Heat Pump Payback in Bryan, TX
Is a heat pump worth it in Bryan?
In Bryan, the extra upfront cost technically comes back, just not before the equipment wears out. Swap a failed furnace and AC for a heat pump rather than buying like-for-like, and the extra cost here runs $5,500. That premium is recovered through $340 of lower running costs every year, landing the payback clock at roughly 16.2 years. That's a technicality, not a recommendation, for anyone actually living in Bryan.
Not the city you meant?
This runs the same numbers for 3206 US cities, not just Bryan. Look one up here.
Bryan's weather, in the numbers that matter
Degree days tell the story here: Bryan racks up 1105 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers are severe enough that cooling can dominate the annual bill, with 3575 cooling degree days on the cooling side. The 99% winter design temperature here, the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average, is 23°F, and the coldest daily reading in the 2024 station record was 16°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 3.25 for the recommended cold-climate unit. Mild on average, but the occasional cold snap is what sizes the equipment: at a 23°F design temperature Bryan falls just under the 25°F line where a standard heat pump starts leaning on resistance backup, so the model prices a cold-climate unit to be safe. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, Easterwood Field Airport, 5.4 miles from Bryan.
The yearly running costs in Bryan
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 861 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $631 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 12 Mcf a year at $19.42 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $972 a year including the old AC (electricity here runs 16.15¢/kWh). If the current system still worked and you replaced it anyway, the full cost would take longer than the 15-year equipment life to earn back; against buying a new furnace and AC regardless, the 15-year total lands $393 behind.
How sensitive Bryan's result is to prices
In Bryan 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 Bryan: the heat pump is worth it within a decade if it costs less than $3,400 more than replacing the furnace and AC, and within 7 years if the gap is under $2,380.
Electric resistance heat in Bryan, compared
Gas isn't universal in Bryan, 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 gap still doesn't close: the $10,000 incremental cost outlasts the 15-year equipment life here even against resistance heat.
Bryan against the rest of the country
Among 3206 cities, Bryan's winter puts it at rank 2854 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 383 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.
Deciding what's next in Bryan, TX
Bryan, Texas is home to about 91,541 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 Bryan, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Ask a local HVAC contractor for a quote before committing either way.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Bryan's 3.25 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Bryan's 23°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.