Heat Pump Payback in Bixby, OK
Should Bixby switch to a heat pump?
In Bixby, the extra upfront cost technically comes back, just not before the equipment wears out. Against a like-for-like gas furnace and AC swap, going electric costs $5,500 more up front here. Lower bills claw that back: about $218 saved annually, for a payback of roughly 25.3 years. That's a technicality, not a recommendation, for anyone actually living in Bixby.
Compare against another city
Bixby is one of 3206 cities covered here, each run through the same model. Search another below.
Bixby's weather, in the numbers that matter
2849 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Bixby has a mild winter by US standards; the cooling side runs to 2308 cooling degree days, where summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 6.1°F here (coldest 2024 reading -0.9°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.85 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. Mild on average, but the occasional cold snap is what sizes the equipment: at a 6.1°F design temperature Bixby falls just under the 25°F line where a standard heat pump starts leaning on resistance backup, so the model prices a cold-climate unit to be safe. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, Richard Lloyd Jones Jr Apt, 8.7 miles from Bixby.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
A 2000-square-foot house here would pull roughly 2,531 heating kilowatt-hours annually on top of cooling, totalling about $589 a year on electricity. That compares with roughly 30 Mcf a year of gas at Bixby's $13.99 per-Mcf rate, about $807 a year with the old AC included, against a local electricity rate of 13.10¢/kWh. 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 $2,237 behind.
How sensitive Bixby's result is to prices
Gas would only overtake the heat pump in Bixby if electricity rose past 27.5¢/kWh from 13.10¢, or gas fell under $6.66 per Mcf from $13.99. A useful quote test for Bixby: the heat pump is worth it within a decade if it costs less than $2,180 more than replacing the furnace and AC, and within 7 years if the gap is under $1,526.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Gas isn't universal in Bixby, many houses run on electric heat already. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Bixby's answer improves. About $747 a year comes back this way, enough that the 13.4-year payback clears the $10,000 premium comfortably within the equipment's life.
Bixby against the rest of the country
Among 3206 cities, Bixby's winter puts it at rank 1967 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 1289 for population, 1 in both cases being the extreme. That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.
Next step if you live in Bixby
Bixby, Oklahoma is home to about 31,728 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 Bixby, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
Where Bixby's figure comes from
Nothing above is a black box: the methodology guide shows the full arithmetic behind Bixby's 2.85 seasonal COP and payback figure. Bixby's 6.1°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.