Will a heat pump pay off in Benbrook, TX?
In Benbrook, the math is close enough that it comes down to how long you plan to stay. Against a like-for-like gas furnace and AC swap, going electric costs $3,500 more up front here (already netting out a $2,000 tax credit). Benbrook's residents would see roughly $356 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 9.8 years. It's a genuine toss-up here — Benbrook's numbers don't point clearly either way.
How cold Benbrook actually gets
1554 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Benbrook has a mild winter by US standards; the cooling side runs to 3373 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: 19.9°F here (record low 12.9°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 3.18 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. Below the 25°F line where a standard machine starts leaning on resistance backup, Benbrook sits firmly in cold-climate territory, so that's the class of unit priced here. Source: NOAA station FORT WORTH NAVAL AIR STATION, 6.2 miles from Benbrook — the closest one on record.
Benbrook's running-cost comparison, in dollars
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 1,237 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $664 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 16 Mcf a year at 19.42 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $1,020 a year (electricity here runs 16.15¢/kWh). Buy it outright, not incrementally, and payback stretches to 37.9 years; over 15 years the net position sits $1,840 ahead.
The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with
Not every home in Benbrook 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 $677 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 11.8 years.
Where Benbrook ranks in this dataset
Benbrook lands at position 2669 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 1636 out of 3206 by population size (biggest is 1). That's the mildest third of cities covered, where utility rates carry more of the answer than climate does.
What to do with this number in Benbrook
Benbrook, Texas is home to about 24,542 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 Benbrook, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Line up a few local HVAC quotes before you decide.
More on how this number was built
Every constant behind this page — the 3.18 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs — is documented in the methodology guide. At a 19.9°F design temperature, Benbrook sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.