Should Big Spring switch to a heat pump?

In Big Spring, the math is close enough that it comes down to how long you plan to stay. $3,500 is what Big Spring 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. That premium is recovered through $361 of lower running costs every year, landing the payback clock at roughly 9.7 years. It's a genuine toss-up here — Big Spring's numbers don't point clearly either way.

How cold Big Spring actually gets

Degree days tell the story here: Big Spring racks up 2137 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers are severe enough that cooling can dominate the annual bill, with 2911 cooling degree days on the cooling side. 18.1°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here — the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day — with a record low of 8.6°F on file. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 3.13 on the cold-climate unit fit for this climate. Big Spring 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. Source: NOAA station BIG SRNG MCMHN-WRKLE ARPT, 2.7 miles from Big Spring — the closest one on record.

Big Spring's running-cost comparison, in dollars

Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 1,729 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $680 a year. Big Spring's gas rate of 19.42 per Mcf, applied to the 22 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts its running cost near $1,041 a year, against 16.15¢ per kWh for electricity. Buy it outright, not incrementally, and payback stretches to 37.3 years; over 15 years the net position sits $1,922 ahead.

Electric resistance heat in Big Spring, compared

Not every home in Big Spring has gas service. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. Switching saves about $803 a year here — a heat pump moving heat rather than generating it needs far less electricity than resistance coils — so the extra $8,000 spent up front comes back in about 10 years.

Big Spring against the rest of the country

Big Spring lands at position 2367 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 1749 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.

Next step for 22,541 people in Big Spring

Big Spring, Texas is home to about 22,541 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 Big Spring, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.

Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.

Where Big Spring's figure comes from

Every constant behind this page — the 3.13 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs — is documented in the methodology guide. Big Spring's 18.1°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.