All heat pumps are electric. However, not all heat pumps use electric backup heating strips for when the heat pump cannot keep up. In my case, I have natural gas furnace backup. As I understand it, this is considered a hybrid system. Talk to your installing company about what the difference would be between installation price of the HP only and the HP with a furnace backup. If you can swing the diference, that is the route to go. I'm in Olympia and have PSE. Who is your provider? Concerning the Trane equipment... I have a nearly three year old Trane XL14i 3.5 ton with a 4 ton indoor unit and a 90% gas furnace. I almost never use the gas furnace. Less than 90 therms total last year. In our climate, I personally would go with an 80% furnace (since your utility is covering the install of the HP only, anyway go the less expensive route.). Heating specs on the 16i aren't that good. Go with the 15i. Make them match the indoor and outdoor coil and print you an AHRI certificate proving the match and HSPF, EER and SEER figures. Some indoor/outdoor matches offer better performance than others. Concentrate on the Heating Capacity BTUH numbers at 47 degrees and 17 degrees. We are in a heating climate and those are the numbers that count around here. Make your contractor show you those numbers for both the 15i and 16i combinations. When installation happens, make sure you are getting the combination you were told. Model numbers will be stamped on the equipment. I don't think you can get a 90% furnace anymore. The more efficient, the more expensive. My point being that our electric rates are very favorable and a HP is much more efficient than gas. If you set your lockouts right, you'll have no problem. Mine are set so that the gas furnace doesn't come on until it's 25 degrees outside. I have energy bills that my neighbors drool over in this neighborhod of custom 3,000 sq. ft homes.

Where milder/less mild matters is in the heating season with a heat pump. The AC functions about the same, but if it's too cold out the heat pump BTU output may not be enough to keep up. Even if you have plenty of AC capacity in the summer. I assume you're on NG and not propane. Also, $2.1 per hundred cubic feet (ccf) would be more normal. Ours in ATL is around $1/therm (therm = ccf), and it might be $2.1 once you add on the administrative costs. It might make sense, if you're already paying the overhead on your NG account, to go with a dual fuel system. The extra use spreads that admin cost further, if your system is set up to do it when it makes sense. A dual fuel system will run the HP until it can't keep up (or the controls lock it out based on outside temperature), then kick on the gas furnace as the 2nd stage. This takes advantage of running the heat pump most of the time without needing electric heating strips as backup heat. The HP will put out about 3X as much heat as the energy it uses- that's what makes it cheaper to run than a NG furnace. But the backup heat strips are 1:1 on energy to heat, which usually isn't competitive with NG. Also, I kind of like the idea of having a standard efficiency gas water heater. Offends my drive for efficiency, but as a kid on the N end of AL, the power went out enough during hurricanes, ice storms and the like that it was nice to still have hot water (and a fireplace) when that stuff happened.

Question 1) yes, but make sure if the furnace is an electric heat backup, Instead of gas,the humidifier is installed on the return, and not the supply, or you will be going thru alot of heat elements! 2) check stat for auto/on blower function, on means continious blower, if blower still runs in auto position after 5 min, go to furnace or air handler, and give a good rap on side of unit, blower relay could be stuck, this wil work for a while, but relay needs replaced. also on HP system there is one more position on t-stat, EMER, this means, emergency heat, it offers you to bypass heat pump mode and bring on either fossil fuel, or electric strip heat, wich Is a warmer heat than HP mode, although your unit should be equiped with an outdoor ambiant stat, which switches to your furnace when outside ambiant temp reaches approx 40 or below, setpionts vary, most companies do not Install this, due to cost!! Last, dont expect 140 degree air from your HP, the air from vent is usually 100 to 115, depending on outside temp

I agree 100% with capedude and here's additional reasons to use resistant heat. Eventhough heat pump uses less energy when outdoor tempature permits,the savings isn't great since you are only there a small persentage of the time. Since cabin is only maintained at cool tempature while you are absent heat runs very little. Heat pumps can be severly handicaped or even disabled by snow and freezing rain. If and when it break's down,resistant heat is the simplest system in the world to trouble shoot and least expensive to repair or replace. The average Joe with a little knowledge about volt meters can fix resistant heat but very few diyers know where to begain with heat pumps. You can buy a volt meter for less than $25 in the smallest of towns on a weekend. Refergeration tools are expensive and anywhere they are sold will usually refuse selling to diyers. I believe most experienced hvac people here that can repair any system will agree they would 10 to 1 rather arrive at a remote cabin at 2am and find resistant not working than a heat pump. A well trained tech can often tell freinds or family over the phone how to MacGyver resistant and go on to enjoy their stay but not very often with heat pumps.