Heat pump vs. gas furnace in Clarksville, IN
Clarksville is a place where a heat pump genuinely costs more to operate than the alternative. 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. Unfortunately the electric bill outweighs the gas bill it replaces by about $11 a year here, so the extra spend stays unrecovered. There's no spin on that: Clarksville's numbers say wait.
The climate behind Clarksville's payback figure
Degree days tell the story here: Clarksville racks up 3632 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating, with 1460 cooling degree days on the cooling side. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 5°F here (record low 1.9°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.82 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. Below the 25°F line where a standard machine starts leaning on resistance backup, Clarksville sits firmly in cold-climate territory, so that's the class of unit priced here. Source: NOAA station BOWMAN FIELD AIRPORT, 8.6 miles from Clarksville — the closest one on record.
Clarksville's running-cost comparison, in dollars
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 3,261 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $767 a year. That compares with roughly 38 Mcf a year of gas at Clarksville's 11.49 per-Mcf rate — about $757 a year — against a local electricity rate of 17.03¢/kWh. Priced as a standalone purchase rather than against a like-for-like replacement, equipment payback runs past the 15-year equipment life, for a 15-year net position $3,658 behind.
Electric resistance heat in Clarksville, compared
Plenty of homes in Clarksville heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Against electric-resistance heat — baseboard or an electric furnace, both 100% efficient but still just resistance — the case for switching gets stronger here. The saving here runs about $1,121 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 7.1 years.
Clarksville against the rest of the country
Among 3206 cities, Clarksville's winter puts it at rank 1727 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 1778 for population — 1 in both cases being the extreme. That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.
What to do with this number in Clarksville
About 22,041 people live in Clarksville, Indiana, 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.
Reading further on this page's numbers
Every constant behind this page — the 2.82 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs — is documented in the methodology guide. Clarksville's 5°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.