Heat pump vs. gas furnace in Cedar Park, TX
This one's marginal in Cedar Park: it only clears if you stay long enough. Swap a failed furnace and AC for a heat pump rather than buying like-for-like, and the extra cost here runs $3,500 after a $2,000 federal tax credit. Cedar Park's residents would see roughly $275 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 12.7 years. It's a genuine toss-up here — Cedar Park's numbers don't point clearly either way.
Cedar Park's weather, in the numbers that matter
Cedar Park barely has a winter to speak of — 1132 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base — and summers are severe enough that cooling can dominate the annual bill, at 2687 cooling degree days. The 99% winter design temperature here — the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average — is 19°F, against a record low of 14.5°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 3.16 for the recommended cold-climate unit. Cedar Park 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 LAGO VISTA RUSTY ALLEN AIRPOR, 8.9 miles from Cedar Park — the closest one on record.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 907 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $516 a year. That compares with roughly 12 Mcf a year of gas at Cedar Park's 19.42 per-Mcf rate — about $791 a year — against a local electricity rate of 16.15¢/kWh. Looked at as a full purchase rather than an incremental one, payback here is roughly 49.1 years, leaving the 15-year total $623 ahead.
The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with
Plenty of homes in Cedar Park heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Cedar Park's answer improves. Switching saves about $509 a year here — a heat pump moving heat rather than generating it needs far less electricity than resistance coils — so the extra $8,000 spent up front comes back in about 15.7 years.
How Cedar Park compares nationally
Cedar Park lands at position 2840 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 479 out of 3206 by population size (biggest is 1). 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 Cedar Park
Cedar Park, Texas is home to about 78,380 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 Park, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Cedar Park's 3.16 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Cedar Park's 19°F design temperature is below the 25°F line, which is why a cold-climate unit is the right call here — see what that changes in the cold-climate unit guide.