Cumming, GA: the heat pump payback math

Cumming sits right on the fence — how long you'll own the house decides this one. 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). Lower bills claw that back: about $344 saved annually, for a payback of roughly 10.2 years. It's a genuine toss-up here — Cumming's numbers don't point clearly either way.

How cold Cumming actually gets

Cumming has a mild winter by US standards — 2821 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base — and summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating, at 1483 cooling degree days. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 12.9°F here (record low 5.5°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 3.01 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. Below the 25°F line where a standard machine starts leaning on resistance backup, Cumming sits firmly in cold-climate territory, so that's the class of unit priced here. Source: NOAA station CHEROKEE COUNTY AIRPORT, 17.9 miles from Cumming — the closest one on record.

Cumming's running-cost comparison, in dollars

Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 2,373 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $542 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 29 Mcf a year at 20.42 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $886 a year (electricity here runs 14.90¢/kWh). Priced as a standalone purchase rather than against a like-for-like replacement, equipment payback runs about 39.2 years, for a 15-year net position $1,665 ahead.

Electric resistance heat in Cumming, compared

Plenty of homes in Cumming heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. The saving here runs about $809 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 9.9 years.

How Cumming compares nationally

Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Cumming comes in at 1986 for heating severity — 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset — and 3163 by population, where 1 is largest. That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.

What to do with this number in Cumming

Cumming, Georgia is home to about 10,175 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 Cumming, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.

Line up a few local HVAC quotes before you decide.

Where Cumming's figure comes from

Nothing above is a black box: the methodology guide shows the full arithmetic behind Cumming's 3.01 seasonal COP and payback figure. At a 12.9°F design temperature, Cumming sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.