Is a heat pump worth it in Erie?

In Erie, a heat pump would cost more to run each year than what you have now. $3,500 is what Erie 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. Unfortunately the electric bill outweighs the gas bill it replaces by about $25 a year here, so the extra spend stays unrecovered. That's Erie's own climate and rates talking, not a hedge or a caveat.

How cold Erie actually gets

4871 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Erie has a real but manageable winter; the cooling side runs to 893 cooling degree days, where summers add a moderate cooling load. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 10°F here (record low 6.1°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.94 for the cold-climate class of unit this climate calls for. A cold-climate unit is the right call in Erie — below 25°F design temperature, a standard heat pump leans hard on electric-resistance backup, which erases most of the savings. Source: NOAA station ERIE INTL/T. RIDGE FIELD AIRP, 6.1 miles from Erie — 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 4,195 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $1,029 a year. That compares with roughly 51 Mcf a year of gas at Erie's 15.04 per-Mcf rate — about $1,003 a year — against a local electricity rate of 20.75¢/kWh. 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 $3,881 behind.

The other scenario: no gas furnace to begin with

Plenty of homes in Erie heat with electricity alone, no gas line involved. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Erie's answer improves. The saving here runs about $1,771 a year, which recovers the extra $8,000 spent going electric in roughly 4.5 years.

How Erie compares nationally

Among 3206 cities, Erie's winter puts it at rank 878 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 375 for population — 1 in both cases being the extreme. That's the coldest third of the dataset, where climate does most of the work behind this figure.

Next step for 92,940 people in Erie

Erie, Pennsylvania is home to about 92,940 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 Erie, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.

Line up a few local HVAC quotes before you decide.

Where Erie's figure comes from

The methodology guide walks through exactly how Erie's 2.94 seasonal COP and the rest of this page's numbers get built. At a 10°F design temperature, Erie sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.