I've been in my "new to me" home for about 3 months. I'm having a minor annoyance with HVAC. The home has a heat pump with natural gas as a supplemental system. I live in PA and it can get chilly here.

Here's my issue, we had a shallow gas well drilled on our property and are now receiving free natural gas, therefore, I really don't need the heat pump in the winter and will run only on the gas furnace.

Problem is that just setting the thermostat to "emergency" isn't cutting it. It's a very basic Honeywell thermostat. No real features, other than basic schedule programming. The thermostat continually cycles the furnace on and off. It will run for 2 minutes or so, then shut off for 2 minutes or so.

The house is tight and well insulated, it just seems likes too many cycles. Should we look at more sophisticated thermostats with outside sensors that help us lock out the heat pump and lower temperatures? Am I damaging anything by switching my thermostat to "emergency" mode as a shutoff for the heat pump?

Thanks