Will a heat pump pay off in Eagan, MN?
In Eagan, a heat pump would cost more to run each year than what you have now. 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). The heat pump would cost about $198 more a year to run than the furnace it replaces — a premium with no payback. There's no spin on that: Eagan's numbers say wait.
Why Eagan's climate drives this number
6022 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Eagan has a cold winter that leans hard on heating equipment; the cooling side runs to 833 cooling degree days, where summers add a moderate cooling load. The 99% winter design temperature here — the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average — is -7.1°F, against a record low of -8°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 2.53 for the recommended cold-climate unit. Below the 25°F line where a standard machine starts leaning on resistance backup, Eagan sits firmly in cold-climate territory, so that's the class of unit priced here. These numbers come from MINNEAPOLIS-ST PAUL INTERNATI, the closest NOAA station, 5.7 miles out.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 6,027 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $1,056 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 63 Mcf a year at 10.98 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $858 a year (electricity here runs 15.67¢/kWh). Buy it outright, not incrementally, and payback stretches to beyond the 15-year equipment life; over 15 years the net position sits $6,469 behind.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Plenty of homes in Eagan heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Eagan's answer improves. About $1,503 a year comes back this way, enough that the 5.3-year payback clears the $8,000 premium comfortably within the equipment's life.
Eagan against the rest of the country
Eagan lands at position 219 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 581 out of 3206 by population size (biggest is 1). That's the coldest third of the dataset, where climate does most of the work behind this figure.
What to do with this number in Eagan
About 67,240 people live in Eagan, Minnesota, 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.
Where Eagan's figure comes from
Every constant behind this page — the 2.53 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs — is documented in the methodology guide. Eagan's -7.1°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.