Will a heat pump pay off in East St. Louis, IL?
Here in East St. Louis, the honest answer is that a heat pump raises your annual running cost. $3,500 is what East St. Louis would pay extra to go electric rather than replace the furnace and AC with the same again, once the $2,000 federal credit is applied. Running costs here land $70 a year HIGHER than the furnace it replaces, so that premium is never recovered. There's no spin on that: East St. Louis's numbers say wait.
Why East St. Louis's climate drives this number
East St. Louis has a real but manageable winter — 3639 heating degree days a year against a 65°F base — and summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating, at 1688 cooling degree days. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 1.9°F here (record low -5.1°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.75 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. East St. Louis needs the cold-climate class of unit: past a 25°F design temperature a standard heat pump falls back on resistance backup often enough to eat the savings. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, ST LOUIS DOWNTOWN AIRPORT, 3.4 miles from East St. Louis.
East St. Louis's running-cost comparison, in dollars
Electricity use for heating alone comes out to about 3,351 kWh a year on the 2000-square-foot reference house; folding in cooling puts the electric bill near $913 a year. That compares with roughly 38 Mcf a year of gas at East St. Louis's 11.25 per-Mcf rate — about $843 a year — against a local electricity rate of 19.06¢/kWh. Buy it outright, not incrementally, and payback stretches to beyond the 15-year equipment life; over 15 years the net position sits $4,545 behind.
Electric resistance heat in East St. Louis, compared
Not every home in East St. Louis has gas service. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. The saving here runs about $1,260 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 6.3 years.
How East St. Louis compares nationally
East St. Louis lands at position 1715 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 2114 out of 3206 by population size (biggest is 1). That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.
What to do with this number in East St. Louis
About 17,808 people live in East St. Louis, Illinois, 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.
Ask a local HVAC contractor for a quote before committing either way.
Where East St. Louis's figure comes from
Every constant behind this page — the 2.75 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs — is documented in the methodology guide. East St. Louis's 1.9°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.