Should Depew switch to a heat pump?

Here in Depew, the honest answer is that a heat pump raises your annual running cost. 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 $296 a year HIGHER than the furnace it replaces, so that premium is never recovered. That's Depew's own climate and rates talking, not a hedge or a caveat.

How cold Depew actually gets

5278 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Depew has a cold winter that leans hard on heating equipment; the cooling side runs to 831 cooling degree days, where summers add a moderate cooling load. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 6.1°F here (record low 3°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.85 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, Depew sits firmly in cold-climate territory, so that's the class of unit priced here. Source: NOAA station BUFFALO NIAGARA INTERNATIONAL, 2.5 miles from Depew — the closest one on record.

What it actually costs to run, year to year

Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 4,689 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $1,577 a year. That compares with roughly 55 Mcf a year of gas at Depew's 17.58 per-Mcf rate — about $1,281 a year — against a local electricity rate of 29.22¢/kWh. Buy it outright, not incrementally, and payback stretches to beyond the 15-year equipment life; over 15 years the net position sits $7,943 behind.

Electric resistance heat in Depew, compared

Plenty of homes in Depew heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Depew's answer improves. The saving here runs about $2,643 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 3 years.

Depew against the rest of the country

Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Depew comes in at 519 for heating severity — 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset — and 2402 by population, where 1 is largest. That's the coldest third of the dataset, where climate does most of the work behind this figure.

Next step for 14,910 people in Depew

Depew, New York is home to about 14,910 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 Depew, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.

Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.

Where Depew's figure comes from

The methodology guide walks through exactly how Depew's 2.85 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. At a 6.1°F design temperature, Depew sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.