Chubbuck, ID: the heat pump payback math

In Chubbuck, 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 $3,500 more up front here (already netting out a $2,000 tax credit). Unfortunately the electric bill outweighs the gas bill it replaces by about $187 a year here, so the extra spend stays unrecovered. That's Chubbuck's own climate and rates talking, not a hedge or a caveat.

How cold Chubbuck actually gets

Chubbuck has a cold winter that leans hard on heating equipment — 6470 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base — and summers add a moderate cooling load, at 638 cooling degree days. 3°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here — the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day — with a record low of -14.1°F on file. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 2.77 on the cold-climate unit fit for this climate. Chubbuck 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. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, POCATELLO REGIONAL AIRPORT, 5.7 miles from Chubbuck.

Chubbuck's running-cost comparison, in dollars

Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 5,914 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $809 a year. Chubbuck's gas rate of 7.69 per Mcf, applied to the 67 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts its running cost near $622 a year, against 12.52¢ per kWh for electricity. Buy it outright, not incrementally, and payback stretches to beyond the 15-year equipment life; over 15 years the net position sits $6,303 behind.

Electric resistance heat in Chubbuck, compared

Not every home in Chubbuck has gas service. Against electric-resistance heat — baseboard or an electric furnace, both 100% efficient but still just resistance — the case for switching gets stronger here. Switching saves about $1,346 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 5.9 years.

Chubbuck against the rest of the country

Among 3206 cities, Chubbuck's winter puts it at rank 94 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 2235 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.

Next step for 16,577 people in Chubbuck

Chubbuck, Idaho is home to about 16,577 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 Chubbuck, 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 Chubbuck's figure comes from

Nothing above is a black box: the methodology guide shows the full arithmetic behind Chubbuck's 2.77 seasonal COP and payback figure. Chubbuck's 3°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.