Crestwood, IL: the heat pump payback math
Crestwood is a place where a heat pump genuinely costs more to operate than the alternative. 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). Running costs here land $151 a year HIGHER than the furnace it replaces, so that premium is never recovered. There's no spin on that: Crestwood's numbers say wait.
Why Crestwood's climate drives this number
4543 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Crestwood has a real but manageable winter; the cooling side runs to 1348 cooling degree days, where summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 1.9°F here (record low -9°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.75 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. Crestwood 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. Source: NOAA station CHICAGO MIDWAY INTL ARPT, 9.7 miles from Crestwood — the closest one on record.
The month-to-month numbers for Crestwood
A 2000-square-foot house here would pull roughly 4,183 heating kilowatt-hours annually on top of cooling, totalling about $1,016 a year on electricity. That compares with roughly 47 Mcf a year of gas at Crestwood's 11.25 per-Mcf rate — about $865 a year — against a local electricity rate of 19.06¢/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 $5,767 behind.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Gas isn't universal in Crestwood — many houses run on electric heat already. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. Switching saves about $1,509 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 5.3 years.
Where Crestwood ranks in this dataset
Crestwood lands at position 1173 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 3084 out of 3206 by population size (biggest is 1). That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.
Next step for 10,533 people in Crestwood
About 10,533 people live in Crestwood, Illinois, 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.
Where Crestwood's figure comes from
Nothing above is a black box: the methodology guide shows the full arithmetic behind Crestwood's 2.75 seasonal COP and payback figure. Crestwood's 1.9°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.