Is a heat pump worth it in Carencro?

A heat pump earns back its extra cost in Carencro within a sensible timeframe. Against a like-for-like gas furnace and AC swap, going electric costs $1,000 more up front here (already netting out a $2,000 tax credit). Carencro's residents would see roughly $276 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 3.6 years. The window here is reasonable, and it's specific to what Carencro actually pays for power and gas.

How cold Carencro actually gets

1014 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Carencro barely has a winter to speak of; the cooling side runs to 3442 cooling degree days, where summers are severe enough that cooling can dominate the annual bill. 28.9°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here — the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day — with a record low of 18°F on file. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 3.06 on the standard unit fit for this climate. Carencro'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, LAFAYETTE REGIONAL AIRPORT, 8 miles from Carencro.

The month-to-month numbers for Carencro

Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 839 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $510 a year. That compares with roughly 11 Mcf a year of gas at Carencro's 17.38 per-Mcf rate — about $787 a year — against a local electricity rate of 13.52¢/kWh. Looked at as a full purchase rather than an incremental one, payback here is roughly 39.8 years, leaving the 15-year total $3,146 ahead.

The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with

Gas isn't universal in Carencro — 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. Switching saves about $440 a year here — a heat pump moving heat rather than generating it needs far less electricity than resistance coils — so the extra $5,500 spent up front comes back in about 12.5 years.

Carencro against the rest of the country

Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Carencro comes in at 2901 for heating severity — 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset — and 2669 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.

What to do with this number in Carencro

Carencro, Louisiana is home to about 12,883 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. Given the math above, Carencro is a place worth lining up quotes ahead of a breakdown, not waiting for one.

Line up a few local HVAC quotes before you decide.

More on how this number was built

Every constant behind this page — the 3.06 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs — is documented in the methodology guide. The $2,000 federal credit baked into Carencro's number is explained, with the before-and-after math, in the tax credit guide.