Casper, WY: the heat pump payback math
In Casper, a heat pump would cost more to run each year than what you have now. $3,500 is what Casper would pay extra to go electric rather than replace the furnace and AC with the same again, once the $2,000 federal credit is applied. Running costs here land $158 a year HIGHER than the furnace it replaces, so that premium is never recovered. That's Casper's own climate and rates talking, not a hedge or a caveat.
How cold Casper actually gets
Degree days tell the story here: Casper racks up 6827 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers add a moderate cooling load, with 569 cooling degree days on the cooling side. -18.9°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here — the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day — with a record low of -36.9°F on file. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 2.3 on the cold-climate unit fit for this climate. A cold-climate unit is the right call in Casper — below 25°F design temperature, a standard heat pump leans hard on electric-resistance backup, which erases most of the savings. Source: NOAA station NATRONA COUNTY INTERNATIONAL, 8.6 miles from Casper — the closest one on record.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 7,516 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $1,093 a year. Casper's gas rate of 11.74 per Mcf, applied to the 71 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts its running cost near $935 a year, against 13.66¢ per kWh for electricity. Looked at as a full purchase rather than an incremental one, payback here is longer than the 15-year equipment life, leaving the 15-year total $5,863 behind.
The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with
Plenty of homes in Casper heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. About $1,369 a year comes back this way, enough that the 5.8-year payback clears the $8,000 premium comfortably within the equipment's life.
How Casper compares nationally
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Casper comes in at 54 for heating severity — 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset — and 691 by population, where 1 is largest. That's the coldest third of the dataset, where climate does most of the work behind this figure.
What to do with this number in Casper
Casper, Wyoming is home to about 58,823 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 Casper, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Ask a local HVAC contractor for a quote before committing either way.
Where Casper's figure comes from
Every constant behind this page — the 2.3 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs — is documented in the methodology guide. Casper's -18.9°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.