Heat Pump Payback in Duncan, OK
Heat pump vs. gas furnace in Duncan, OK
The payback math works in Duncan on paper, past the equipment's own working life. $5,500 is what Duncan would pay extra to go electric rather than replace the furnace and AC with the same again. That premium is recovered through $224 of lower running costs every year, landing the payback clock at roughly 24.6 years. Duncan's own numbers say this pencils out only in theory, not in practice.
Checking a different city
Duncan is one of 3206 cities covered here, each run through the same model. Search another below.
The climate behind Duncan's payback figure
Degree days tell the story here: Duncan racks up 2524 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating, with 2376 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 11.1°F, and the coldest daily reading in the 2024 station record was 3.9°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 2.97 for the recommended cold-climate unit. The average winter here is gentle, but sizing follows the cold snaps, and 11.1°F is below the 25°F point where a standard unit leans on resistance backup, so a cold-climate unit is what gets priced for Duncan. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, Halliburton Field Airport, 0.9 miles from Duncan.
The yearly running costs in Duncan
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 2,152 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $547 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 26 Mcf a year at $13.99 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $771 a year including the old AC (electricity here runs 13.10¢/kWh). Priced as a standalone purchase, with a working furnace ripped out early, payback would take longer than the 15-year equipment life. Measured against the like-for-like replacement instead, a household here ends 15 years $2,142 behind.
How sensitive Duncan's result is to prices
This result holds unless electricity climbs above 33.5¢/kWh (it is 13.10¢ now) or gas drops below $5.47 per Mcf (now $13.99); past either point, gas becomes the cheaper fuel in Duncan. When quotes arrive, compare the heat pump price with a like-for-like furnace and AC replacement: at $224 a year saved, a difference under $1,568 pays back within 7 years here, and under $2,240 within 10.
Electric resistance heat in Duncan, compared
Not every home in Duncan has gas service. Against electric-resistance heat, baseboard or an electric furnace, both 100% efficient but still just resistance, the case for switching gets stronger here. Switching saves about $693 a year here, a heat pump moving heat rather than generating it needs far less electricity than resistance coils, so the extra $10,000 spent up front comes back in about 14.4 years.
Where Duncan ranks in this dataset
Duncan lands at position 2164 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 1703 out of 3206 by population size (biggest is 1). That's the mildest third of cities covered, where utility rates carry more of the answer than climate does.
What to do with this number in Duncan
About 23,174 people live in Duncan, Oklahoma, 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.
Line up a few local HVAC quotes before you decide.
Where Duncan's figure comes from
Every constant behind this page, the 2.97 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs, is documented in the methodology guide. At a 11.1°F design temperature, Duncan sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.