Heat Pump Payback in Edmond, OK
Should Edmond switch to a heat pump?
The payback math works in Edmond on paper, past the equipment's own working life. $5,500 is what Edmond would pay extra to go electric rather than replace the furnace and AC with the same again. Lower bills claw that back: about $225 saved annually, for a payback of roughly 24.4 years. Edmond's own numbers say this pencils out only in theory, not in practice.
Compare against another city
Edmond is one of 3206 cities covered here, each run through the same model. Search another below.
The climate behind Edmond's payback figure
2686 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Edmond has a mild winter by US standards; the cooling side runs to 2489 cooling degree days, where summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating. The 99% winter design temperature here, the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average, is 7°F, and the coldest daily reading in the 2024 station record was -2.9°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 2.87 for the recommended cold-climate unit. The average winter here is gentle, but sizing follows the cold snaps, and 7°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 Edmond. Source: NOAA station Guthrie Municipal Airport, 12.3 miles from Edmond, the closest one on record.
What it actually costs to run, year to year
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 2,370 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $588 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 28 Mcf a year at $13.99 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $814 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 $2,118 behind.
The break-even point in Edmond
This result holds unless electricity climbs above 30.9¢/kWh (it is 13.10¢ now) or gas drops below $5.93 per Mcf (now $13.99); past either point, gas becomes the cheaper fuel in Edmond. When quotes arrive, compare the heat pump price with a like-for-like furnace and AC replacement: at $225 a year saved, a difference under $1,575 pays back within 7 years here, and under $2,250 within 10.
Electric resistance heat in Edmond, compared
Plenty of homes in Edmond heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Edmond's answer improves. About $725 a year comes back this way, enough that the 13.8-year payback clears the $10,000 premium comfortably within the equipment's life.
Edmond against the rest of the country
Ranked against the other 3206 cities covered, Edmond comes in at 2042 for heating severity, 1 would be the coldest place in the dataset, and 347 by population, where 1 is largest. That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.
What to do with this number in Edmond
About 99,040 people live in Edmond, 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.
Reading further on this page's numbers
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Edmond's 2.87 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Edmond's 7°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.