[vericiab]

I'm also in the northeast US (more specifically New England) and that's the issue I couldn't get around when I looked into it.

My AC unit is only 1.5 tons but my furnace is 40k BTU and, unlike the 75k BTU furnace it replaced, is appropriately sized for the space. (Why someone previously installed such a massively oversized furnace I will never know.) If I remember correctly a 1.5 ton heat pump is roughly equivalent to 18k BTU, so it might be useful in the all too brief cool but not cold periods in spring and fall but in winter I'd still mainly be relying on the gas furnace.