I've got a heat pump, but instead of a the electric heat strips we have a propane furnace to function as "back-up." Works exactly the same as the strips (too cold or move the thermostat more than 3 degrees) but is just a normal furnace. BTW, I have our outside thermostat set to 30 degrees before we go to the propane furnace. I talked Mom & Dad into installing a heat pump this summer as well as a new natural gas furnace. Don't know how it is doing yet as a heat source (cooling was good) but they just found out Monday there was a problem with the install and it was running the furnace instead of the heat pump. The installer has since corrected this mistake, so we'll here shortly. They replaced a 35 year-old natural gas furnace and a 220v room AC and a 110v room ac unit. Their electric bill went down quite a bit just from the cooling standpoint.