Should Elgin switch to a heat pump?

Here in Elgin, the honest answer is that a heat pump raises your annual running cost. 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). Unfortunately the electric bill outweighs the gas bill it replaces by about $295 a year here, so the extra spend stays unrecovered. That's Elgin's own climate and rates talking, not a hedge or a caveat.

How cold Elgin actually gets

Degree days tell the story here: Elgin racks up 5064 heating degree days each year (base 65°F), and summers add a moderate cooling load, with 915 cooling degree days on the cooling side. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: -7.1°F here (record low -14.1°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.53 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. Below the 25°F line where a standard machine starts leaning on resistance backup, Elgin sits firmly in cold-climate territory, so that's the class of unit priced here. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, DUPAGE AIRPORT, 9.6 miles from Elgin.

The month-to-month numbers for Elgin

Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 5,068 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $1,115 a year. Elgin's gas rate of 11.25 per Mcf, applied to the 53 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts its running cost near $819 a year, against 19.06¢ per kWh for electricity. Looked at as a full purchase rather than an incremental one, payback here is longer than the 15-year equipment life, leaving the 15-year total $7,930 behind.

The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with

Gas isn't universal in Elgin — many houses run on electric heat already. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. The saving here runs about $1,555 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 5.1 years.

How Elgin compares nationally

Elgin lands at position 623 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 270 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.

Next step for 114,701 people in Elgin

Elgin, Illinois is home to about 114,701 people, and the figures above are the same ones a local HVAC contractor uses to size and quote a system — this site doesn't guess where a real quote would land, it just tells you whether it's worth asking for one. In Elgin, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.

Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.

Where Elgin'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. Elgin's -7.1°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.