Heat Pump Payback in Conway, SC
Is a heat pump worth it in Conway?
The payback math works in Conway on paper, past the equipment's own working life. Against a like-for-like gas furnace and AC swap, going electric costs $5,500 more up front here. That premium is recovered through $228 of lower running costs every year, landing the payback clock at roughly 24.1 years. Conway's own numbers say this pencils out only in theory, not in practice.
Compare against another city
Conway is one of 3206 cities covered here, each run through the same model. Search another below.
The climate behind Conway's payback figure
Conway has a mild winter by US standards, 2180 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base, and summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating, at 1659 cooling degree days. The 99% winter design temperature here, the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average, is 23°F, and the coldest daily reading in the 2024 station record was 17.6°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 3.25 for the recommended cold-climate unit. The average winter here is gentle, but sizing follows the cold snaps, and 23°F is below the 25°F point where a standard unit leans on resistance backup, so a cold-climate unit is what gets priced for Conway. Source: NOAA station Conway Horry County Airport, 4.2 miles from Conway, the closest one on record.
The yearly running costs in Conway
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 1,698 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $503 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 23 Mcf a year at $16.91 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $731 a year including the old AC (electricity here runs 16.16¢/kWh). Priced as a standalone purchase, with a working furnace ripped out early, payback would take longer than the 15-year equipment life. Measured against the like-for-like replacement instead, a household here ends 15 years $2,075 behind.
The break-even point in Conway
This result holds unless electricity climbs above 39.9¢/kWh (it is 16.16¢ now) or gas drops below $6.85 per Mcf (now $16.91); past either point, gas becomes the cheaper fuel in Conway. When quotes arrive, compare the heat pump price with a like-for-like furnace and AC replacement: at $228 a year saved, a difference under $1,596 pays back within 7 years here, and under $2,280 within 10.
Electric resistance heat in Conway, compared
Not every home in Conway has gas service. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. Switching saves about $736 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 13.6 years.
How Conway compares nationally
Among 3206 cities, Conway's winter puts it at rank 2341 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 1364 for population, 1 in both cases being the extreme. 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 Conway
About 29,656 people live in Conway, South Carolina, 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.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
More on how this number was built
Nothing above is a black box: the methodology guide shows the full arithmetic behind Conway's 3.25 seasonal COP and payback figure. Conway's 23°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.