Chino Hills, CA: the heat pump payback math
In Chino Hills, a heat pump pays for itself within a reasonable window. 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). That premium is recovered through $132 of lower running costs every year, landing the payback clock at roughly 7.6 years. The window here is reasonable, and it's specific to what Chino Hills actually pays for power and gas.
Chino Hills's weather, in the numbers that matter
1768 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Chino Hills has a mild winter by US standards; the cooling side runs to 1392 cooling degree days, where summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating. 30°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here — the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day — with a record low of 28°F on file. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 3.09 on the standard unit fit for this climate. Chino Hills'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, CHINO AIRPORT, 5.6 miles from Chino Hills.
The month-to-month numbers for Chino Hills
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 1,449 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $865 a year. That compares with roughly 18 Mcf a year of gas at Chino Hills's 22.01 per-Mcf rate — about $998 a year — against a local electricity rate of 32.83¢/kWh. Priced as a standalone purchase rather than against a like-for-like replacement, equipment payback runs about 83.2 years, for a 15-year net position $984 ahead.
The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with
Not every home in Chino Hills has gas service. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Chino Hills's answer improves. Switching saves about $1,197 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 4.6 years.
Where Chino Hills ranks in this dataset
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Chino Hills comes in at 2556 for heating severity — 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset — and 488 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 Chino Hills
Chino Hills, California is home to about 77,418 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, Chino Hills 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
Nothing above is a black box: the methodology guide shows the full arithmetic behind Chino Hills's 3.09 seasonal COP and payback figure. The $2,000 federal credit baked into Chino Hills's number is explained, with the before-and-after math, in the tax credit guide.