Should Brenham switch to a heat pump?
In Brenham, a heat pump pays for itself within a reasonable window. Swap a failed furnace and AC for a heat pump rather than buying like-for-like, and the extra cost here runs $1,000 after a $2,000 federal tax credit. Lower bills claw that back: about $306 saved annually, for a payback of roughly 3.3 years. That's a real payback, built from Brenham's own climate and utility rates, not a national guess.
The climate behind Brenham's payback figure
1108 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Brenham barely has a winter to speak of; the cooling side runs to 3260 cooling degree days, where summers are severe enough that cooling can dominate the annual bill. 26.4°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here — the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day — with a record low of 14.9°F on file. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 2.99 on the standard unit fit for this climate. A standard ducted system is enough here; Brenham's design temperature doesn't justify the cold-climate premium. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, BRENHAM MUNICIPAL AIRPORT, 4.4 miles from Brenham.
The month-to-month numbers for Brenham
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 938 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $600 a year. Brenham's gas rate of 19.42 per Mcf, applied to the 12 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts its running cost near $906 a year, against 16.15¢ per kWh for electricity. Looked at as a full purchase rather than an incremental one, payback here is roughly 35.9 years, leaving the 15-year total $3,590 ahead.
The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with
Not every home in Brenham has gas service. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Brenham's answer improves. Switching saves about $535 a year here — a heat pump moving heat rather than generating it needs far less electricity than resistance coils — so the extra $5,500 spent up front comes back in about 10.3 years.
How Brenham compares nationally
Brenham lands at position 2852 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 1950 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 Brenham
About 19,728 people live in Brenham, Texas, 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, it's worth getting quotes before your current system fails, not after.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
Reading further on this page's numbers
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Brenham's 2.99 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. See what Brenham's figure looks like without the $2,000 federal credit in the guide to how that credit moves the payback window.