The short answer: a heat pump moves heat, it doesn't create it
The single most common misconception about heat pumps is that they generate heat the way a gas furnace or an electric resistance heater does. They don't. A cold-climate heat pump moves heat — from outside your house to inside in the winter, and the other direction in the summer. That distinction is everything, because moving heat is two to four times more efficient than making heat.
Once you understand that, the question "does it work in Oklahoma winters?" answers itself: there's always heat in outdoor air, even at 5°F. The right equipment can extract it.
How the physics actually works (without the textbook)
Think about a can of compressed air. Press the nozzle and the can gets cold in your hand. That's not magic — it's the same thermodynamic principle a heat pump uses. When you compress a refrigerant and then let it expand, its temperature changes dramatically.
Inside your heat pump there's a closed refrigerant loop running on R-32 (in modern Daikin units) or older R-410A in legacy systems. Here's the loop, in plain English, on a cold January morning:
- Outdoor coil (the "outdoor unit") — refrigerant arrives here as a cold, low-pressure liquid, well below outdoor air temperature. Yes, below outdoor temperature. Outdoor air is "warmer" than the refrigerant, so heat flows from the air into the refrigerant, boiling it into a gas.
- Compressor — the gas gets squeezed. Like the compressed-air can in reverse, squeezing the gas dramatically raises its temperature. After compression, the refrigerant is now hot — well above your indoor air temperature.
- Indoor coil (in your air handler) — hot refrigerant flows across this coil. Your blower pushes indoor air across the hot coil. Heat flows out of the refrigerant into your indoor air. The refrigerant cools back to a warm liquid.
- Expansion valve — the warm liquid passes through a tiny restriction that drops its pressure dramatically, which crashes its temperature back to well below outdoor air. Back to step 1.
Reverse the loop direction in summer and the same hardware air-conditions the house. That reversibility is the heat pump's whole reason for existing.
So why is "cold-climate" different from "regular"?
A standard single-stage heat pump uses an on/off compressor designed for moderate operating ranges. When outdoor temperatures drop below about 30°F, two things happen: there's less heat in the outdoor air to extract per cubic foot, and the standard compressor can't move enough refrigerant to compensate. Heat output falls off a cliff.
A cold-climate heat pump solves both problems with a variable-speed inverter compressor that ramps up as it gets colder. Below freezing, the inverter spins faster, the compression ratio goes higher, and the system extracts useful heat down to around 5°F or below. Many modern units are rated by the AHRI/NEEP "Cold Climate Air-Source Heat Pump" specification, which certifies meaningful heat output at 5°F and rated capacity all the way down to 17°F.
Sitton is an Authorized Daikin Dealer, and Daikin's inverter platform is one of the best-engineered cold-climate heat pumps available in our market. We don't sell them because we have to — we sell them because they actually keep up with a Stillwater January.
The balance point — when supplemental heat kicks in
Every house has a heat loss rate at every outdoor temperature. Every heat pump has a heat output rate at every outdoor temperature. Plot both on the same chart and the temperature where they cross is your balance point.
- Above the balance point — the heat pump alone covers the load. Auxiliary heat stays off.
- At the balance point — the heat pump runs continuously and exactly matches your heat loss.
- Below the balance point — auxiliary heat fills in the gap. That can be electric resistance strips (built into most heat-pump air handlers) or a gas furnace in a "dual-fuel" setup.
For most decently insulated Stillwater homes paired with a properly sized cold-climate inverter heat pump, the balance point lands between 20°F and 30°F. That means in a typical OK winter you'll see the heat pump handling 100% of the load on probably 90% of heating hours, with auxiliary heat covering the deep-cold edge cases. The math gets even better with newer Daikin inverter units, where balance points in the 10–15°F range are achievable with adequate insulation.
What people get wrong about heat pumps in Oklahoma
Myth #1: "Heat pumps run all the time, so they cost more"
Long, low-stage run times are a feature, not a flaw. An inverter compressor consuming 30% of its rated wattage all afternoon is dramatically more efficient than a single-stage system cycling fully on and fully off every 12 minutes. Continuous low-stage operation also delivers better humidity control, quieter operation, and longer compressor life.
Myth #2: "Heat pumps blow cold air"
Heat pumps deliver air at roughly 95–105°F at the supply register — warmer than your body temperature, but cooler than the 130–140°F you might feel from a gas furnace. Felt against bare skin, gas-furnace air feels hot; heat-pump air feels merely "warm." It's the same total heat moved per hour — just delivered over a longer continuous run.
Myth #3: "Heat pumps fail in ice storms"
Heat pumps automatically run a defrost cycle when the outdoor coil ices up — they briefly reverse to cooling mode, melt the ice, and return to heating. You'll see a brief plume of steam coming off the outdoor unit; that's normal. What's NOT normal is a unit that ices over and stays iced — that's a sign of a refrigerant charge issue, a failed defrost board, or a blocked outdoor airflow. Get it serviced.
"Heat pumps are the right answer for most new Stillwater installs in 2026 — but only after a proper load calculation and a real conversation about what happens on the 5% of coldest days each winter. A heat pump sized for the average day with no plan for the ice-storm morning will leave people cold. A heat pump sized for the worst-case day will short-cycle in mild weather and cost more than it should. The right answer is in the middle, and it takes a Manual J to find it." — Bryan Sitton, Owner, Sitton Mechanical
The 2026 rebate and tax credit picture (be careful here)
This part of the heat-pump conversation changed dramatically when the One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed in July 2025. The headline:
- Federal 25C credit (up to $2,000 for heat pumps): EXPIRED 12/31/2025. Installs in 2026 do not qualify.
- Federal 25D residential clean energy credit: EXPIRED 12/31/2025. Same story.
- OG&E residential energy-efficiency rebate: ACTIVE per OG&E's published 2026 page (HVAC Replacement / Burnout Replacement track). The exact per-project dollar figure should be confirmed with us before you bake it into a budget. [GATHER: AM-verify current per-project OG&E HVAC rebate cap before publish.]
- Oklahoma Natural Gas (ONG) rebates: apply to gas-equipment installs, not heat pumps. If you go dual-fuel, the ONG side may still contribute.
If anyone — a contractor, a salesperson, a website — quotes you a federal tax credit on a 2026 heat-pump installation, treat that as a red flag and double-check the source.
Your next step
The right way to find out whether a cold-climate heat pump is the right answer for your house is to start with a proper load calculation, not with a price quote. Sitton runs a full Manual J load calc as part of every heat-pump evaluation — we measure your envelope, model your design temperatures, and project your annual heating-and-cooling operating cost on three different equipment paths. No pressure, no commission-loaded "today only" pricing.
Call (405) 780-3034 or request an in-home heat-pump consultation. Compare your options with a side-by-side heat pump vs. furnace breakdown or read the deeper balance-point explainer before we visit.