Heat Pump Payback in Allentown, PA
Heat pump vs. gas furnace in Allentown, PA
Here in Allentown, the honest answer is that a heat pump raises your annual running cost. $5,500 is what Allentown would pay extra to go electric rather than replace the furnace and AC with the same again. The heat pump would cost about $36 more a year to run than the furnace it replaces, a premium with no payback. There's no spin on that: Allentown's numbers say wait.
Compare against another city
This runs the same numbers for 3206 US cities, not just Allentown. Look one up here.
Why Allentown's climate drives this number
4777 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Allentown has a real but manageable winter; the cooling side runs to 985 cooling degree days, where summers add a moderate cooling load. The 99% winter design temperature here, the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average, is 7°F, and the coldest daily reading in the 2024 station record was 1°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 2.87 for the recommended cold-climate unit. Below the 25°F line where a standard machine starts leaning on resistance backup, Allentown sits firmly in cold-climate territory, so that's the class of unit priced here. Source: NOAA station Lehigh Valley International A, 4.2 miles from Allentown, the closest one on record.
The yearly running costs in Allentown
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 4,215 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $1,049 a year. Allentown's gas rate of $15.04 per Mcf, applied to the 50 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts the current furnace-and-AC running cost near $1,013 a year, against 20.75¢ per kWh for electricity. With running costs higher every year, there is no payback at any purchase price; over 15 years, against a like-for-like replacement, a household here would end $6,035 behind.
The break-even point in Allentown
The heat pump would become the cheaper option in Allentown if electricity fell to 19.8¢/kWh (from 20.75¢) or gas rose above $15.76 per Mcf (from $15.04). At today's prices a cheaper quote cannot rescue the gas comparison in Allentown, since there is no yearly saving to recover it from.
The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with
Not every home in Allentown has gas service. Against electric-resistance heat, baseboard or an electric furnace, both 100% efficient but still just resistance, the case for switching gets stronger here. The saving here runs about $1,726 a year, which recovers the extra $10,000 spent going electric in roughly 5.8 years.
How Allentown compares nationally
Allentown lands at position 968 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 229 out of 3206 by population size (biggest is 1). That's the coldest third of the dataset, where climate does most of the work behind this figure.
What to do with this number in Allentown
About 127,138 people live in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and every number on this page is what a contractor would actually work from when quoting a system here, the point isn't to replace that quote, it's to tell you whether to bother asking for one. Here, there's no cost penalty to waiting until your current furnace or AC actually needs replacing.
Ask a local HVAC contractor for a quote before committing either way.
Reading further on this page's numbers
Every constant behind this page, the 2.87 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs, is documented in the methodology guide. Allentown's 7°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.