Is a heat pump worth it in Cedar City?

In Cedar City, the extra upfront cost technically comes back, just not before the equipment wears out. Against a like-for-like gas furnace and AC swap, going electric costs $3,500 more up front here (already netting out a $2,000 tax credit). Lower bills claw that back: about $6 saved annually, for a payback of roughly 614.6 years. That's a technicality, not a recommendation, for anyone actually living in Cedar City.

Cedar City's weather, in the numbers that matter

5288 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Cedar City has a cold winter that leans hard on heating equipment; the cooling side runs to 1275 cooling degree days, where summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 3.9°F here (record low 0°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.79 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. Cedar City needs the cold-climate class of unit: past a 25°F design temperature a standard heat pump falls back on resistance backup often enough to eat the savings. Source: NOAA station CEDAR CITY REGIONAL ARPT, 1.7 miles from Cedar City — the closest one on record.

Cedar City's running-cost comparison, in dollars

A 2000-square-foot house here would pull roughly 4,799 heating kilowatt-hours annually on top of cooling, totalling about $772 a year on electricity. That compares with roughly 55 Mcf a year of gas at Cedar City's 10.19 per-Mcf rate — about $778 a year — against a local electricity rate of 13.12¢/kWh. Priced as a standalone purchase rather than against a like-for-like replacement, equipment payback runs about 2370.4 years, for a 15-year net position $3,415 behind.

If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas

Gas isn't universal in Cedar City — many houses run on electric heat already. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. The saving here runs about $1,201 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 6.7 years.

Where Cedar City ranks in this dataset

Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Cedar City comes in at 499 for heating severity — 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset — and 1002 by population, where 1 is largest. That's the coldest third of the dataset, where climate does most of the work behind this figure.

Next step for 40,885 people in Cedar City

Cedar City, Utah is home to about 40,885 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 Cedar City, 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

Nothing above is a black box: the methodology guide shows the full arithmetic behind Cedar City's 2.79 seasonal COP and payback figure. At a 3.9°F design temperature, Cedar City sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.