Heat Pump Payback in Brunswick, GA
Should Brunswick switch to a heat pump?
Brunswick sits right on the fence, how long you'll own the house decides this one. Swap a failed furnace and AC for a heat pump rather than buying like-for-like, and the extra cost here runs $3,000. Brunswick's residents would see roughly $301 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 10 years. It's a genuine toss-up here, Brunswick's numbers don't point clearly either way.
Not the city you meant?
This runs the same numbers for 3206 US cities, not just Brunswick. Look one up here.
How cold Brunswick actually gets
1125 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Brunswick barely has a winter to speak of; the cooling side runs to 2979 cooling degree days, where summers are severe enough that cooling can dominate the annual bill. The 99% winter design temperature here, the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average, is 32°F, and the coldest daily reading in the 2024 station record was 26.6°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 3.15 for the recommended standard unit. Brunswick'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, Malcolm Mc Kinnon Airport, 4.6 miles from Brunswick.
The yearly running costs in Brunswick
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 904 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $513 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 12 Mcf a year at $20.42 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $815 a year including the old AC (electricity here runs 14.90¢/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 $1,520 ahead.
How sensitive Brunswick's result is to prices
In Brunswick the cooling savings outweigh the extra electricity for heating, so no plausible change in the electricity rate would make the old furnace and AC cheaper to run. A useful quote test for Brunswick: the heat pump is worth it within a decade if it costs less than $3,010 more than replacing the furnace and AC, and within 7 years if the gap is under $2,107.
Electric resistance heat in Brunswick, compared
Gas isn't universal in Brunswick, many houses run on electric heat already. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Brunswick's answer improves. The gap still doesn't close: the $7,500 incremental cost outlasts the 15-year equipment life here even against resistance heat.
Brunswick against the rest of the country
Among 3206 cities, Brunswick's winter puts it at rank 2843 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 2346 for population, 1 in both cases being the extreme. That's the mildest third of cities covered, where utility rates carry more of the answer than climate does.
Next step if you live in Brunswick
Brunswick, Georgia is home to about 15,520 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 Brunswick, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Ask a local HVAC contractor for a quote before committing either way.
Reading further on this page's numbers
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Brunswick's 3.15 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Homes in Brunswick without gas service should read the electric-resistance comparison instead, the numbers there differ from the gas case above.