Heat Pump Payback in Eloy, AZ
Should Eloy switch to a heat pump?
In Eloy, the math is close enough that it comes down to how long you plan to stay. $3,000 is what Eloy would pay extra to go electric rather than replace the furnace and AC with the same again. That premium is recovered through $350 of lower running costs every year, landing the payback clock at roughly 8.6 years. It's a genuine toss-up here, Eloy's numbers don't point clearly either way.
Compare against another city
This runs the same numbers for 3206 US cities, not just Eloy. Look one up here.
How cold Eloy actually gets
1396 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Eloy barely has a winter to speak of; the cooling side runs to 3813 cooling degree days, where summers are severe enough that cooling can dominate the annual bill. 27°F is the figure equipment gets sized against here, the 99th-percentile cold snap, not an average day, with a low of 27°F in the 2024 station record. Worked through the model, that's a seasonal COP of 3 on the standard unit fit for this climate. Eloy's winters don't get cold enough to need the cold-climate premium, a standard unit holds up fine. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, Casa Grande Municipal Airport, 17.6 miles from Eloy.
Eloy's running-cost comparison, in dollars
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 1,178 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $689 a year. Eloy's gas rate of $18.58 per Mcf, applied to the 15 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts the current furnace-and-AC running cost near $1,039 a year, against 15.55¢ per kWh for electricity. If the current system still worked and you replaced it anyway, the full cost would take longer than the 15-year equipment life to earn back; against buying a new furnace and AC regardless, the 15-year total lands $2,247 ahead.
What would change Eloy's answer
In Eloy the cooling savings outweigh the extra electricity for heating, so no plausible change in the electricity rate would make the old furnace and AC cheaper to run. A useful quote test for Eloy: the heat pump is worth it within a decade if it costs less than $3,500 more than replacing the furnace and AC, and within 7 years if the gap is under $2,450.
The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with
Plenty of homes in Eloy heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Compared with baseboard or electric-furnace resistance heat, the numbers shift in the heat pump’s favor. About $629 a year comes back this way, enough that the 11.9-year payback clears the $7,500 premium comfortably within the equipment's life.
Where Eloy ranks in this dataset
Among 3206 cities, Eloy's winter puts it at rank 2730 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 1992 for population, 1 in both cases being the extreme. That's the mildest third of cities covered, where utility rates carry more of the answer than climate does.
Next step if you live in Eloy
Eloy, Arizona is home to about 19,199 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 Eloy, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
Reading further on this page's numbers
Every constant behind this page, the 3 seasonal COP, the degree-day corrections, the equipment costs, is documented in the methodology guide. Homes in Eloy without gas service should read the electric-resistance comparison instead, the numbers there differ from the gas case above.