Heating & Cooling
NJNG SAVEGREEN: How to Get a New Furnace at 0% Interest
Rich Jordan · August 28, 2026 · 7 min read
Heating & Cooling
Rich Jordan · August 28, 2026 · 7 min read
This is one of four utility program guides in our series on 0% utility financing for HVAC in New Jersey. If New Jersey Natural Gas is your gas utility, this is the one that applies to you.
High Ground is a preferred contractor for SAVEGREEN, and we file the paperwork as part of the job.
New Jersey Natural Gas serves roughly 1.1 million people across Monmouth and Ocean counties, plus parts of Morris, Middlesex and Burlington.
If you are in Brick, Toms River, Point Pleasant, Wall, Freehold, Howell, Middletown, Manalapan or the surrounding towns, NJNG is almost certainly your gas company. Look at your gas bill if you are not sure. Your electric utility is a separate company and may have its own program - that is worth checking too, particularly if you are considering a heat pump.
Two things, and they stack.
SAVEGREEN at a glance
Rebates: up to $3,650 across HVAC and water heating equipment.
Financing: up to $25,000 at 0% APR, repaid as a line item on your monthly gas bill.
Income-qualified customers can receive an additional $300 per qualifying piece of equipment on top of the standard rebate, and extended repayment terms.
To make the financing concrete: NJNG's own example is a $25,000 balance at 0% APR over a ten-year term, which works out to 119 payments of $208.34 and a final payment of $207.54. That is the entire cost. There is no interest, no origination fee buried in the principal, and no rate that resets.
Compare that to typical dealer financing at 8-10% on a $25,000 project over ten years. You would pay somewhere in the range of $11,000 to $14,000 in interest. That difference is the actual value of this program, and it is larger than the rebate.
SAVEGREEN pays for replacing inefficient equipment with high-efficiency equipment. The thresholds:
Gas furnaces - 95% AFUE or higher. This is the common case. Most furnaces installed before roughly 2010 are 80% AFUE non-condensing units, and replacing one with a 95%+ condensing furnace qualifies.
Boilers - the higher rebate tiers require 97% AFUE or better.
Combination units - a combi unit at 97% AFUE or higher is what unlocks the maximum rebate. If you are replacing both a boiler and a water heater, this is worth pricing.
Tankless water heaters - 0.95 UEF or higher.
Air source heat pumps - SEER2 of 15.2 or higher, EER2 of 11.7 or higher, HSPF2 of 7.8 or higher.
Cold climate heat pumps - SEER2 of 15.2 or higher, EER2 of 10 or higher, HSPF2 of 8.1 or higher, and a coefficient of performance of at least 1.75 at 5°F.
That last spec is the one that separates a heat pump that actually works in a New Jersey January from one that hands off to backup heat the moment it gets cold. The COP-at-5°F requirement is the program doing you a favor.
New construction is excluded. This is a retrofit program. It exists to improve the existing building stock, not to subsidize builders. If you are building, this is not for you.
Replacing an existing condensing appliance with another condensing appliance is excluded. This is the one that genuinely surprises homeowners, so let me explain the logic.
The program pays for the efficiency gain. Going from an 80% AFUE furnace to a 96% AFUE furnace is a large gain, and the program pays for it. Going from a 96% furnace to a 97% furnace is almost no gain, and the program does not.
NJNG offers a Whole Home Energy Assessment, and it is worth doing for two separate reasons.
The obvious one: with several of these programs, the assessment is what opens the door to the larger whole-home incentive tiers. Equipment rebates are one path. Modeled whole-home savings is a bigger one.
The less obvious one: it tells you things about your house you did not know. Where the air is leaking. Whether your insulation is doing anything. Whether the reason your bedrooms are cold is the furnace or the duct run. I have watched homeowners spend money on a bigger furnace to solve a problem that was actually a leaky attic, and the assessment is what stops that.
NJNG periodically runs promotional pricing on the assessment. Ask what the current cost is when you call.
The sequence matters, because a couple of these steps are hard to do out of order.
Confirm NJNG is your gas utility. Check the bill.
Get an estimate from a participating contractor. Confirm they are actually enrolled in SAVEGREEN, not just familiar with it.
Consider the energy assessment, especially if you are thinking about more than one measure.
Verify the specific model qualifies before purchase. AHRI certified ratings are what the program goes by, and a model that seems like it should qualify sometimes does not.
Apply for on-bill repayment before the work is complete if you intend to finance. The financing approval is part of the project, not an afterthought.
Submit the rebate application within 120 days of the equipment purchase date. This is a firm deadline and it is the most common way people lose money on this program.
That 120-day window is worth repeating. It runs from the purchase date, not the installation date, not the date you got around to the paperwork. Contractors who do this routinely file it for you. We do.
Current SAVEGREEN terms apply to qualifying equipment purchased and installed through June 30, 2027.
Separately, in July 2026 the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities approved a transition plan for the program year beginning July 2027 that cuts utility energy efficiency spending by about 28% and shifts incentives toward smart, grid-connected equipment.
I am not going to use that to pressure you. There will still be programs after June 2027, and nobody can tell you today exactly what they will pay. What I can tell you is that the current terms are known and the successor terms are smaller and aimed somewhere else. If you have a twenty-year-old furnace and you were already thinking about it, that is a legitimate input into your timing. If your equipment is healthy, it is not a reason to replace it.
The obligation is tied to the account and is generally settled at closing. Raise it with your contractor and with NJNG before you sign if a move is possible.
Yes, though prepayment mechanics differ by program. Ask specifically how extra payments are applied, because with some on-bill programs extra money goes toward your usage rather than the loan balance.
NJNG's on-bill repayment is a utility program, not a bank loan, and the qualification is not the same as a mortgage underwrite. Ask about the current criteria when you apply.
Not anymore. The federal 25C credit expired at the end of 2025. We wrote about what that means here - it is the single biggest change to the economics of a New Jersey HVAC replacement in years, and it is why these utility programs now carry more weight than they used to.
Your electric utility, usually JCP&L in NJNG territory, has its own program. They are separate applications and you may be eligible for both.
We install furnaces, boilers, heat pumps and water heaters across NJNG territory out of our Brick location, and we are a preferred SAVEGREEN contractor. We handle the rebate and financing paperwork as part of the job rather than handing you a form.
Every figure here was verified against NJNG's published program materials in August 2026. Program terms change - confirm current terms before you commit.
Tell us what you need - we’ll confirm your appointment and get your home back to comfortable, fast.
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