Heat Pump Payback in Brentwood, CA
Is a heat pump worth it in Brentwood?
Brentwood technically pencils out, but only past the point the equipment would need replacing anyway. $3,000 is what Brentwood would pay extra to go electric rather than replace the furnace and AC with the same again. Brentwood's residents would see roughly $123 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 24.5 years. That's a technicality, not a recommendation, for anyone actually living in Brentwood.
Not the city you meant?
Landed on Brentwood by mistake, or want to compare it against somewhere else? Search the other 3206 cities below.
Brentwood's weather, in the numbers that matter
1907 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Brentwood has a mild winter by US standards; the cooling side runs to 1014 cooling degree days, where summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating. The 99% winter design temperature here, the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average, is 41.4°F, and the coldest daily reading in the 2024 station record was 39.7°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 3.43 for the recommended standard unit. Brentwood's winters don't get cold enough to need the cold-climate premium, a standard unit holds up fine. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, Pittsburg (Suisun Bay), 11.7 miles from Brentwood.
The yearly running costs in Brentwood
A 2000-square-foot house here would pull roughly 1,408 heating kilowatt-hours annually on top of cooling, totalling about $746 a year on electricity. Brentwood's gas rate of $22.01 per Mcf, applied to the 20 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts the current furnace-and-AC running cost near $869 a year, against 32.83¢ per kWh for electricity. Priced as a standalone purchase, with a working furnace ripped out early, payback would take longer than the 15-year equipment life. Measured against the like-for-like replacement instead, a household here ends 15 years $1,162 behind.
What would change Brentwood's answer
Gas would only overtake the heat pump in Brentwood if electricity rose past 45.6¢/kWh from 32.83¢, or gas fell under $15.84 per Mcf from $22.01. A useful quote test for Brentwood: the heat pump is worth it within a decade if it costs less than $1,230 more than replacing the furnace and AC, and within 7 years if the gap is under $861.
The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with
Gas isn't universal in Brentwood, many houses run on electric heat already. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. Switching saves about $1,271 a year here, a heat pump moving heat rather than generating it needs far less electricity than resistance coils, so the extra $7,500 spent up front comes back in about 5.9 years.
How Brentwood compares nationally
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Brentwood comes in at 2477 for heating severity, 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset, and 593 by population, where 1 is largest. That's the mildest third of cities covered, where utility rates carry more of the answer than climate does.
Deciding what's next in Brentwood, CA
Brentwood, California is home to about 66,286 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 Brentwood, 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
Every constant behind this page, the 3.43 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs, is documented in the methodology guide. Brentwood technically clears a payback on paper, just past the equipment's own working life, the no-payback guide explains why that distinction matters.