Clean heating in the rural areas of the northern China in winters is an important part of the energy consumption revolution and rural lifestyle revolution, and it is also a major livelihood project and a heart-warming project. Therefore, it is widely concerned to give considerations to its economy, applicability and environmental requirements. In this paper, "2+26" cities in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei area and its periphery, which is an important area with clean heating in the countryside, were taken as the research object. Based on field survey and household measurement, four main clean heating methods (wall-mounted gas boiler, regenerative electric heater, air source heat pump and clean coal heating) in this area were analyzed and compared in terms of technology, economy and environment. In addition, some specific suggestions were proposed. And the following research results were obtained. First, wall-mounted gas boiler is a more cost-effective alternative to coal-fired heating, but the access to product's energy efficiency and emission shall be controlled strictly. It is recommended to popularize energy-saving and environmentally-friendly condensing wall-mounted boilers in cities and in economically developed rural areas. Second, there are no thermal insulation measures in existing buildings in rural areas and heating energy consumption is high, so more attention shall be paid to thermal insulation measures. And it is suggested to carry out energy-saving transformation on houses and provide appropriate subsidies while promoting clean heating, and to propel the centralized heating during the construction of new urbanization in rural areas. Third, clean-coal heating will still exist in some rural areas for a long time. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the supervision of coal quality, and it is recommended to adopt a set of "clean coal + special stove + carbon monoxide monitoring" measures. Fourth, it is necessary to adopt measures according to local conditions. That is to choose the appropriate heating path and heating equipment on the basis of local resource characteristics. In the areas with abundant renewable energy and good grid supporting conditions, it is advisable to focus on the popularization of regenerative electric heaters or air source heat pumps for heating. Fifth, to ensure the stable operation of rural areas in the era of "post coal to gas and coal to electricity", it is recommended that the state shall conduct a comprehensive study on the formulation of subsidy exit mode and precise subsidies for poor households after the exit and strengthen the implementation of environmental protection policies and green development concepts, so as to truly reach the goal of "affordable transformation, affordable utilization, and content utilization".