My parents installed Geothermal a few years ago, which was expensive, like 30k I think, and it's helped, but not a ton as the line is still going under a frozen river in the winter, so the prices I quoted above are after geothermal. I think I saw a comment thread a few months back about how a lot of people got taken by the promises of geothermal and how they don't really do much for people in cold areas. It's great in the summer mind you. My buddy who works for Hydro One said a lot of folks end up paying the same or more after the install of geothermal because of how cold it is, which is really unfortunate. I looked at a big, nicer house in Nova Scotia that had dual geothermal and I was just drooling until I got my hands on the heating bills and was so confused why it was still so expensive.

They don't have wood burning and they are too old to be able to handle it anyway, you'd die from all the wood you'd have to cut and move and deal with. They said oil wasn't viable, and I don't think their house is setup for it anyway. They are worried about snow removal where they live as it's just too much for them now and it's so easy to get stranded for days, even though the city does eventually plow that road.

Where they live it's regularly -30 to -40c in the winter. They were snowbirds until Covid hit.