Heat Pump Payback in Evanston, WY
Evanston, WY: the heat pump payback math
In Evanston, a heat pump would cost more to run each year than what you have now. Swap a failed furnace and AC for a heat pump rather than buying like-for-like, and the extra cost here runs $5,500. The heat pump would cost about $2 more a year to run than the furnace it replaces, a premium with no payback. That's Evanston's own climate and rates talking, not a hedge or a caveat.
Checking a different city
This runs the same numbers for 3206 US cities, not just Evanston. Look one up here.
Evanston's weather, in the numbers that matter
7529 heating degree days pile up here every year, so Evanston has one of the harshest winters in the country; the cooling side runs to 400 cooling degree days, where summers add a moderate cooling load. The 99% winter design temperature here, the cold snap equipment must be sized for, not the seasonal average, is 1.9°F, and the coldest daily reading in the 2024 station record was 1.9°F. That puts the seasonal coefficient of performance at 2.75 for the recommended cold-climate unit. Evanston 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 Evan-Uinta Co Burns Fld AP, 3.6 miles from Evanston, 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 6,933 kWh a year to keep it warm, plus cooling, for a combined electric bill near $994 a year. The gas furnace it replaces burns roughly 78 Mcf a year at $11.74 per Mcf here, for a running cost near $991 a year including the old AC (electricity here runs 13.66¢/kWh). Because the heat pump costs more to run here, the gap only widens with time: $5,533 behind after 15 years compared with replacing the furnace and AC like-for-like.
How sensitive Evanston's result is to prices
For the verdict in Evanston to flip, electricity would need to drop to about 13.6¢/kWh from 13.66¢, or gas climb past $11.77 per Mcf from $11.74. A utility offering a lower heat pump rate can change this. Until then, no quote price makes a heat pump pay back against gas in Evanston; the case for one here rests on comfort, cooling, or replacing electric heat instead.
If your home heats with electric baseboard instead of gas
Gas isn't universal in Evanston, 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 $1,681 a year, which recovers the extra $10,000 spent going electric in roughly 5.9 years.
How Evanston compares nationally
Among 3206 cities, Evanston's winter puts it at rank 26 for severity, while its size puts it at rank 2863 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 if you live in Evanston
Evanston, Wyoming is home to about 11,691 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 Evanston, nothing is lost by holding off until the current equipment genuinely fails.
Line up a few local HVAC quotes before you decide.
More on how this number was built
Nothing above is a black box: the methodology guide shows the full arithmetic behind Evanston's 2.75 seasonal COP and payback figure. At a 1.9°F design temperature, Evanston sits in cold-climate territory; the guide to that class of unit explains why.