduled, at a higher bill for those days. If the strips will not run either, call us. After-hours service is available for a genuine no-heat situation and costs more than a weekday call.
The equipment, the permit and inspection, the lineset flushed or replaced for R-454B, a new pad, duct transitions rebuilt and resealed, a thermostat that can run a heat pump, and haul-away of the old equipment with its refrigerant recovered. If a quote you have been handed leaves any of those out, ask why before you sign it.
In most Panama City homes, yes. A heat pump puts out less heat as it gets colder outside, and on the handful of nights near or below freezing it may not hold the house alone. The strips cover those hours, sized in kilowatts from the load calculation.
No. The 25C credit, which was worth up to $2,000 on a heat pump, ended for equipment placed in service after December 31, 2025, so do not budget around it. Financing through Synchrony is available for qualified customers, subject to credit approval.
Yes. Our office is in Panama City Beach, and Panama City, 32401 and 32405, is a daily route for us. St. Andrews, the Cove, Forest Park, downtown, Millville, Springfield, Hiland Park and Cedar Grove are all ordinary replacement jobs for our install crews.
Replacement is one part of what we do in Panama City. The same company handles the repairs, the cooling side and the upkeep afterward.
Quincy’s installs heat pumps, furnaces and dual fuel systems in Panama City and the Bay County communities around it, with the same crews and the same written quote.
Panama City ZIP codes served for heating replacement: 32401 and 32405. Close to the line? Call and ask, and we will tell you on the spot.
