Heat Pump Payback in Alice, TX
Will a heat pump pay off in Alice, TX?
Alice sits right on the fence, how long you'll own the house decides this one. Against a like-for-like gas furnace and AC swap, going electric costs $3,000 more up front here. Lower bills claw that back: about $335 saved annually, for a payback of roughly 9 years. It's a genuine toss-up here, Alice's numbers don't point clearly either way.
Compare against another city
Landed on Alice by mistake, or want to compare it against somewhere else? Search the other 3206 cities below.
Alice's weather, in the numbers that matter
583 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Alice barely has a winter to speak of; the cooling side runs to 4074 cooling degree days, where summers are severe enough that cooling can dominate the annual bill. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 33.1°F here (coldest 2024 reading 21°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 3.19 for the standard class of unit this climate calls for. Alice's winters don't get cold enough to need the cold-climate premium, a standard unit holds up fine. Source: NOAA station Alice International Airport, 2.7 miles from Alice, the closest one on record.
Alice's running-cost comparison, in dollars
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 463 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $636 a year. Alice's gas rate of $19.42 per Mcf, applied to the 6 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts the current furnace-and-AC running cost near $971 a year, against 16.15¢ per kWh for electricity. Buying outright rather than at replacement time stretches payback to longer than the 15-year equipment life. Over 15 years, compared with a like-for-like replacement, the heat pump leaves you $2,023 ahead.
What would change Alice's answer
In Alice the cooling savings outweigh the extra electricity for heating, so no plausible change in the electricity rate would make the old furnace and AC cheaper to run. A useful quote test for Alice: the heat pump is worth it within a decade if it costs less than $3,350 more than replacing the furnace and AC, and within 7 years if the gap is under $2,345.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Gas isn't universal in Alice, many houses run on electric heat already. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. The gap still doesn't close: the $7,500 incremental cost outlasts the 15-year equipment life here even against resistance heat.
Alice against the rest of the country
Among 3206 cities, Alice's winter puts it at rank 3035 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 2131 for population, 1 in both cases being the extreme. That's the mildest third of cities covered, where utility rates carry more of the answer than climate does.
Deciding what's next in Alice, TX
Alice, Texas is home to about 17,595 people, and the figures above are the same ones a local HVAC contractor uses to size and quote a system, this site doesn't guess where a real quote would land, it just tells you whether it's worth asking for one. In Alice, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
Where Alice's figure comes from
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Alice's 3.19 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Homes in Alice without gas service should read the electric-resistance comparison instead, the numbers there differ from the gas case above.