Heat pump vs. gas furnace in Bethlehem, PA
Here in Bethlehem, the honest answer is that a heat pump raises your annual running cost. $3,500 is what Bethlehem would pay extra to go electric rather than replace the furnace and AC with the same again, once the $2,000 federal credit is applied. 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: Bethlehem's numbers say wait.
Why Bethlehem's climate drives this number
Bethlehem has a real but manageable winter — 4777 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base — and summers add a moderate cooling load, at 985 cooling degree days. 7°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here — the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day — with a record low of 1°F on file. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 2.87 on the cold-climate unit fit for this climate. Bethlehem needs the cold-climate class of unit: past a 25°F design temperature a standard heat pump falls back on resistance backup often enough to eat the savings. These numbers come from LEHIGH VALLEY INTERNATIONAL A, the closest NOAA station, 4.5 miles out.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
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. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 50 Mcf a year at 15.04 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $1,013 a year (electricity here runs 20.75¢/kWh). Priced as a standalone purchase rather than against a like-for-like replacement, equipment payback runs past the 15-year equipment life, for a 15-year net position $4,035 behind.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Plenty of homes in Bethlehem heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Bethlehem's answer improves. The saving here runs about $1,726 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 4.6 years.
How Bethlehem compares nationally
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Bethlehem comes in at 969 for heating severity — 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset — and 469 by population, where 1 is largest. That's the coldest third of the dataset, where climate does most of the work behind this figure.
Next step for 79,453 people in Bethlehem
About 79,453 people live in Bethlehem, 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.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
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. At a 7°F design temperature, Bethlehem sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.