Heat Pump Payback in Crowley, LA
Will a heat pump pay off in Crowley, LA?
In Crowley, the math is close enough that it comes down to how long you plan to stay. $3,000 is what Crowley would pay extra to go electric rather than replace the furnace and AC with the same again. That premium is recovered through $276 of lower running costs every year, landing the payback clock at roughly 10.9 years. It's a genuine toss-up here, Crowley's numbers don't point clearly either way.
Compare against another city
Crowley is one of 3206 cities covered here, each run through the same model. Search another below.
How cold Crowley actually gets
Crowley barely has a winter to speak of, 1014 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base, and summers are severe enough that cooling can dominate the annual bill, at 3442 cooling degree days. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 28.9°F here (coldest 2024 reading 18°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 3.06 for the standard class of unit this climate calls for. Crowley's winters don't get cold enough to need the cold-climate premium, a standard unit holds up fine. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, Lafayette Regional Airport, 23.1 miles from Crowley.
The yearly running costs in Crowley
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 839 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $510 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 11 Mcf a year at $17.38 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $787 a year including the old AC (electricity here runs 13.52¢/kWh). 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 $1,146 ahead.
What would change Crowley's answer
In Crowley the cooling savings outweigh the extra electricity for heating, so no plausible change in the electricity rate would make the old furnace and AC cheaper to run. A useful quote test for Crowley: the heat pump is worth it within a decade if it costs less than $2,760 more than replacing the furnace and AC, and within 7 years if the gap is under $1,932.
Electric resistance heat in Crowley, compared
Plenty of homes in Crowley heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Crowley's answer improves. The gap still doesn't close: the $7,500 incremental cost outlasts the 15-year equipment life here even against resistance heat.
Where Crowley ranks in this dataset
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Crowley comes in at 2902 for heating severity, 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset, and 2942 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.
Next step if you live in Crowley
Crowley, Louisiana is home to about 11,216 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 Crowley, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
Where Crowley's figure comes from
Nothing above is a black box: the methodology guide shows the full arithmetic behind Crowley's 3.06 seasonal COP and payback figure. Homes in Crowley without gas service should read the electric-resistance comparison instead, the numbers there differ from the gas case above.