Heat pump vs. gas furnace in Ellisville, MO
The payback math works in Ellisville on paper, past the equipment's own working life. 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). Ellisville's residents would see roughly $219 a year back in running costs, putting the payback around 16 years. Ellisville's own numbers say this pencils out only in theory, not in practice.
The climate behind Ellisville's payback figure
3990 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Ellisville has a real but manageable winter; the cooling side runs to 1370 cooling degree days, where summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating. 0°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here — the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day — with a record low of -8°F on file. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 2.7 on the cold-climate unit fit for this climate. Ellisville 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. Source: NOAA station SPIRIT OF ST LOUIS AIRPORT, 5.9 miles from Ellisville — the closest one on record.
Ellisville's running-cost comparison, in dollars
A 2000-square-foot house here would pull roughly 3,742 heating kilowatt-hours annually on top of cooling, totalling about $630 a year on electricity. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 42 Mcf a year at 14.94 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $849 a year (electricity here runs 12.83¢/kWh). Priced as a standalone purchase rather than against a like-for-like replacement, equipment payback runs about 61.7 years, for a 15-year net position $220 behind.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Plenty of homes in Ellisville heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Against electric-resistance heat — baseboard or an electric furnace, both 100% efficient but still just resistance — the case for switching gets stronger here. About $894 a year comes back this way, enough that the 8.9-year payback clears the $8,000 premium comfortably within the equipment's life.
Ellisville against the rest of the country
Ellisville lands at position 1522 out of 3206 cities on heating severity (coldest is 1), and 3115 out of 3206 by population size (biggest is 1). That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.
Next step for 10,359 people in Ellisville
About 10,359 people live in Ellisville, Missouri, 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.
More on how this number was built
The methodology guide walks through exactly how Ellisville's 2.7 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. Ellisville's 0°F design temperature falls on the cold side of the 25°F cutoff the cold-climate unit guide walks through.