Heat Pump Payback in Derby, KS
Heat pump vs. gas furnace in Derby, KS
The payback math works in Derby on paper, past the equipment's own working life. Swap a failed furnace and AC for a heat pump rather than buying like-for-like, and the extra cost here runs $5,500. That premium is recovered through $189 of lower running costs every year, landing the payback clock at roughly 29.2 years. That's a technicality, not a recommendation, for anyone actually living in Derby.
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Landed on Derby by mistake, or want to compare it against somewhere else? Search the other 3206 cities below.
Derby's weather, in the numbers that matter
Degree days tell the story here: Derby racks up 3376 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating, with 2084 cooling degree days on the cooling side. The 99% winter design temperature here, the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average, is 1.2°F, and the coldest daily reading in the 2024 station record was -3.3°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 2.73 for the recommended cold-climate unit. A cold-climate unit is the right call in Derby, below 25°F design temperature, a standard heat pump leans hard on electric-resistance backup, which erases most of the savings. These numbers come from McConnell AFB Airport, the closest NOAA station, 4 miles out.
Derby's running-cost comparison, in dollars
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 3,131 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $739 a year. That compares with roughly 35 Mcf a year of gas at Derby's $14.81 per-Mcf rate, about $927 a year with the old AC included, against a local electricity rate of 15.05¢/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 $2,672 behind.
The break-even point in Derby
Gas would only overtake the heat pump in Derby if electricity rose past 23.6¢/kWh from 15.05¢, or gas fell under $9.45 per Mcf from $14.81. A useful quote test for Derby: the heat pump is worth it within a decade if it costs less than $1,890 more than replacing the furnace and AC, and within 7 years if the gap is under $1,323.
Electric resistance heat in Derby, compared
Plenty of homes in Derby heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Against electric-resistance heat, baseboard or an electric furnace, both 100% efficient but still just resistance, the case for switching gets stronger here. About $954 a year comes back this way, enough that the 10.5-year payback clears the $10,000 premium comfortably within the equipment's life.
How Derby compares nationally
Among 3206 cities, Derby's winter puts it at rank 1810 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 1500 for population, 1 in both cases being the extreme. That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.
Next step if you live in Derby
Derby, Kansas is home to about 26,604 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 Derby, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
Reading further on this page's numbers
Every constant behind this page, the 2.73 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs, is documented in the methodology guide. At a 1.2°F design temperature, Derby sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.