Heat Pump Payback in Blackfoot, ID
Is a heat pump worth it in Blackfoot?
In Blackfoot, a heat pump would cost more to run each year than what you have now. $5,500 is what Blackfoot would pay extra to go electric rather than replace the furnace and AC with the same again. The heat pump would cost about $187 more a year to run than the furnace it replaces, a premium with no payback. That's Blackfoot's own climate and rates talking, not a hedge or a caveat.
Compare against another city
Blackfoot is one of 3206 cities covered here, each run through the same model. Search another below.
Blackfoot's weather, in the numbers that matter
Blackfoot has a cold winter that leans hard on heating equipment, 6470 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base, and summers add a moderate cooling load, at 638 cooling degree days. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 3°F here (coldest 2024 reading -14.1°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.77 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. Blackfoot 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 Pocatello Regional Airport, the closest NOAA station, 22.1 miles out.
The yearly running costs in Blackfoot
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 5,914 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $809 a year. Blackfoot's gas rate of $7.69 per Mcf, applied to the 67 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts the current furnace-and-AC running cost near $622 a year, against 12.52¢ per kWh for electricity. Because the heat pump costs more to run here, the gap only widens with time: $8,303 behind after 15 years compared with replacing the furnace and AC like-for-like.
How sensitive Blackfoot's result is to prices
For the verdict in Blackfoot to flip, electricity would need to drop to about 9.2¢/kWh from 12.52¢, or gas climb past $10.46 per Mcf from $7.69. A utility offering a lower heat pump rate can change this. Until then, no quote price makes a heat pump pay back against gas in Blackfoot; the case for one here rests on comfort, cooling, or replacing electric heat instead.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Plenty of homes in Blackfoot heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. Switching saves about $1,346 a year here, a heat pump moving heat rather than generating it needs far less electricity than resistance coils, so the extra $10,000 spent up front comes back in about 7.4 years.
Blackfoot against the rest of the country
Blackfoot lands at position 95 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 2623 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.
Next step if you live in Blackfoot
Blackfoot, Idaho is home to about 13,224 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 Blackfoot, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
More on how this number was built
Nothing above is a black box: the methodology guide shows the full arithmetic behind Blackfoot's 2.77 seasonal COP and payback figure. At a 3°F design temperature, Blackfoot sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.