Heat Pump Payback in Evanston, IL
Evanston, IL: the heat pump payback math
Here in Evanston, the honest answer is that a heat pump raises your annual running cost. Swap a failed furnace and AC for a heat pump rather than buying like-for-like, and the extra cost here runs $5,500. Running costs here land $139 a year higher than the furnace it replaces, so that premium is never recovered. There's no spin on that: Evanston's numbers say wait.
Compare against another city
This runs the same numbers for 3206 US cities, not just Evanston. Look one up here.
The climate behind Evanston's payback figure
4381 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Evanston has a real but manageable winter; the cooling side runs to 1211 cooling degree days, where summers are hot enough that cooling matters as much as heating. Sizing runs off the design temperature, not the average day: 4.1°F here (coldest 2024 reading -8.3°F), which works out to a seasonal COP of 2.8 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, Evanston sits firmly in cold-climate territory, so that's the class of unit priced here. Climate figures trace to the nearest NOAA station, Chicago, 10.5 miles from Evanston.
Evanston's running-cost comparison, in dollars
Modelled on a typical 2000-square-foot house, the heat pump draws about 3,962 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $952 a year. Evanston's gas rate of $11.25 per Mcf, applied to the 46 Mcf a year the furnace burns, puts the current furnace-and-AC running cost near $812 a year, against 19.06¢ per kWh for electricity. With running costs higher every year, there is no payback at any purchase price; over 15 years, against a like-for-like replacement, a household here would end $7,592 behind.
How sensitive Evanston's result is to prices
The heat pump would become the cheaper option in Evanston if electricity fell to 15.0¢/kWh (from 19.06¢) or gas rose above $14.31 per Mcf (from $11.25). At today's prices a cheaper quote cannot rescue the gas comparison in Evanston, since there is no yearly saving to recover it from.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Gas isn't universal in Evanston, many houses run on electric heat already. Swap the comparison to resistance heat instead of gas, and Evanston's answer improves. About $1,462 a year comes back this way, enough that the 6.8-year payback clears the $10,000 premium comfortably within the equipment's life.
Evanston against the rest of the country
Among 3206 cities, Evanston's winter puts it at rank 1234 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 500 for population, 1 in both cases being the extreme. That's the middle third for winter severity among the cities covered here.
Next step if you live in Evanston
About 76,006 people live in Evanston, Illinois, 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.
Get quotes from local HVAC contractors before deciding.
Reading further on this page's numbers
Nothing above is a black box: the methodology guide shows the full arithmetic behind Evanston's 2.8 seasonal COP and payback figure. Evanston's 4.1°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.