Heat Pump Payback in Brookhaven, GA
Should Brookhaven switch to a heat pump?
Brookhaven technically pencils out, but only past the point the equipment would need replacing anyway. Against a like-for-like gas furnace and AC swap, going electric costs $5,500 more up front here. That premium is recovered through $344 of lower running costs every year, landing the payback clock at roughly 16 years. Brookhaven's own numbers say this pencils out only in theory, not in practice.
Compare against another city
Brookhaven is one of 3206 cities covered here, each run through the same model. Search another below.
The climate behind Brookhaven's payback figure
Brookhaven has a mild winter by US standards, 2569 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base, and summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating, at 1846 cooling degree days. The 99% winter design temperature here, the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average, is 12°F, and the coldest daily reading in the 2024 station record was 10.9°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 2.99 for the recommended cold-climate unit. The average winter here is gentle, but sizing follows the cold snaps, and 12°F is below the 25°F point where a standard unit leans on resistance backup, so a cold-climate unit is what gets priced for Brookhaven. Source: NOAA station Dekalb-Peachtree Airport, 2.2 miles from Brookhaven, the closest one on record.
Brookhaven's running-cost comparison, in dollars
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 2,176 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $559 a year. Brookhaven's gas rate of $20.42 per Mcf, applied to the 27 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts the current furnace-and-AC running cost near $903 a year, against 14.90¢ per kWh for electricity. 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 $338 behind.
What would change Brookhaven's answer
This result holds unless electricity climbs above 40.3¢/kWh (it is 14.90¢ now) or gas drops below $7.56 per Mcf (now $20.42); past either point, gas becomes the cheaper fuel in Brookhaven. When quotes arrive, compare the heat pump price with a like-for-like furnace and AC replacement: at $344 a year saved, a difference under $2,408 pays back within 7 years here, and under $3,440 within 10.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Gas isn't universal in Brookhaven, many houses run on electric heat already. Against electric-resistance heat, baseboard or an electric furnace, both 100% efficient but still just resistance, the case for switching gets stronger here. The saving here runs about $767 a year, which recovers the extra $10,000 spent going electric in roughly 13 years.
How Brookhaven compares nationally
Among 3206 cities, Brookhaven's winter puts it at rank 2107 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 682 for population, 1 in both cases being the extreme. That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.
What to do with this number in Brookhaven
About 59,370 people live in Brookhaven, Georgia, 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, there's no cost penalty to waiting until your current furnace or AC actually needs replacing.
Line up a few local HVAC quotes before you decide.
Where Brookhaven's figure comes from
Nothing above is a black box: the methodology guide shows the full arithmetic behind Brookhaven's 2.99 seasonal COP and payback figure. At a 12°F design temperature, Brookhaven sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.