Heat Pump Payback in Compton, CA
Is a heat pump worth it in Compton?
Compton technically pencils out, but only past the point the equipment would need replacing anyway. Against a like-for-like gas furnace and AC swap, going electric costs $3,000 more up front here. Lower bills claw that back: about $81 saved annually, for a payback of roughly 37.1 years. That's a technicality, not a recommendation, for anyone actually living in Compton.
Compare against another city
Landed on Compton by mistake, or want to compare it against somewhere else? Search the other 3206 cities below.
Compton's weather, in the numbers that matter
Compton barely has a winter to speak of, 1268 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base, and summers add a moderate cooling load, at 622 cooling degree days. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 44.1°F here (coldest 2024 reading 44.1°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 3.51 for the standard class of unit this climate calls for. Compton's winters don't get cold enough to need the cold-climate premium, a standard unit holds up fine. These numbers come from Nrthorp Fld/Hathrn Municipal AP, the closest NOAA station, 6.4 miles out.
The yearly running costs in Compton
A 2000-square-foot house here would pull roughly 915 heating kilowatt-hours annually on top of cooling, totalling about $474 a year on electricity. Compton's gas rate of $22.01 per Mcf, applied to the 13 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts the current furnace-and-AC running cost near $555 a year, against 32.83¢ 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 $1,787 behind.
What would change Compton's answer
Gas would only overtake the heat pump in Compton if electricity rose past 45.5¢/kWh from 32.83¢, or gas fell under $15.88 per Mcf from $22.01. A useful quote test for Compton: the heat pump is worth it within a decade if it costs less than $810 more than replacing the furnace and AC, and within 7 years if the gap is under $567.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Not every home in Compton has gas service. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. The saving here runs about $844 a year, which recovers the extra $7,500 spent going electric in roughly 8.9 years.
Where Compton ranks in this dataset
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Compton comes in at 2770 for heating severity, 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset, and 386 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.
Deciding what's next in Compton, CA
Compton, California is home to about 91,129 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 Compton, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Compton's 3.51 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Compton technically clears a payback on paper, just past the equipment's own working life, the no-payback guide explains why that distinction matters.