Western North CarolinaThe Mountain Region including Asheville
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The design temperature for Asheville is 23°F which means that 99% (literally) of the time the temperature is above that. Looking at a 14 SEER heatpump spec sheet would show you that around 25°F the COP (coefficient of performance) is about 2.5 which means that for every watt of input you'll get 2.5 times the amount of heat than the standard 3.413 btu/per watt that electric resistance heat gives you.
Even at -10°F the COP is around 1.25 so it's not as if the heat pump is not efficient at those temperatures, it's just that there isn't a enough heat available to keep up with your home. You could offset that with better insulation, sealing leaks, better windows, etc.
Anyways, just thought I'd clarify that when designing any HVAC system you don't design for worse case scenarios, you design for what the temperatures will be 99% of the time and it's expected that you figure something out for that other 1% like wearing more clothes or whatever.
I probably wouldn't recommend a wood burning fireplace unless you plan to stay in the same room. The reason being is that the air that goes up the chimney has to be replaced with air from somewhere else and that somewhere else is outside air.
One of the problems with older style air-source heat pump is that they s only made sense in climates that rarely dropped below 30°F in the winter; today some of newer systems, will function well at temperatures below zero degrees F because of the innovation has been driven by Japanese companies, including Mitsubishi, Daikin, Fujitsu, and Sanyo.
These units are called minisplits and are far more efficient at heating and cooling than the the duct systems.
Of course if you are not properly insulated and sealed, then you would still be throwing your $$ away.
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