Heat Pump Payback in Clearfield, UT
Is a heat pump worth it in Clearfield?
In Clearfield, the extra upfront cost technically comes back, just not before the equipment wears out. Swap a failed furnace and AC for a heat pump rather than buying like-for-like, and the extra cost here runs $5,500. Clearfield's residents would see roughly $53 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 103.8 years. That's a technicality, not a recommendation, for anyone actually living in Clearfield.
Checking a different city
Clearfield is one of 3206 cities covered here, each run through the same model. Search another below.
How cold Clearfield actually gets
Clearfield has a cold winter that leans hard on heating equipment, 5273 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base, and summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating, at 1329 cooling degree days. 12.4°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here, the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day, with a low of 9°F in the 2024 station record. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 3 on the cold-climate unit fit for this climate. Below the 25°F line where a standard machine starts leaning on resistance backup, Clearfield sits firmly in cold-climate territory, so that's the class of unit priced here. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, Hill AFB Airport, 3 miles from Clearfield.
The yearly running costs in Clearfield
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 4,451 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $733 a year. Clearfield's gas rate of $10.19 per Mcf, applied to the 55 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts the current furnace-and-AC running cost near $786 a year, against 13.12¢ per kWh for electricity. Buying outright rather than at replacement time stretches payback to longer than the 15-year equipment life. Over 15 years, compared with a like-for-like replacement, the heat pump leaves you $4,705 behind.
How sensitive Clearfield's result is to prices
Gas would only overtake the heat pump in Clearfield if electricity rose past 14.5¢/kWh from 13.12¢, or gas fell under $9.23 per Mcf from $10.19. A useful quote test for Clearfield: the heat pump is worth it within a decade if it costs less than $530 more than replacing the furnace and AC, and within 7 years if the gap is under $371.
Electric resistance heat in Clearfield, compared
Gas isn't universal in Clearfield, many houses run on electric heat already. 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 $1,245 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 8 years.
How Clearfield compares nationally
Among 3206 cities, Clearfield's winter puts it at rank 528 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 1179 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 if you live in Clearfield
Clearfield, Utah is home to about 34,778 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 Clearfield, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
Reading further on this page's numbers
Every constant behind this page, the 3 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs, is documented in the methodology guide. At a 12.4°F design temperature, Clearfield sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.