Heat Pump Payback in Burbank, CA
Burbank, CA: the heat pump payback math
The payback math works in Burbank on paper, past the equipment's own working life. Swap a failed furnace and AC for a heat pump rather than buying like-for-like, and the extra cost here runs $3,000. Burbank's residents would see roughly $146 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 20.5 years. Burbank's own numbers say this pencils out only in theory, not in practice.
Checking a different city
Burbank is one of 3206 cities covered here, each run through the same model. Search another below.
The climate behind Burbank's payback figure
Burbank has a mild winter by US standards, 1687 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base, and summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating, at 1242 cooling degree days. 37.9°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here, the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day, with a low of 36°F in the 2024 station record. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 3.33 on the standard unit fit for this climate. A standard ducted system is enough here; Burbank's design temperature doesn't justify the cold-climate premium. Source: NOAA station Burbank-Glendale-Pasa Airport, 2 miles from Burbank, the closest one on record.
The yearly running costs in Burbank
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 1,283 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $769 a year. Burbank's gas rate of $22.01 per Mcf, applied to the 18 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts the current furnace-and-AC running cost near $915 a year, against 32.83¢ 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 $805 behind.
The break-even point in Burbank
This result holds unless electricity climbs above 52.8¢/kWh (it is 32.83¢ now) or gas drops below $13.68 per Mcf (now $22.01); past either point, gas becomes the cheaper fuel in Burbank. When quotes arrive, compare the heat pump price with a like-for-like furnace and AC replacement: at $146 a year saved, a difference under $1,022 pays back within 7 years here, and under $1,460 within 10.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Gas isn't universal in Burbank, 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 $1,162 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 6.5 years.
Where Burbank ranks in this dataset
Among 3206 cities, Burbank's winter puts it at rank 2587 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 320 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 Burbank, CA
About 103,533 people live in Burbank, California, 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.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
Where Burbank's figure comes from
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Burbank's 3.33 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Burbank's case is the "pays back too slowly to count" kind covered in the guide to cities where the math never really works.