Heat Pump Payback in Cheyenne, WY
Will a heat pump pay off in Cheyenne, WY?
In Cheyenne, a heat pump would cost more to run each year than what you have now. Against a like-for-like gas furnace and AC swap, going electric costs $5,500 more up front here. Unfortunately the electric bill outweighs the gas bill it replaces by about $123 a year here, so the extra spend stays unrecovered. There's no spin on that: Cheyenne's numbers say wait.
Checking a different city
This runs the same numbers for 3206 US cities, not just Cheyenne. Look one up here.
Why Cheyenne's climate drives this number
Cheyenne has a cold winter that leans hard on heating equipment, 6261 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base, and summers add a moderate cooling load, at 475 cooling degree days. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: -14.1°F here (coldest 2024 reading -23.1°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.36 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. A cold-climate unit is the right call in Cheyenne, below 25°F design temperature, a standard heat pump leans hard on electric-resistance backup, which erases most of the savings. These numbers come from Cheyenne Airport, the closest NOAA station, 2.1 miles out.
Cheyenne's running-cost comparison, in dollars
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 6,718 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $973 a year. Cheyenne's gas rate of $11.74 per Mcf, applied to the 65 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts the current furnace-and-AC running cost near $850 a year, against 13.66¢ per kWh for electricity. With running costs higher every year, there is no payback at any purchase price; over 15 years, against a like-for-like replacement, a household here would end $7,350 behind.
What would change Cheyenne's answer
The heat pump would become the cheaper option in Cheyenne if electricity fell to 11.8¢/kWh (from 13.66¢) or gas rose above $13.63 per Mcf (from $11.74). At today's prices a cheaper quote cannot rescue the gas comparison in Cheyenne, since there is no yearly saving to recover it from.
Electric resistance heat in Cheyenne, compared
Plenty of homes in Cheyenne heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Cheyenne's answer improves. Switching saves about $1,277 a year here, a heat pump moving heat rather than generating it needs far less electricity than resistance coils, so the extra $10,000 spent up front comes back in about 7.8 years.
How Cheyenne compares nationally
Among 3206 cities, Cheyenne's winter puts it at rank 127 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 602 for population, 1 in both cases being the extreme. That's the coldest third of the dataset, where climate does most of the work behind this figure.
Deciding what's next in Cheyenne, WY
About 65,704 people live in Cheyenne, Wyoming, 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.
Line up a few local HVAC quotes before you decide.
More on how this number was built
Every constant behind this page, the 2.36 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs, is documented in the methodology guide. Cheyenne's -14.1°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.