Is a heat pump worth it in Draper?
The payback math works in Draper 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 $3,500 after a $2,000 federal tax credit. Draper's residents would see roughly $110 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 31.9 years. Draper's own numbers say this pencils out only in theory, not in practice.
Why Draper's climate drives this number
Degree days tell the story here: Draper racks up 4667 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating, with 1804 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 19°F, against a record low of 12.2°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 3.16 for the recommended cold-climate unit. A cold-climate unit is the right call in Draper — below 25°F design temperature, a standard heat pump leans hard on electric-resistance backup, which erases most of the savings. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, SALT LAKE CITY INTERNATIONAL, 20.2 miles from Draper.
The month-to-month numbers for Draper
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 3,740 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $692 a year. Draper's gas rate of 10.19 per Mcf, applied to the 49 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts its running cost near $802 a year, against 13.12¢ per kWh for electricity. Buy it outright, not incrementally, and payback stretches to 123.2 years; over 15 years the net position sits $1,856 behind.
The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with
Not every home in Draper has gas service. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Draper's answer improves. The saving here runs about $1,165 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 6.9 years.
Where Draper ranks in this dataset
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Draper comes in at 1028 for heating severity — 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset — and 815 by population, where 1 is largest. That's the coldest third of the dataset, where climate does most of the work behind this figure.
Deciding what's next in Draper, UT
About 50,166 people live in Draper, Utah, 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.
Reading further on this page's numbers
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Draper's 3.16 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Draper's 19°F design temperature is below the 25°F line, which is why a cold-climate unit is the right call here — see what that changes in the cold-climate unit guide.